The most sobering thing at the end of a relationship is not that you’ll miss what you had because what you had was probably shit but rather that you’ll see the person you left behind give another person everything you had asked for.
And you’ll wonder to yourself, if they had just given all that to you, wouldn’t it have worked out?
I mean, that’s all you were really asking for was for them to show they cared, to put you first, to treat you well, to meet your needs, and to love you.
It’s not that you’re jealous or upset to see them with someone else, but it kind of makes you wonder why they couldn’t take the time to treat you as good as their new person because that’s all you wanted in the first place.
And they may taunt you, they may rub it in your face, they may show off their new person just to make you jealous and claim that they are so happy now and so much better off. While that would be spiteful to do, you must step back and realize, that you haven’t lost anything, that your ex-person was not for you, obviously, because they didn’t act that way toward you.
So what have you lost? Nothing at all.
So be envious of the infatuated state between your ex and their new person, but never be jealous. Jealousy occurs when you lose something you once had and still want but envy occurs when you want something you haven’t had.
Always strive to be envious when you find something you want but jealousy will destroy you. Be envious and hope that you too will find a person that can treat you good. Realize that the person you let go was not that person, and even though their new relationship may make you envious, don’t be jealous because you don’t want that person back. You didn’t lose anything worthwhile, they were not that good to you.
It can be a rather sobering moment to finally understand that it wasn’t real. That you were never important enough for them to listen to or even attempt to fulfill your needs. And part of you wonders if they took the lessons of the break up and fixed themselves for their next relationship.
We’d all like to credit that as the reason why they’re giving somebody else all the things you needed.
In that sense, maybe you helped another person find their happiness and fix their follies, but in time you may find that they’re putting on a charade. As they fall back into their old habits and begin to slowly destroy the relationship with their new person, the way they destroyed the relationship they had with you, it will all become evident.
You never want it back because you were miserable, but for a minute you can almost dream or wish that they would have been that way towards you, and that somehow, someway, maybe things would have worked out differently.
Sometimes the desire to fulfill the needs of your partner is hidden deep down inside somewhere so far below the surface that it gets lost. It’s not that they can’t do or give you what you need, it’s that they won’t. They won’t because they are either hurt or they are waiting for you to show that you’re willing to fulfill their needs as well.
It turns into a standoff, neither person willing to give without receiving. Neither person willing to take and continue with the first step or really wanting to go first at all. Each person becomes very reserved, as if what they are holding onto is too valuable, and it very well may be.
But neither person will open up and express that unconditional free flowing kind of love to their existing partner in a way that they would to somebody new.
Ironically, because of this we become like strangers to each other. Strangers that probably live together performing the most awkward ritual day in and day out. And then we become less than strangers, for even two strangers passing by each other on the streets show either indifference or kindness toward one another, something we can no longer muster for those closest to our hearts.
Throughout the struggles each person makes tiny efforts to open the vault of love, tiny efforts that almost always go unnoticed, but yet they’ll harass their partner with things like, “See I tried to be nice to you for a day and this is what happens” or simply “I’m the only one that has ever tried”.
They expect to be noticed and appreciated right away, as if the very small thing they did is worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize, when all they really have done is said was good morning to you first.
They lack both the will power and the confidence to keep going, keep opening up and fulfilling the needs of their partner without instantly getting a response from them. They give up too soon, yet no one knows why they stopped trying and giving in the first place. Everything is lost in translation.
It’s as if over time we take little injuries (or big ones) from a relationship that cause us just to hold back a little bit more of our awesome piece by piece, and before we know it, those little injuries have us so bottled up, so easy to hurt, and so refusing to give, that the relationship sits in a standstill until the countdown timer reaches zero and it explodes.
It ends, and each person will find someone new, and when they do they will go through the blissful stages of giving everything they got to that new person and being so happy, so infatuated, and so great, like they’ve never felt before….until the first small injury happens, and then another, and then the vicious cycle of relationships repeat itself.
If there were only a way to keep your heart and your mind open and to give 100% always and never hold back, relationships would be so much simpler. Not because they would be perfect and harmonious, all though that could very well be the result, yet still more than half of them will end in disaster. But they will end in disaster a lot sooner than slowly crawling toward an inevitable death.
Let it all out, sometimes the stronger thing to do is not to hold on, but to let go, time is something we cannot get back.
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