As I have looked forward to writing the past few days, it didn’t actually occur to me to write about past love interests and relationships. However, this is where my mind wandered this morning. Not so much to the people, themselves, but to this idea….that they are not currently a part of my life for one reason or another. And perhaps more specifically to the idea that my growth the past few years is a huge contributor to cutting some ties, burning bridges once and for all, and saying good-bye.
Yes, many past romantic relationships were over as soon as they were over…..meaning, I didn’t attempt friendship after the fact. However, some I did…..and some never even began…..delegated to the friend zone for eternity. And some of these, well, I maintained for far too long.
So, what’s changed with me the past few years and what have I done differently since in choosing to honor myself? What happened to those who strung me along or those who couldn’t step up to the plate? What happened to those who wanted to keep me as an option, possibly even while seeing other people? What happened to those who annoyed me far too much, insulted my intelligence, or disrespected my boundaries far too many times? Or worst yet, what happened to the person who used to indirectly criticize my appearance by saying he was a “visual” person and imply that I wasn’t up to par visually….the person who somehow managed to keep me in a constant state of uncertainty during the entirety of our ambiguous relationship?
I’m going to tell you what happened…..beginning with someone I dated for a short time in 2010. This person, I took to Ireland with me and assumed the cost…in more than one way. This person broke up with me not long after we returned home and just a couple of days after my birthday that year. This person was fine with something physical in the months following, until I ran out of his house on New Year’s Eve saying I deserved someone who loved me.
This person also unfriended me on social media when he got in a “new” relationship within a week of me walking out of his house. In 2012, when I was dating someone new, he sent me a new request…..a request I sensed coming immediately before. Seems I’m rather intuitive that way, but at any rate, I was friendly. He was thankful for the grace I extended him. A few years later, my own relationship ended and he ended up married for the second time in his life. Five years after that, in 2020, his marriage ended and another relationship of mine came to a close at the same time. So, needless to say, we reconnected. It was a bit strange…..the rekindling of feelings in me that I thought long dead. The year or two leading up to that time, he would “heart” photos of me on social media and even commented “beautiful” a time or two. So, I suppose that was part of it. I thought he might have actually gotten past any insecurity or uncertainty. But, I was wrong. While I was in Iowa around Thanksgiving or a little after, I noticed that he maybe had a thing going with his ex before me……who, oddly enough, had also just gotten out of a marriage at the same time he did. There’s more strange coincidences here with this particular ex and the person she had married that I won’t get into, but suffice it to say that I immediately stopped talking to him. In the spring of 2022, after he “hearted” a photo of me on social media, I also deleted him from my list of friends. Crazy enough, he had been in a relationship with the other ex since I found out about her and was still reacting to my personal photos. A bit odd, but he never posted about her on his personal page, so maybe he thought I didn’t know.
Whatever the case, that’s where things have been since that time. I even wrote a blog post (in early 2021) mostly about him, titled “Not Really Your Friends” or something to that effect. I was done with the charade and not going to be an option for him. I was sure his girlfriend wouldn’t care for what he was doing, if she knew, either. It’s not like he reacted to photos of all sorts of people and it was just his personality. No, that wasn’t it at all…..though, whatever else the case might be, I would no longer tolerate it and that was that.
Until a few months ago, when he sent me a friend request on social media. He sent it and then loved a photo of me and my kids posted a few years ago. He sent me a request and I ignored it. Took him a week or two, but he later canceled the request….and I felt better, having done right by myself.
In fact, I felt better knowing that I was developing into a person worthy of the love I was seeking. A conscious love…..a love unfraught with fear and confusion. An honest and deeply intimate love without harm to the self or another.
This year also marked another relationship change with a person I had been friends with since our early college days. After 30 plus years of friendship, we had some moments the past few years. In the spring of 2021, we shared a few walks in which we shared stories from our childhood and I told him about a new love interest of mine and how great and happy I was with this person. We also shared a rather deep and vulnerable phone conversation one night that lead me to having a rather impactful dream about a buddhist monk that lay on a bed with me in yin-yang formation. It wasn’t sexual, but the feeling in my belly that arose from the interaction was something else. My friend also dreamt that night…..a series of dreams with the two of us that he described as “epic.”
And then my friend did what he does best. He flaked. And I did what I often did best. I went out of my mind for a few days. Not because he flaked, but because it all just so greatly affected me emotionally and I wasn’t expecting any of it, nor did I want it.
At any rate, I was eventually able to regain my peace and carry on with my life. After a trip west in 2022, we even met for lunch and shared a kiss when parting that day. He seemed blown away by it. I was pleased……if only because we had never kissed in all of the years we had known each other and stayed in touch. After that, we met again….holding each other while sharing smiles and stories. It was all quite innocent….like two kids we were.
But the next time we met, I talked about dreams I had been having about the person I had been so happy about just a year earlier. I told him about the doppelgangers of this person I would see. And after that, we went a year without another in-person meeting. Sure, we texted occasionally, but I was forehead deep into dealing with heartbreak, hauntings, and a deeply personal journey into my own aloneness and lack of desire for anything romantic or physical with anyone. When we did meet for lunch in 2023, just before a trip to Europe, I told him I wanted no contact for awhile…..and so far, he has obliged.
Overall, I would say distance, time, and space are good. Chapters need to close. Not just for my own growth and healing, but for the kind of relationship that I now seek more than ever…..the kind of relationship one has with the self, first. I can’t have this if I am still seeking outside of myself….if I am still seeking things from those who can’t or won’t provide, or if I can’t or won’t provide similar things to others who seek them from me.
To stick with the theme of this post, I suppose I could share about an Italian man I dated for a month or so in the fall of 2022 or about the person I was involved with for almost five years to whom I finally sent a clear message about where we stand. But honestly, I’m not sure that either story is all that significant. I couldn’t even maintain a friendship with the Italian, because I found him so annoying, arrogant, and lacking in both intelligence and respect (particularly, of my boundaries.) The person I had been involved with for five years would likely be labeled a narcissist, by all standard and modern interpretations of the word. Many people who knew us didn’t know whether we were together or not much of the time, including me. He criticized my lack of fitness, strung me along, and took breaks from me in order to explore other options. He also lied about this until me being the calculated and patient person I can be finally caught him. When I had proof of what he was doing, I could finally walk away….but he then continued to use me as some sort of character trophy by telling people that we were good friends. And not only was I a character trophy, but he did it by downgrading our entire involvement for almost five years.
No matter, for a few years after I got out of that, I just didn’t want to engage, react, care, etc…..and I didn’t. I was a rock. I was stoic. Until, maybe a year and a half ago, when I remembered his words and criticism of my appearance. It suddenly struck me, how my late husband had also said things, and I decided that it was unacceptable. I would not tolerate it.
And from that day on, I’ve made it more difficult for him to brag about our friendship. We are not connected on social media and when people mention him or bring him up, I tell them the truth. One of the great things about this is that others had already begun to figure him out, as well. So, not only do I have my own credibility, but the testimonies of others who have had their own experiences and aren’t afraid to fall out of his graces.
So, that is the most of it. I’ve also lost two female friends the past few years, but those are needed changes, as well. In fact, I had started to feel like I would never be able to have a romantic relationship at all as long as one particular woman and I were still friends. She frequently liked to mettle in other people’s business, was often nosey, and wasn’t exactly nice to my more liberal friends. I even caught her kissing a guy she thought I might have been interested in, so there’s that. She didn’t even like him until she thought I did. So yeah, I let that go when the time came. I still love her and wish her well in her life, but I’m so thankful she is no longer a concern in my love life. We are very different people and although I knew this and respected our differences early on, it has to be a two-way street.
And there you have it. One of the most important ways we honor ourselves is by letting go of non-reciprocal relationships. Another way is following our own paths and doing what we feel we must do in the moment, which I may have already written about in another post. Whatever the case, I can most certainly attest to the legitimacy of these practices. Being fully ourselves while seeking out those who are in alignment with our values, vision, and purpose is crucial to healthy relationships. Look at any co-dependent relationship and it often involves one person forsaking his/her own thoughts, feelings, intuition, and life path.
But I’m not there now. I’m in a place and on a path that is fully mine. My hope, as it may be, is that you are also in a place and on a path that is fully yours. If you aren’t there yet, then my hope is that you will be……in your own time and pace.
Thanks for reading.
(This post was originally written in the fall of 2024, just two months into a new relationship. I am still following my own inner guide and remaining faithful to my own path….wherever it leads me.)
Jeanie Unbottled 