Virtually all women will always carry the scars and a deep sense of loss and grief from the betrayal. Whether a woman has stayed, left, or been left, it must be remembered that time is the salve on this journey towards forgiveness and healing, because it is also a process of grieving.
– Meryn G. Callander
It takes a lot of energy and determination to tell yourself “I’ve had enough, I deserve better” and actually believe it enough to leave a relationship that makes you question yourself. The thing is you don’t realize you’re losing yourself till after you’ve left a toxic relationship. When you’re in it, you don’t even know it’s a toxic one.
We should take as much time as possible to think and analyze everything before we actually decide to be in an intimate relationship …. or situationship! Honestly, what we all want and crave is to love and be loved back with the same energy. We are all capable of doing so but most times we make the mistake of not figuring out what we need before stating what we want.
Being a woman in our society is challenging. When it comes to relationships and being a woman in a relationship, in our society, it’s a different ball game altogether. We’ve grown up thinking we don’t make the major decisions when it comes to relationships. Who can blame us anyways? That is all we’ve seen and been thought.
“Let’s look at Daisy’s story and while we read through try to pick out things she would have done better”
Daisy is a beautiful woman judging by any standards, she prides herself in being a “good person”. She believes there’s still good in every person and although she’s been through a lot of trauma, she never holds back.
Daisy’s story
I was single and happy, just a passionate young girl, whose only focus was her studies. I and Val met at a friends place, I recently moved to a new environment; academic reasons. It wasn’t love at first sight but it was something, maybe connection at first sight. We talked for about a month about anything and everything which made me like him even more. I never longed for intimacy, I mean, I was just 20 and very much naive. I was just so captivated that one could be so close with someone and yet no sex … or maybe, he was playing a good game.
Then the intimacy began. I never asked, I just assumed he wasn’t seeing anyone because we were almost always together. We saw almost everyday in a week so I thought it wasn’t possible for him to be seeing someone. I knew we weren’t in a relationship but we weren’t exclusive either and he was a jealous one. The first time we had a fight and he said “you’re aware this isn’t a relationship, it’s just sex”, I left.
He came and apologized and we got back to what we had. Everything was going so well till it wasn’t. That was when I started to remove the blind fold little by little. The funny thing is, I put that blind fold on myself unconsciously. You know that “love is blind” quote, when you’re in deep and you have no idea that you’re already that deep, you realize it’s no longer total bullshit. I couldn’t keep lying to myself, the self deception was enough.
I knew that this, whatever it was I thought we had wasn’t exactly the ultimate loving two sided relationship. But amidst all these, I still convinced myself that it couldn’t hurt. What was my other option? Be alone? I wasn’t prepared to be, at least not at the moment. I just concluded that I was going to enjoy whatever this was with Val without complicating it. Remember, this is no strings attached, focus on just the sex and everything will be fine, I told myself. As time unfolded, what was supposed to be a “no strings attached” situationship suddenly had all the characteristics of a meaningful relationship till I became pregnant.
-You see, this is one of the dangers of not figuring out what we need and not stating what we want. Waiting for the guy to state how it’s going to run on his own terms. Just waiting and hoping that he asks us out or he defines it or he gives us that title, and we wait, till it gets to that moment when things go from being casual to feeling like a serious relationship. Funny thing is, because we think it’s committed, we tell ourselves we are loyal. At some point, we come clean to ourselves and realize how invested we are, our feelings become undeniable and we convince ourselves that he feels the same. The more things unfold, the truth begins to unveil itself and we finally accept that he will never be in a committed relationship with you regardless of you being a committer, because he wasn’t that type all along.
This is where the questions begin.
When the playing field changes, How do you re-strategize? Do you renegotiate your previous arrangements and rules? Where does one even start to renegotiate after setting such non-committal basic rules? Do you try to work out new terms for a new contract, “defined relationship” this time? Sometimes the only thing left to do is to just walk away even when everything in us disagrees.😔😔😔
See you in our next post!
