Got Dumped?

This is for my friends who recently had their heart (and soul) broken by their partners they thought were “The One”. Hi, I’m R, and I have been dumped by the kind of man who portrayed himself as a knight in shining armor yet turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s skin.

As a woman, we are known to have the capacity of irrationally giving up everything for the ones we love, but I learned that no matter how much you love someone, we should still have something to fall back on, and I’m not talking about a tub of ice cream and chocolates. I’m talking about your career and family, because when the one you thought you could count on starts kicking you further down the mud or decides to take a different path, those are the ones that will always be constant in your life with no conditions.

I think that I’ve never experienced real heartbreak until the one before my current relationship. I was in a long term one before that too, but it didn’t hurt as much as it did with the latter. It was a feeling I’ve never felt before, the pain in my chest was really excruciating and at that point in my life, I became clueless how to take the steps forward. I didn’t know how to make sense of my purpose – I felt weak. I didn’t even know how to react properly and I would never want to go through it again, but at the same time, I am also thankful for that. The journey was worthwhile that it changed me in so many ways. For a while I thought I had to go through that, because I became too complacent that everything was going to turn out okay – until it came to a point that there was nothing I could do. I was unable to accept in the beginning what was happening, and it wasn’t because the love is no longer there, or because I wasn’t able to meet his expectations. It was because I was blaming myself for I thought I took things lightly. I am the kind of person who tends to be passive and I’ll push the issue aside that I don’t want to deal with initially, and it kind of got out of hand. I also became egotistic enough to think that it was just one of those sad episodes in our love story and it would be fine again. Then one day I felt reality slap me and I finally asked myself, “Don’t he have any conscience at all?” as I recalled when he said that he felt he was unimportant in my life. He said that I lacked in giving him the kind of attention he needed through our five years of being together, and admitted that it was one of the reasons that drove him to cheat – like, seriously?!

I didn’t want to share it with anyone back then, because I also couldn’t fully understand why things are suddenly changing too. There were times when I felt like I was a walking dead, I wanted to run away from where I was, but I can’t, because I have responsibilities to take care of and it was hard to face each day knowing that I would see him again. Since none of my friends really knew what was going on, they still kept on saying how fortunate I am to have everything I need in my life, and I would just forcefully smile and think “Yeah, right”. I was wishing to be someone else at that moment or to go back to where these things aren’t happening, or even fast-forward to a more positive setting. He manipulated everything from my choice of friends and to thinking that his way is the right and only way. He made me think that by following his wants would mean a peaceful relationship for us and any kind of hesitation or aggression on my part would mean bad karma for us.

I only told a handful of friends what was really happening when I realized I was about to go crazy dealing with it by myself every day. Besides them, nobody else seemed to notice until I started taking my family out and talking to other people in my circle again. I developed a new hobby and immersed myself at work. Those days were tough though, because there were moments when I have to look okay, that I had no other choice, but to put on a pokerface. Thank God, I got through it with constant prayers and meditation. I subscribed to a local preacher’s channel on YouTube to affirm myself that I would be okay. There were also parties and projects I had to go to and have to smile even though deep inside I wanted to go home and cry – it was really hard. Sometimes I would re-post funny memes or inspirational quotes or anything mundane to help others smile in my social network, yet in truth I was crying in my office. I felt like a big fat liar by doing that, but I still kept on sharing positive inputs to be positive, because I craved to feed on positivity as much as I can.

I can admit that the whole experience was very humbling as I decided to focus more on other important aspects of my life. I was offered a good column in a magazine and I went back to writing again. I tried to help some friends who are initially going through a break up too. I realized that everything is fair after all that we almost have the same issues, but on different levels. Sometimes you may think that if someone seems to have everything perfect in their life they have lesser trials, but sometimes they’re given more hardships to deal with that we’re unaware of. I became more grateful for what I have. Counting your blessings more than the adversities is truly rewarding.

The thing about getting broken over and over and over is that it makes you wiser in determining if the next person who’s trying to get into your world is a potential heartbreaker. It also gave me a sense of awareness that I sometimes use with my friends when I see that they’re about to make the same mistake. Sometimes they would heed my advice, sometimes they won’t. Sometimes you just got to let them learn on their own since experience truly is the best teacher despite the warnings. There is no perfect relationship and there is no secret ingredient how to make a relationship last. It is all about choosing to accept our partner’s flaws and embracing our imperfections on a daily basis. And If you think you can’t, then save yourself and another person from heartbreak.

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