Anyone reading this probably at least knows that derek and I have broken up because he cheated on me for the better part of a year.
When I first found out (because he left his e-mail account open, not because he had the courage to tell me), I felt like my entire world was crashing down around me while the rug was being pulled out from under my feet. I was so scared to lose him that I decided to stay with him provided that he seek counseling and we attend couples counseling. That old cliche of "I've invested so much of my life into this relationship, I'm not going to let it go this easily." Because you're supposed to fight for love, right? I wasn't going to go down without a fight.
But after two days, derek decided that that was too much work, that there's no point in trying again because "the unhappiness that led to his cheating would probably come back again eventually" (oh yeah guys, he cheated because I didn't keep him sexually satisfied, so it was my fault in his eyes). He insisted that I was only staying with him for the financial security. The best line he gave me was "we need to make sure that we can be happy on our own before we can be happy together." Translation: "I'm too much of a coward to break up with you outright so I'll pretend like I maybe want you back eventually."
Yeah, no.
Once I got over the initial shock of everything that happened, I had a very, very important realization:
I honestly don't miss him all that much.
Oh sure, I miss the companionship, I miss having a warm body to snuggle against at night (it's been unseasonably cold this week), I missed having a body to snuggle when I had a nightmare the other day, I miss being pretty sure that I'll be debt-free by 30, and it's weird not having someone to talk to about every TV show that I watch (I started a lot of them because he was in to them).
But you know what?
I can find any of that with someone else. Maybe not the debt-free part, because I don't expect anyone to be willing to pay 100% of the rent until my loans are paid off, but that's okay.
Him breaking up with me (it really should have been me breaking up with him) has opened my eyes to what an underperforming boyfriend he really was. Every time I asked him for a simple date night (like, to the place literally 3/4 of a mile away from our apartment for a quick dinner not in front of the TV) he would grumble. I planned this awesome staycation for us last summer and he was a total asshole about leaving the apartment the entire long weekend. Every weekend was a lazy weekend. As in, if I asked him to go walk the 2 blocks to pick up dinner from the deli, he'd ask why I couldn't do it. The only time he ever helped me cook dinner was if I burned myself and couldn't finish the recipe by myself due to pain. My family came to visit, I had to practically beg him to come out with us and spend quality time with these people who he saw once a year max. His family came to visit, and I ended up spending an entire day alone with his mother while he played video games at home. We went to Jamaica for our friend's wedding and he stayed cooped up in the hotel when we all went snorkeling FOR FREE because "I've been snorkeling before, I don't feel like doing it again." ON AN ALL-EXPENSE PAID WEDDING PARTY TRIP TO JAMAICA. On the rare occasion that he did leave the apartment with me, I felt like I had to coddle him the whole time to make sure he was enjoying himself. Yeah, that made it fun for me.
Okay I'm rambling now. The point is that after I moved down to Maryland to be with him, he stopped putting any effort into our relationship and for nearly four years I pretended like that didn't bother me. Or I denied that it did. Either way, now that I'm out of that relationship, my eyes are wide open to how unhappy I was.
When I was 18 and just so broken-hearted over the fact that my high school boyfriend wouldn't talk to me anymore, my therapist asked me this question:
"Why would you want to be friends with someone who treats you that way?"
Her voice echoed in my head almost as soon as I found out that derek had cut me off (which was while I was at lunch with my coworkers - yet another cowardly move on his part). I knew it as soon as she asked me that when I was 18, and I knew it again a few weeks ago: I don't want to be with someone who treats me that way. Not as a friend and definitely not as a romantic partner.
It's a difficult question to answer sometimes, and it was definitely difficult when I thought about the future that I had to say goodbye to. We'd been talking about getting a domestic partnership before November so that I could hop on to his health insurance when I turn 26, and we were talking about buying a house in the next year.
I was watching Frasier the other day - a show that I often turn to when I'm sad - and at the end of the very first episode, one of his callers is still feeling like a mess months after a breakup. Frasier told her that she's not mourning the loss of the relationship, but the loss of the future that she thought she had. Yet another light switch flicked on in my head. That's exactly it. I already don't miss him - it's hard to miss someone who barely paid attention to your relationship. And I'm actually already starting to be excited for my new future thanks to the love and support from my friends and family who have all promised to welcome me back to Michigan. Honestly, maybe it had become about the promise of financial security, even if I didn't quite realize it at the time.
It's like if you lived for 4 years in a really shitty climate, and you'd tried to forget that nicer climates exist, and any time you saw any little reminder of a better climate you were like "yeah but this region is totally perfect for me, I don't need better weather to feel better" but then one day you get strapped into a giant slingshot by force, and you get thrown into a WAY nicer climate and after you brush yourself off and figure out your new surroundings you're like "holy shit. This climate is PERFECT for me! How could I have ever been happy living under those conditions? I'm never going back to that region even for a brief visit!"
So I actually kind of hope that one day, maybe months from now, derek will come crawling back to me so that I can laugh in his face. He knows how hard it is for me to deny someone another chance to stay in my life - he literally had to hold my hand while I blocked an ex best friend on Facebook when we were in college - and I hope he'll think that he'd get a second chance if I have enough time to miss him. I want to smile as I tell him that I don't miss him. He selfishly told me that he doesn't know if he'll ever be able to move on from me (which is stupid because he already had, at least sexually), and I want the opportunity to show him that I have moved on from him.
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