This is something I’ve never tried before, but felt I might be able to help others who have been in a similar situation or are going through one currently.

What I’m about to open up to you about takes a lot of courage, to admit the real issues of struggling and just being as open as I will be, so I hope you feel the strength from this to do the same, whether online or with someone in your life. It’s a great, relevant topic for National Mental Health Awareness month.

Relationships are an interesting spectacle of life. Whether you’re dating someone, made a new friend or just your typical relationship with a family member, we all have one at the very least. Throughout our lifetime we encounter people from all walks of life. Some you’re stuck with, like family, and others come and go, like friends or co-workers. Everyone comes into your life for a reason. This wasn’t something I truly realized until my latest and very first love relationship.

I came very late to the relationship party, always chasing girls through high school that were out of my league or that I was too chicken to ever talk to. I never had the confidence. Even through undergrad I wasn’t confident enough until later in my college years, where I had my first kiss. The feeling you get from being kissed, especially for the first time, is like you’re on cloud nine. You feel amazing that someone feels good enough about you to kiss you. I thought this was love and wound up ruining any opportunity with the girl, but we remained friends and still are to this day. It wasn’t until graduate school that I had my first love. I met a girl who loved me for me, or so I thought. We would hang out everyday and one night I just got this urge to kiss her and I did. She felt amazing and was so happy. So we started dating and eventually became a couple. Remember, I was new to this and still a virgin, on many levels. When I was with her I felt like a million bucks, to say the least. We had our differences, we came from different financial and family backgrounds (her parents divorced), there were things about her I had trouble accepting for the longest time and I know there were things about me she felt the same, but I absolutely loved her for who she was and honestly still do. She took my virginity, I literally was shaking I was so nervous when it happened. I will never forget that, but this girl really brought me out of my shell in so many ways and taught me so many things in life in general.

We were both living in the same dorm, we hated our roommates and I wound up sleeping over in her little dorm room almost every night. We shared a twin bed…imagine two adults in a twin bed…but that’s how much we loved being together. Towards the end of our first year we decided we wanted an apartment so we didn’t have to live with people we didn’t like. This was a huge step in our relationship extremely early on. We moved in together and things were great. Her dog was there, she would cook amazing meals, we’d go shopping together for groceries, see movies together and what have you. The fact I was living independently and coming home to someone other than my family was fantastic. My life felt amazing. This was a feeling I always wanted forever, but I became so comfortable in our relationship because of this. I felt I had everything in life I wanted and took it for granted. I was obtaining my Masters at the time while she was obtaining her Bachelors, so I was in a shorter program. My last year of graduate school was extremely stressful and the week before graduation I had a bomb dropped in my lap. A professor made me feel so shitty that it rocked me emotionally. Now I’ve ALWAYS been a great student, I made an honest mistake in grad school and got treated horribly for it. I was emotionally scarred, but I worked through it to make sure I received my degree on time, which I did thankfully.

I became depressed. Or what I thought depression was. I felt hopeless and unmotivated. I had moved back home as school ended and was having no luck finding a job, and am still not able to find a job, and I was suffering emotionally. My girlfriend at the time, same girl, was as supportive as she could be, but she had a tough time with how clingy I had become. We would Skype almost every night to help cope with the distance. I relied on her for my happiness. This is a big no-no. I put a ton of pressure on her and being hundreds of miles away from her, we live in separate states, made things even harder. We got in a fight and I almost thought I lost her but we worked through it thankfully. She wound up going back to school to finish her last year. I went with her and found an internship so I could be with her and gain work experience. While there she went home for winter break, so I was alone in our apartment. We had roommates here this time to help pay rent, but they, too, were on a school schedule so they were gone. I became lonely as I’m not good with long distance, even being away for a few months while on break from school was super hard on me emotionally. She came back down for my birthday, which was great. The next day I found out my dog back home was ill and was going to be put down. My parents urged me to move back home as my internship had ended and I had no reason, other than my girlfriend, to stay, so I could say goodbye. I said okay, so we packed my stuff and began driving to her family’s house as that was always our middle destination between school and my family’s house. Well, my parents called me during the drive and said my dog was going to be put down that day unexpectedly. I had to say goodbye to her over FaceTime…one of the hardest things you ever could do. My girlfriend and I broke down crying, thankfully she was there with me to comfort me. I later found out my dad lost his job as well, which would add a ton of pressure on my mom back home. My grandma then had an emergency and had to go to the hospital, not to mention her dog had to be put down as well.

My emotions were fragile. If you couldn’t tell by this point, I felt like garbage deep down. I did move home and tried to find a full-time job, which I’m still looking for almost six months later. My girlfriend wound up going back to school and finishing her last few months. When she finished she moved back home. I was still down in the dumps, feeling like there was nothing to be positive about except her. I still put all this pressure on her to help me break out of it. She applied for her first job and was turned down, which rocked her a bit. She had a quarter-life crisis and freaked out a little. I told her everything would be okay but who was I kidding? I was turned down by at least thirty jobs I knew I could do, what leg did I have to stand on? The job market is another blog post I’m sure I’ll get to. Anyway, fast forward a few weeks. I saw a girl post on Facebook about her breaking up with her boyfriend because they were going to be graduating and going separate ways. This freaked me out and I told my girlfriend and that’s when she broke up with me. I cried my eyes out and begged and pleaded, but she said no. The next day she checked up on me and then we Skyped the following night. She wanted to take a month break to see if we could maybe come back together afterward. I came to my senses and changed all the horrible habits I had built up with her while we dated. I had put on a good 10lbs. So I started to exercise and lost a good 5-6lbs. so far, I stopped spending money on my hobby that took over my life the past 10 years, I changed my diet and just my life in general. I gave up a lot of the toxic hobbies that took over my life, like getting caught up in petty internet drama in forums on Facebook. Because of it I became a different, better person. Well, during this break she started deleting all the photos of us on social media and removed me as her boyfriend, which caused me to panic and break the “No Contact Rule” and call her. The NCR is where you don’t communicate with your ex for 30 days or more. She told me there I made her uncomfortable as she wasn’t ready to talk on the phone yet, that she was no longer into me romantically and that she just wanted to be my friend and didn’t want to be with me anymore no matter if I changed. She said I’m a great guy and that I’ll make someone happy one day. This crushed me. How could someone who told you you were the love of their life at one point and someone you dated for over two years just kick you to the curb like that?

Your guess is as good as mine, but perhaps you can figure it out. So I took a huge step and started seeing a therapist to help me tackle this anxiety I developed since school ended. I never thought I had anxiety nor thought I’d ever see a therapist, ever, but it helps to talk to someone. If you think you have a problem, go see someone and tackle it early on. Don’t let it bottle up as it will just get worse. And seeing someone doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you, you’re just lost and need guidance. Trust me, I know as I’m still suffering from the pain of losing the girl I thought was the love of my life and my best friend. My friends and family just told me to move on as she clearly did and seems happy, but it’s not that easy, not to me at least. You are in charge of you, you can decide when to let go, but I myself struggle with that. This girl was my world, her family adored me and I adored them, and she made me feel great, so I thought. There were times in our relationship I felt like I wanted to split, but I sucked it up and realized it wasn’t really that big of a deal as relationships involve compromising for each other. I still question how I feel, being oblivious to red flags in the past and just accepting them out of fear of losing her. The fact I wasn’t honest with myself is a red flag in itself, trust your gut.

So now that you know my situation you may be wondering what the point of this story is? The point of the story is that my girlfriend, now ex-girlfriend, came into my life for a reason. This takes a really mature person to realize, so if you’re going through a breakup, notice what has changed since. In my situation I realized that if she hadn’t broken up with me I would’ve never broken these horrible, immature habits I had developed. She helped me get through the toughest two years of my life currently, grad school. She also taught me how to be a better person in many ways. Her family loved me, but now they won’t really talk to me after we split, which really hurts a lot deep down, but that’s just the way life is. I’m the type of guy who goes above and beyond for someone and hates when people don’t like me, but the real problem is that I lost myself along the way and I was living for her. I isolated myself from my friends for the longest time and now that she’s gone, I need to rebuild those friendships. This was not the right thing to do, which perhaps is a big reason why she became unhappy in our relationship. I lost my self-confidence and inner-strength as well. Who wants to be with someone like that? I regret turning into the person I did as my last intention was to hurt her and she knows that, I know she does. I was just extremely selfish and didn’t want to change when her and my friends and family encouraged me to forever ago. She did really hurt me removing our past as it meant the world to me. I will never ever wish any harm on her as I want her to have a bright future, she deserves to be happy and I do, too. I just hope we can become friends from this as I personally can’t just cut her out of my life.

Relationships are a two way street, remember that. Even though it may feel like you’re the main reason it failed, and you may be if you cheated or something, your partner is always partially to blame as you two have to work together to get through the ups and downs of a relationship. And trust me, being single again feels extremely weird and I honestly don’t like the feeling, especially after having a taste of a real relationship for over two years. Just realize the red flags early on if you can and try to fix them if they’re worth it to you or be strong enough to walk away. And if they can’t support you when you’re at your lowest, then they’re not right for you as the person who truly loves you will be by your side when you’re at your highs and bitter lows, so keep that in mind.

Even when happiness seems infinitely far away, it’s not. Just take it each day at a time, you’ll have your good days and bad days, it’s all part of the healing process. I must’ve felt at least 20 different emotions over the past few weeks as it feels like a death in the family, but the person is still alive. If you have to cry, cry. Cry until you can’t anymore, that’s when you know you’ve healed. Don’t be afraid of the future, don’t fear you’ll be alone forever. You’ll only be this way if you don’t put yourself out there and get up and move forward. I know because I’ve been in this position and still am working through it. It’s one of the hardest internal battles I’ve ever faced but I know it will make me stronger in the end. You just need to change to a positive attitude and look forward, not backwards. I know this is easier said than done, but set goals for yourself and you will improve if you believe it. Cut the toxic aspects out of your life if you can identify them. Sometimes when you love someone you have to let them go as painful as it is as it may be the best outcome for you both in the end. Try doing yoga or meditation, there are great free exercises on YouTube like Yoga With Adriene if you’re into yoga otherwise search for depression meditation like this one I’ve used. If you really allow yourself to get into these it can help you, meditation has helped me a bit so far. You have to stick to it though. All in all, I will always love my ex as she did a lot for me and ultimately helped me become a better person in the end.

Since we split I’ve been reading up online on how to fix things, what things mean, etc. to help me better understand where I went wrong and what I can do to avoid it/fix it (if it’s fixable) in the future. Now I don’t know how great all their advice is as most of the time they want you to buy their book to really find out, but this blog is a pure genuine post that I hope can help you or someone you know.

If you’re going through a fight with a loved one or just lost a loved one, take a step back and look at what you learned along the way. Have you made changes yet? If you haven’t, are there opportunities where you can? Perhaps this person came into your life for a reason. They left your life, what did they leave you with? You must’ve gotten something out of this relationship. Now this person may not be out of your life entirely, my ex is not even though we haven’t spoken yet since, but it still hurts and you will hurt for some time. Only time can heal your wounds, but you have to be strong and want to change. Change is not easy, but it’s necessary to grow. Don’t be stubborn to change or you may learn the hard way when it’s too late like I did. I hope my situation can help you, especially before it’s too late. Don’t be afraid to talk to someone, even me, so feel free to comment below. I wish you the best with all your current and future relationships.

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