The reality of reconciliation

[hope18]

So many people out there cling onto the hope of reconciliation after a breakup. Because the idea that they're just gone temporarily and they'll be back is much easier to cope with than the idea of a permanent loss. I remember scouring this section of LoveShack, relentlessly reading any story of other couples that let me hold onto to that hope, and think "if it happened for them it will happen for us." So I thought I would share my story for anyone who may be in a similar boat.

My boyfriend and I dated in highschool, I was a junior, he was a senior. We only dated for about six months until he went off to college, but it was probably the happiest, most amazing six months of my life. Our connection was indescribable, it was something given by God and we both knew it. We were truly best friends. We had a relationship more mature and healthy than most adult marriages I've known. The only reason we broke up was because he went to college and the distance was too much, he broke up with me in the first week. I cannot put into words the level of pain, devastation, and heartbreak I experienced. To make matters worse, he began dating someone less than a month later. That's what really got me I think, the tortured thoughts of picturing him with this beautiful blonde who made him so much happier than I ever could. I spent far longer than I would like to admit obsessively stalking their social media, comparing myself to her, telling myself she was just a rebound and he had to come back. I was at my absolute worst. Eventually, something clicked. I looked in the mirror one day and did not like who I saw. I decided it was time to move on, to stop being pathetic and watching their relationship from a distance. All it did was hurt me and keep me from moving forward. I knew I would always love him, but I decided it was time to love myself too and start living my life, and that if it truly was meant to be we would find our way back to each other some day on our own.

Flash forward two years and I had graduated high school and was in the spring semester of my freshman year of college. I had been in a horribly unhealthy relationship for about 8 months with someone who was extremely abusive, yet I couldn't seem to make myself leave. It was a constant cycle of breaking up and getting back together over and over. One day after just getting in a huge argument with this boyfriend, I was scrolling through instagram and under the suggested friends tab was my first love. In a moment of weakness, I decided to look at his page. I noticed he had deleted all pictures of the girl he dated after me. I dug deeper and saw she deleted all pictures of him too. More importantly, I noticed in his bio that he had left his school in Boston and transferred to a different college, one that happened to be a 10 minute drive from mine. In a split second decision I said "screw it" and followed him. Instant sweaty palms because mind you, we hadn't spoken or had any contact in two years. A few hours later, he followed me back. No biggie. Two days later, I'm sitting in class and his name pops up on my screen, he had messaged me. I damn near passed out, I didn't expect that. We began talking, catching up on life and slowly became best friends. There was no flirting --I was still in a relationship at the time and as miserable as it was I would never betray someone I'm committed to. He opened up to me about his relationship with that girl. To my satisfaction, she was psychotic. They dated for roughly a year and a half after meeting at the first college he went to. For the entirety of their relationship she stalked the living hell out of my social media accounts, which I told him wasn't possible because I had blocked her after she tried to message me a week after they started dating. He told me that she made several fake accounts to keep tabs on me, and had a couple of mutual friends keep tabs on me. She was controlling, didn't let him go anywhere without her, didn't let him have a life outside of her, was insecure, started fights constantly and was both physically and emotionally abusive. She even transferred with him to his new school --the one 10 minutes away from me. 

Anyways, after talking for a few weeks, we hungout for the first time. Seeing his face again for the first time in two years was surreal, like I had just seen him yesterday. I remember locking eyes with him for the first time as he got out of his car and my stomach screaming "oh f*ck, this is happening." We both laughed and couldn't stop smiling. For the rest of the day we just hungout. Again, purely innocent, we just talked, I showed him my school, he met some of my friends. When I finally got the balls to do it, I asked him why he stayed with her, he explained that initially she was a rebound, someone to fill the void during those weeks after our breakup when he was scared of being alone. He admitted that he never got over me, that he checked my social media once in a while while we weren't together and thought of me almost every day, but he thought he would never see me again and therefore he thought this girl was as good as it was going to get. He thought I was happy with someone else and deserved that happiness --boy was he wrong. Then he asked me the same question, why was I with this guy who treated me so poorly. My answer was very similar to his. 

I knew my feelings for my first love were still there, they had never gone away after all. But for some reason I felt that the relationship I was in at the time deserved more time. Not because I had feelings for the guy, I never really did, but because I had already invested so much time and energy. But surprise surprise, it didn't work out. Talking to my first love again reminded me of what I had before and what I deserve, and I ended it.  This was in May of that year. My first love and I hung out a few more times before he went away to study overseas for a month. Nothing happened, we both knew that despite any feelings we needed to heal from the toxicity of our last relationships and to spend some time being independent on our own. So we did just that for a couple of months. We talked all day every day, but kept things friendly. At the end of summer, we hung out again but it was different. We ended up hooking up, and with that began about 5 months of a "friends with benefits" thing except that we were exclusive and did everything couples do, we just didn't want to admit that we were something more because we were both scared. Finally that January, we made it official and we've been together ever since. I am once again in the happiest, healthiest relationship with the man I fully intend to marry. He reminds me every day how badly he screwed up, how he should have never left, and how he's going to spend the rest of his life making it up to me. We both have some PTSD from our last relationships, and we've been supporting each other in overcoming those obstacles and our relationship is stronger than ever.

So, the moral of the story here is that yes, reconciliations and second chances do happen. But only after some serious time apart, and only after you let go to the hope that they'll come back. The reconciliations that last are the ones that come from healthy relationships where you broke up due to external causes that are no longer an issue. A reconciliation that occurs for a relationship that was unhealthy, abusive, manipulative, involved cheating etc. is not going to last. So if you are reading this as someone who is in the same situation as I was years ago, scouring the forums for hope that they'll be back, be honest with yourself about your relationship. What were the causes of your breakup? What have you been doing in the mean time to work on yourself? Or have you been sitting around obsessing and waiting for them to come back? If something is meant to be, it will be for the right reasons and in the right time. It is okay to have some hope, but it is not okay to convince yourself of a happy ending that may never happen in order to lessen the pain of a breakup. Yes, you will have a happy ending, it just might not be with this person, but trust that whoever is meant for you the universe, God, fate, whatever you believe in has already claimed them as yours. If they don't come back, something better is coming. Trust in the saying "if you love something let it go, if it comes back to you, its yours forever. If it doesn't, then it was never meant to be."

[Wave Rider]

On 5/15/2020 at 8:54 AM, hope18 said:

To my satisfaction, she was psychotic.

 

But only after some serious time apart

Thanks for that post.  The top line is my favorite line from your post; it's hilarious because it's honest.  The bottom line is I think the most important.  It's true that a lot of people want to reconcile right away, when the reality is that both people basically need to come back together as different people if the relationship is going to work.  

I myself am in a situation where I'm semi-hoping to be reunited with my "true love."  I can't really say for sure what's going to happen.  I'm definitely a different person than I was when she and I broke up, but I am quite concerned that she is not much different, even after years of being apart.  If she isn't, then there probably isn't much hope.  I pursue life as if I'll never see her again, and yet she haunts my dreams at night.  You were lucky; I can't say for sure right now whether or not I will be.