Lately, I’ve been asking myself if I’m ready to date again.
Not in a casual, swipe-right kind of way—but in a real, sit-across-the-table-and-let-someone-see-me kind of way. And honestly? It’s terrifying.
I think what hurts the most is this in my past two serious relationships:
I believe early on, we both realized we didn’t meet each other’s needs.
I was willing to change. To grow. To compromise.
They weren’t.
And to this day, I still don’t understand why they pushed me away so hard—why they hurt me in ways I never deserved.
And then when I finally left… I became the bad guy.
Not because I lied. Not because I cheated. Not because I was neglectful.
But simply because I was the one who left.
It didn’t matter why I left.
It didn’t matter that I tried everything.
It only mattered that I had finally said, “Enough.”
I didn’t want to date while I was broken.
I didn’t want anyone to have to carry the weight of my trauma, my scars, my chaos.
I didn’t feel worthy of love.
And yet… every now and then, someone would say,
"Maybe the final stretch of healing comes through relationship."
"Maybe what you really need is to feel safe with someone."
"Maybe you just need to try again."
I know there’s truth in that.
But it doesn’t erase the anger I still carry—the kind that bubbles up when I think about my exes.
Why wasn’t I ever enough for them?
Why didn’t they love me enough to want to show up?
To listen. To change. To choose us?
Worse why did they
I look back at the patterns now.
My first serious relationship? He was controlling & I couldn’t win. If I didn’t work, I was lazy. If I did work, I was abandoning the kids. He’d blow money on four-wheelers and fast food and then criticize me for buying clothes for our kids.
I could’ve survived that one, maybe—until the day I was assaulted. We were broken up at the time, eventually I came up with the courage to tell him. And he used it against me, weaponized my trauma, refused to ever see it as anything but cheating. I didn’t even have the language to call it rape for a long time. But when I finally did, it didn’t matter to him.
That broke me.
So I jumped into the next thing. A guy who always chose his friends over me. Then another. And another. I dodged the obvious addicts. I thought I was learning.
And then there was Nick.
He seemed like the safe choice. Stable job, kind to the kids, no signs of active addiction. We already had kids of our own, and our blended family felt like fate. But looking back? I think I just needed it to work. For me. For the kids. For all of us.
He drank—subtly at first. And he didn’t seem emotionally distant. But every promise he made about us, about showing up, about building a life together—just disappeared into the ether. And then the drinking became harder to ignore. And eventually, the cheating I never thought I could survive happened. And I had to let go, not because I didn’t love him, but because I didn’t recognize myself anymore.
Sometimes I still wonder—was I too broken to be loved?
I feel like I’ve done the work.
I’ve read the books. I’ve done the therapy. I communicate well. I don’t yell. I’m patient. I can repair after conflict.
On paper? I should be good at this.
But no one sees the paper.
They see a single mom of four.
They see weight gain.
They see exhaustion.
They don’t see the girl who never wanted anything more than love.
The girl who didn’t grow up dreaming about big houses or fancy careers.
I just wanted a calm place to land.
A partner who showed up.
Someone to build something beautiful with.
And now, after everything? Sometimes that dream feels... silly.
I thought two years of healing would make me better at this. Instead, it’s made me more afraid.
Now, I question everything:
Will anyone ever want me without being drunk?
Will anyone see me and not just my baggage?
I know this feeling will pass. It always does.
But today, I’m sitting in it.
Letting it be real.
Letting it ache.
Because sometimes healing doesn’t mean rising above it all.
Sometimes it just means not lying to yourself anymore.
And this is my truth—for today.
No comments:
Post a Comment