I knew that I had a deep capacity to love, or so I thought, but that somehow wasn’t enough. I always ended up feeling taken for granted or fighting desperately for my partner’s attention after the initial attraction phase wore off.
I couldn’t help becoming someone else, someone I thought I needed to be, in order not to get abandoned. This, of course, backfired because it lowered my self-esteem even more and caused me become even more neurotic and clingier.
It was hard to not get down on myself for who I became in relationships. I didn’t know how to process the end of a relationship or how to separate what was theirs and what was my stuff, so I walked into the next relationship with accumulated anger, resentments, and taller walls around my heart.
It was easier to blame the guy for being emotionally unavailable, withdrawn, selfish, and all the other names I called him. This went on for over a decade.
Still, somehow my divorce was peaceful and I even called my ex-husband in despair at times after a break-up, crying, “He doesn’t want me anymore.”
He’d jokingly say, “Well, you shouldn’t have divorced me.”
I knew what he meant. And I knew why I called him. It was the only relationship that didn’t blow up in my face at the end. I needed to see that I wasn’t a complete and utter mess and that I had something good to offer to a relationship, even if it didn’t last forever. We were able to remain friends who talked a few times a year.
After my third heartbreak, I knew that something had to give. I became very depressed and lost hope for being able to have a happy relationship that didn’t end in divorce or a dramatic break-up.
I kept asking the Universe, “Why am I not healing? What is wrong with me? Why do I end up falling in love with unavailable men and then cling onto him for dear life?”
I prayed all day, every day. My hope was eroding fast and my self-rejection was growing in leaps and bounds.
The answer came in the form of one word: forgiveness.
To be honest, I was not interested in forgiving anything or anyone. I wouldn’t even know where to begin or who to forgive. Instead, I just added more toxicity to my pain by letting resentments turn to hate. This gave me a false sense of power and the illusion of protection from further pain, disappointment, deception, and betrayal. I felt like I’d had enough of all of these.
In my mind, forgiveness meant that I would die without receiving compensation for the ways I’d been wronged. That was just not okay.
I sat in my throne of righteous indignation for a few more weeks. In the meantime, I was twisted up in knots due to the guilt of having hurt all my partners, which I didn’t know what to do with either.
I wrote an email to my last boyfriend, which he didn’t respond to. That hurt even more. I got to feel what it’s like to not be forgiven for the mistakes you made.
Non-forgiveness may feel like power and protection, but it ends up becoming a lonely, self-made prison cell. At that point, I knew that I was creating more unhappiness and loneliness for myself.
I finally gave in. Even though it took weeks for my ego to calm down and open to the idea of looking at who and what I needed to forgive, the thought of it alone started making me feel lighter.
Since my biggest pain revolved around men, I started with my father.
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