I am already done thinking about this. I have already analyzed every thought that will ever occur to me on the matter. Is it weird that I still feel the need somehow to tell him about all the conclusions and resolutions in which all this thinking resulted? I want him to know that I am doing fine. Great, actually. I want him to see that I’ve taken up a new sport. I want to tell him that I found a job and that I got rid of all my old clothes and slipped into new ones that make me look more mature. I redecorated my home the way I always said I would. I want him to notice that I have picked up old hobbies such as singing, playing piano and drawing. He already knew that I was good at these things, but I want him to see that I’ve started to believe it too.
One day I was talking to a friend about this, and she asked me a very confronting question. She asked, “do you want to show him these things because you guys meant a lot to each other, and it would be nice to at least know that you guys are doing fine and wishing each other the best, or do you want to kind of show him how incredible the person is he’s missing out on?” And in all honesty, it could very well be the latter.
As some of you might know, I have written a lot about relationship dynamics in a (mostly-) scientific way before. Yet I started to realize that there is a lot that I never had the guts to address. Yes, writing this thing takes guts because the only way to analyze this topic is to be completely honest with myself, admitting embarrassing thoughts and maybe risking coming across like a bit of a psychopath.
However complex this topic is – simply because we cannot capture it in scientific terms, I have found some unhealthy patterns in the way I have always approached romantic relationships. Sometimes we are afraid to say things out loud, because saying it out loud makes it more true. But by admitting it to the world, I am forced to admit it to myself, which is what I need to do in order to learn from it and do better in the future.
My first big realization, and confession, is that I believe that I have never been in love. I have certainly loved, cared about and ‘been really glad someone was in my life’. But I hear people say that when you’re in love, you just know it. Do you agree? The person you’re in love with should be like no one you have ever met. Right? These question marks signify the lack of science here. Feel free to mentally insert them between the rest of the sentences to come, since I probably have no idea what I’m talking about.
If I am being really honest, I have always kind of known I was never in love. How did I know? Several things… A very vague example is that I have always wondered if I was in love, therefore I conclude that I wasn’t. And here’s an obvious one; I know I talk in my sleep and at some point I was afraid I would confess to my partner, whilst asleep, that I wasn’t in love. Then there is comparative evidence: my now-ex once told me that at least in the first few months, every time he rang my doorbell, his heart was racing and he felt his stomach dancing until I opened the door. He said that no matter how crappy his day had been, when he saw me, all the negativity fell off his shoulders and everything would be okay. To me, that sounds like being in love. I don’t recall moments in which I felt a similar way. When I would see my partner at the end of a rough day, it was not suddenly all okay. I would think “great, you’re here, now I can rant about how crap my day has been”. This could be a personality thing… I used to make myself believe that. But what if it was a sign of not being in love?
This leads to my next question: what was the reason for being in relationships, if it wasn’t for love? Here are some absurd thoughts: I felt like I was incapable of being in love the way people describe it. I liked being at the receiving end of love. I got addicted to the external validation that accompanied the relationships I was in. And this validation came from absolutely incredible people. This is something I still don’t get. The people with whom I have been in a relationship have absolutely everything I could possibly be looking for: Intelligence, humor, attractiveness, a willingness to go above and beyond to make me feel happy and loved.. And still, that didn’t get me to fall for them. It did make me kind of “objectively” want to be with them. They “checked all boxes”, so I believed that if I wasn’t going to find real love, this would be the closest thing to it. I gave up on finding love, and started looking for someone who I could settle for. Instead of feeling lucky to be with someone, I was at most content with the person I was with. I tricked myself into believing that all those people who claim to be in love are actually feeling the same way as I did. Only difference is that I wasn’t being all fairytale about it.
There are some observations that prove me wrong here though. I noticed a common thread in the stories of people who claim to be in love. It seems a huge priority for them, almost beyond-rationality, that their partners are happy. It is their deepest wish that their partners achieve their goals. It makes them feel lucky to be the one helping their partner to be their best self. For them, it is amazing to know that this incredible person is roaming the earth, whether they are in a relationship with them or not. I could name countless of other selfless things that seem to come natural to those in love. This is the giving-end of love. So far I feel like I have only received it.
When I put it like this, it can very well seem like I felt absolutely nothing for the people I have been in a relationship with. That is far from true. It only seems that way because I am describing what I found after having put all my feelings and thoughts under a big microscope. Honestly, I felt a ton of things for the people I was with. Evidently, I felt enough to confuse it for love. I felt connected, appreciation, happiness, a sense of not being alone, like being a team. I have met a lot of people throughout my life, and I can confidently say that it is exceptional for me to feel enough for someone to want to share my life and future with them. I must conclude that I have loved, but I have never been in love.
My most recent relationship ended rather abruptly in my experience. There was not really a good explanation for it, except that he was having this gut feeling that we wouldn’t last. He couldn’t explain it, even after being apart for a few months. My first theory was that he found someone new and/or was trying to protect me from the real reason for breaking up with me. I couldn’t think of any other reason why someone would breakup so suddenly for such vague reasons. But now I believe (and I sincerely hope) that maybe, if he was emotionally capable enough, he might have picked up on the fact that his love for me wasn’t reciprocated in the way he deserved.
I am freaked out about how awful this sounds. But like I said, before saying all of this out loud it felt way less true. At the time of the relationship I was super determined to make it work. I appreciated him for who he was, I believed there was nothing we couldn’t overcome and I had a genuine connection with him. Another thing I convinced myself of, which helped me feel more comfortable staying in this relationship, is that I might be someone who could only feel in love after being with someone a couple of years. This thought originated from the fact that I have a best friend who I’ve known for most of my life. I would literally walk through fire for her. I would give up my kidney for her without thinking twice. When the question is “who would you save if you had to choose, your best friend or …”, no matter whose name would follow, I would choose her. Always. We have grown to connect on such a deep level that almost nothing compares to it. If a long, shared history was all that was missing for me to feel in love, it would simply be a matter of waiting for real love to emerge from the relationship in time. Maybe this is true: some people enter a relationship while being in love, hoping it will stay, while other people enter it hoping it will grow. Maybe it's like buying a plant, watering it, hoping it does not wither versus planting a seed, watering it, hoping it will bloom. Can we say for sure that one way really is better than the other?
You know how they always say that after a few months there this crucial point in the relationship where you’re supposedly coming out of the so-called ‘honeymoon phase’, and you decide whether or not to continue? It’s the reason why new couples often break up after a few months. And it’s the reason that if they don’t, they usually stay together for much longer. Well what if it is really about the ones who entered the relationship in love checking whether they still are, and the ones who were waiting for love to emerge to check if it is already there? If the answer is no for at least one of them, it means the relationship is coming to an end. Usually. In my case, he fell out of love. However, if he hadn’t, I’m pretty sure I had enough ambition and determination to take this relationship to the retirement home. Hate to admit it, but yes, I definitely could have been that stubborn.
I never want this to happen ever again. I don’t want to wonder if I’m in love, I want to just know it. I don’t want to waste people’s time by pretending that my perseverance is a just substitute for love. I’m hoping by writing this out, and by being completely honest with myself, I will from now on commit to listening to what I’m really feeling- and if it’s not love, it’s not a relationship. Simple as that. And scary as f_ck. Because I could very well be signing up for never having a relationship ever again, if it turns out I am indeed incapable of feeling in love. Or if it turns out that people who claim to be in love are actually feeling the same as I did, but describe it differently, making me look for something that doesn’t exist.
Another thing that captivates me is seeing how some people love(d) their exes so much, that even though the relationship didn’t work, they tried everything they could to at least keep each other in their lives. I know of some that actually made that work, I also know of some that tried but failed.. With my relationships it was an easy and readily made decision- if it wasn’t going to work out as a romantic relationship, they could walk out of my life. I really don’t see the point of getting updates on their lives. I would maybe feel kind of angry that they gave up on the relationship before I did – after all, I was lacking love from the very beginning so if “anyone had the right to give up first, it would be me”. I know this is completely ridiculous.
I am curious to find out if someone could become so important to me, that having them in my life is worth more than having them love me back. This brings me back to the confronting question I mentioned in the beginning of this piece: I am pretty sure that if you really love(d) someone, you don’t feel the need to win the breakup so badly. It shouldn’t feel like a competition to see who gets their life together the fastest. The decision to never see them again if the relationship fails should not be so obvious. You shouldn’t feel the need to prove them wrong, to make them regret leaving you. There should be more compassion for their choice and their wellbeing.
I want to end on a different note. Throughout your life, there are certain moments where your life gets pushed in a whole new direction. Right now, I finished my masters and I’m starting my first real job. I always assumed my relationship would last throughout this major turning point in my life. When it became clear that it wouldn’t, I panicked. Big changes in life are scary, and it is simply less scary when someone is by your side, helping you through it every step of the way. However, I realized that if my relationship wasn’t going to last, this was the perfect time and place for it to end. If it hadn’t, I would’ve started shaping my (working) life around him in such a way that I wouldn’t have known how to live it without him.
Instead of building my new life around a relationship, I now have the freedom to (re)decorate my life as I see fit. This way, new relationships can be added to a life that is mine, instead of having my new life revolve around a relationship from the start. My default setting for decision making used to be “what would be best for us?”. Right now, I can think in terms of what would be best for me. I used to think those two were very similar, but it turns out that I’m spending my time completely different. And I am glad that I’m seeing this clearly now. For example, throughout my relationship, I abandoned most of my hobbies. If I had an evening off, I had the choice to either practice my hobbies, or be with him. I would always choose him. If I was spending an evening with friends, I always tried to arrange to meet him afterwards. I found myself leaving the group earlier than I wanted to. Those night didn’t belong to us. They belonged to me. And things like taking up a new sport used to be too big a sacrifice: it takes up one or two evenings in the week I could have otherwise spent with him. I sometimes fantasized and talked about doing different things with my life, but because this particular relationship carried so much weight, I was never going to go through with it. That didn’t bother me at the time. Most of my plans were postponed anyway because of the corona crisis. Now I wonder if it would have turned out to become a big problem if this relationship had lasted longer than the lockdown.
When you lose something, it is best if that loss is accompanied by a lesson that is as valuable as the thing you lost. I thought there was no lesson to learn from my last breakup, except that people can always unexpectedly abandon you for no reason... I was wrong. This was about my personal growth.
As far as my view on relationships goes right now, I know I need to start taking things much, much slower. Especially when there is still a chance that I can only feel in love after knowing someone long enough. Otherwise, when I am not able to reciprocate the love I’m receiving before that crucial point in the relationship, the other person can apparently fall out of love because of it. I also need to acknowledge that I am easily addicted to the external validation people give me. An addiction to these ‘validation-highs’ can trick you into believing you are (or eventually will be) in love with someone.
To conclude, at the moment I feel happy with how I’m spending my time. I feel myself growing as a person and I am proud of this growth. It feels terrible having to admit some of these things, but it feels great to know that the only way for me to be able to write this down is because I have set my mind on changing for the better.
To everyone reading this, if you feel a similar way, I hope you will also find the strength to be completely honest with yourself. If you don’t feel a similar way, and you have no idea what you’ve just read, I hope you realize that emotions are complex and just believe me when I say this was a very honest, human attempt to better understand myself.