Do I really want love?? in All Out of Balance

I was with my ex boyfriend for 7 years. In that time I loved, I grew, I failed, I succeed, I struggled, I lived. A part of me will always love him, thankfully the sting of losing him has faded to a dull distant ache.

I cannot define what my life was like in my 20s without him. We met at work when we were 20 years old. We were both college students, both had smart mouths, both thought we right about everything lol, and fell for each other almost immediately. Our smart mouthed banter quickly turned into flirting, which led to our first date, which led to our first kiss, and the story evolves from there.

I could have stayed with him for a lifetime and I’m afraid I won’t find another love like that again. They say the “honeymoon infatuation” phase fades after the first year. By year 3, I realized I still felt exactly the same way about him as I did on the first day I told him I loved him. That kind of love scares me because I lost myself in that relationship when I realized he wasn’t doing right by me. When I thought we had a foundation of trust, loyalty, respect, joy, intimacy, kindness, attention, support, and honesty; I was the most content I’ve every been in my life. It’s not that I thought we would be together forever, but that I couldn’t see my life without him because of what I thought we built together.

I don’t know how I found the strength to choose me first when I figured out that the foundation we built was on a bed of lies. I ended my relationship with him and to this day I remember how it felt when I packed my bags before he came home from work. I needed to have my things gone before he came home, because I don’t think I would have been strong enough to do it with him there. I cried in the bed we shared so many nights as I thought things will never be the same again after today.

That night I told him we were over. I could not put up with the lies, with the cheating, with the simple fact that he didn’t choose me first and protect me. He dropped to his knees and hugged my legs and begged me not to leave. All I remember saying to him is, “I love you madly! But if you won’t protect me, I have to do it instead.” I made him stand up, hugged him tightly, and kissed him goodbye.”

It took two years before I was whole again after that night. I was broken, depressed, not eating, and didn’t know how to make it better. I put my family through the stress of my depression, which broke me even more. I promise you I tried to eat, I tried to stay busy, I tried all the things you’re supposed to do after a break up and the only thing that worked was time. My two best friends, parents, and sister put me back together again like 1000 piece puzzle set. Putting up with my nights of tears, temper tantrums, emotional outbursts, and my fits of not being able to get out of the bed. If anyone says depression from emotional heartbreak isn’t real then I doubt they’ve ever truly been in love.

Something that makes me sad to this day is I used to wish he would straighten up and do right, and do right by me to win me back. He tried to, but tried too late. The very thing I used to wish for every day I cried over him. Fast forward two years when I no longer shed a tear over him, when I stopped beating myself up for the failures in our relationship, when I still loved him but was no longer in love with him; this is the moment he tried to win me back. The woman that loved him madly was gone. As much as everything in me knew I once wanted him back exactly in this way, that day all I felt was empty. Empty because my love for him was gone.

That was over 4 years ago.

Now I have found someone new, and I don’t even know how to love right anymore. I’m torn with my feelings. I’m undecided about the kind of relationship I want. I need stability and all I have are a bunch of unknowns.