One of the things I regret the most in my first serious relationship was telling him that I loved him when I knew I didn’t mean it. We had been dating for about 2 weeks and I remember dropping off Christmas gifts and waiting by my phone later on that night dying to hear what he thought of the presents I had gotten him. I honestly can’t remember what I had bought for him, but I remember the feeling of anxiety pulse over me as I read the words “I love you” on my iPhone screen. I remember thinking to myself, “Is this it? Is this love?”. At the time, I had decided to say it back – I’m not sure if it was the pressure of him saying it first, or the ignorance of a first relationship that made me type the words back. It wasn’t magical, it wasn’t nerve wracking, it wasn’t anything I thought it was going to be… it didn’t mean anything. Now, I know what you’re thinking – Oh, he’s probably just saying this because they’re broken up now and he’s got another guy he can say it to… no. I really didn’t mean it when I told him – and throughout the course of our relationship, I really thought I did mean it at some point.
It’s incredibly hard to label something without first getting experience. I remember realizing this while grabbing boba with my boyfriend and his sister. I like to ask her about her future and how she’s liking high school since she just started. I kind of blurted out a random question and asked her if she liked the high school she attended and if it was treating her well. She smiled sheepishly and nodded, but then my boyfriend had said something I never really thought about. He had said, “Well, that high school is the only high school that she really knows. She hasn’t been exposed to anything else so there’s nothing to really compare it to.” I kind of sat there dumbfounded and said, “Well, I didn’t like my high school at first, but then I ended up loving it.” He replied again, “Well, when you’ve been forced to be somewhere for so long, you end up just dealing with it.” I had leaned back in my chair and the words seemed to wake me up. He was right, I mean, how are you really supposed to know what’s good and what’s bad if you’ve only had one thing?
“I love you”. What did that mean to me? What was I really saying? Did I love the way we fought everyday? Did I love the way we were always at each other’s throats wishing the other would just listen? Did I love the way we broke each other down and never stopped to help one another up? Did I love the act we sold to everyone that we’d last forever and our love was everlasting? I think about it now, and I can’t help but pity the both of us for sucking the value out of such a powerful phrase. I can honestly say that we cared for one another, but did we really love one another? He was my first everything – and it set the precedence for how I saw every single relationship from here on out. To me, love was fighting about silly things that ended up becoming huge arguments. Love was bribing and convincing – if you really loved me, you’d do this for me. Love was forceful and lopsided, we’d take turns tolerating each other until one wrong word opened up a floodgate of aggression. Love was jealousy and mistrust; he spoon fed me white lies and I ate them up in silence, knowing two things: the answers to every single question I had asked him before he’d even answer, and that he’d lie straight to my face. Love was making up with excuses and blame; we had code words for I’m sorry and I want you to listen to me. Yes, you read that right… we had code words for those two things. At the end of my 3 year relationship; love had finally decompressed itself and showed its true form of pride and infatuation.
If there was any love to be found within our relationship, it was our love of pride. Oh how we loved to search for things to fight about; how the line “Well, you’ve done the same exact thing” rolled off of our tongues easier than the words “I’m sorry” ever did. I was never wrong, and he was never right – he loved to think the exact same about himself. We loved one upping each other in the amount of evidence we had backing up the claim that the other person was wrong. Who ‘won’ at the end of the day though? No one. In every single argument we ever had – I know in my heart no one ever ‘won’… because we’d argue about the same things over and over again. Tell me why saying I love you was as frequently said as Fuck you. Our ‘love’ was exhausting, but it was the only thing we knew for 3 years.
You see, because my ex was all I really knew, I had settled for less for a really long time. Each and everyday, I woke up and told myself, “This is the best it’s going to get, you need to make it work. We need to work.” This was so toxic. He’d disrespect me and do things that I didn’t like and I stayed silent. I had thought that every fight was a step closer to losing him, to losing happiness, to losing it all. I let a lot of shit go, didn’t express my feelings because they’d always backfire, and I went to sleep hating myself because I felt like I was just floating in my relationship with no way out. I had honestly believed he was meant for me, and we’d last forever. Despite how scared I felt, or how I needed to convince people he was good to me, or how I needed to cushion how I felt with him because he’d always blow it back in my face. Being honest, I knew I deserved better… I was just so scared that I’d never be able to find better. That some how, he’d end up being that better. That he’d some how wake up one morning and change. He was all I knew, and all I thought I wanted to know. But, after months of getting disrespected and finally coming to my senses… I’ve realized that I will never be truly happy if I stay with him out of fear. Those little sprints of hope were not worth the marathons of fear.
Now, I’m not saying that my current boyfriend is the one or he’s the best I’m going to get. I can’t say that confidently yet because it’s very early in our journey together. But, people notice how happy I am now, and how I look less afraid. I’ve had a lot of my family and friends express how different I look and how I carry myself so differently. “You look so happy with this boy, I haven’t seen you smile like that in a while” is a phrase I’ve heard several times since introducing him to my friends and family. While I love hearing this, it also makes me feel really shitty. Because it shows me that the people I cared so deeply about had noticed how unhappy I was – and my convincing did nothing. I was so desperate to show everyone that I was happy and in love with my ex, the only person that believed that narrative was me. I was so jaded and afraid that the only person that needed to come to terms with how I was really feeling was, well, me.
Another thing that woke me up was the fact that even some of the people I met through my ex had approached me and told me that I deserved better and I looked so miserable. I was kind of taken aback by the amount of people that came out of the woodwork to express how they were surprised I had stuck around for so long because of the way they saw me being treated. I was so brainwashed and needy, I probably wouldn’t have done much with the information anyway. It just goes to show how no matter how hard you try to put up a facade, people will always see right through it.
Now, I can truly say I’m happy. I feel safe with the guy that I’m with now. I don’t feel like I need to censor my feelings, or treat him like a child. I enjoy having him around, and I love getting to know him. I enjoy the vibes we share, and I enjoy how we treat each other as equals. Our communication is incredibly open, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t tell him. I can feel myself falling for him more and more each day – BUT, he is not great because he treats me how I should be treated. I am not falling for him because he’s respecting me like how I should’ve been respected.
I’m falling in love with him. But, this time I’m really trying to define love with a lot more clarity and honesty with myself. He’s showing me that love is not all of the things I had felt before – the things I felt were pride, infatuation, helplessness, and settling. This love, if it is love… is compassionate, supportive, trusting, uplifting, contagious, and a whole book of things I could go on and on about.
A gentle reminder,
It’s okay to say you weren’t in love in your past relationships. I really do believe the meaning of the word changes with time and with each passing person you decide to assign the word to. You’re not being bitter or saying that you weren’t in love because you didn’t work out – it’s okay. The phrase just gets more and more powerful with each new definition it takes on. If there’s any advice I can give… say it when you mean it – when you absolutely mean it. Do not say it just because they’ve said it, or because you’ve hit the 6 month mark, or because of some other parameters you’ve set for yourself to be able to say it. The one and only standard you should have for saying I love you is when you really feel like the person your with personifies the new definition of love to you.
Inhale, Exhale 