I would love to be mature and say I wish my ex all the best — but I don’t. I don’t wish him the worst, but I will never wish him the best.
I’ve spent a year and a half “getting over him.” Still, the aftermath of him has been emotionally disastrous for me. Some wounds don’t heal. They just scab over, and now and then, they tear open. I won’t be bitter forever, but the pain may still pop up every so often.
That’s the funny thing about breakups. They mark an ending, but the emotional baggage has a way of lingering, like a ghost that haunts me.
I should have been more aware of how my relationship was going to end. Everyone hated him. I could not name a single person who liked him — not even my parents. It’s ironic how the same advice I’d given friends about their terrible boyfriends would have saved me so much trouble, but you never listen until you’re ready. My rose-colored glasses saw past the red flags.
It’s hilarious to think how I’d convinced myself he was different, that he was misunderstood, that I could change him or even worse, that he would change for me. I made excuses for all of his toxic behaviors and every time he crossed a line.
Playing therapist, martyr and girlfriend all in one, I twisted myself into someone I didn’t recognize just to keep him satisfied.
People talk about red flags like they’re these giant billboards you can’t miss, but when you’re in a toxic relationship, they can look more like rose petals — soft, harmless, something you can brush off as a misunderstanding. It wasn’t until I was buried under a mountain of those petals that I realized I couldn’t breathe.
I was gasping for air and grasping at straws trying to not lose him. What I didn’t realize is that I was losing myself piece by piece, until I couldn’t remember what it felt like to be confident. It’s crazy how someone can have that much control over your emotions without even realizing — or maybe they do realize it.
The relationship ended. I was “too much,” and he needed to rethink his priorities.
I was distraught. I tried every unhealthy coping mechanism in the book. Every decision I took was based on him. He never left my mind, even though I had left his long before. It took him around three weeks to find someone new. Even Olivia Rodrigo wasn’t enough comfort for what I was experiencing.
It felt like a twisted joke. I was drowning in heartache, while he was seemingly unscathed. And the worst part? He didn’t even have the decency to pretend he was hurting too. While I was piecing together the broken parts of myself, he was out there, carefree, as if our relationship had been nothing more than a blip in his timeline.
I did many things I’m not proud of, trying to fill the void he’d left in me. I went through phases — recklessness, self-pity, anger and denial. Anything to distract myself from the fact that I was consumed by someone who could not have cared less about me. I hated him. I hated myself for letting him have so much power over me. And even though I knew deep down that he wasn’t worth it, I still couldn’t stop obsessing over what he was doing, who he was with and why I wasn’t enough.
Everyone told me, “You’re better off without him,” “You deserve more,” or “This is just making way for someone better to come along.” It’s been a year and a half, yet I still haven’t come to like someone like I did him. At first, I convinced myself to obsess over other guys, trying to replace the feeling of hurt and move on, but that only made things worse. I went after men who gave me nothing, because I believed that was what I deserved.
Over time, I realized that I needed to work on myself, and it wasn’t until I allowed myself to hurt that I started to get better.
Getting over someone isn’t linear. Some days I woke up feeling okay, like I could finally breathe again. Other days, I felt like I was suffocating under the weight of all the memories. There’s no set point when the pain stops. It just starts to fade into the background until one day, you wake up, and it doesn’t hurt as much.
I used to carry anger and sadness, but now I take this experience as the best lesson life could have given me. I won’t lie and say I haven’t made any more mistakes: I have, even recently. But, I’ve taken the biggest step someone can take — I’ve forgiven myself.
You spend so much time resenting the other person, but eventually, you realize that the person you really need to forgive is yourself — for staying too long, ignoring the red flags and letting someone else dictate your worth. It took me a long time to get there, but once I did, everything started to shift.
The anger isn’t completely gone, but it doesn’t control me anymore. If anything, I control it. The sadness lingers, but I’ve learned to sit with it, acknowledge it and let it simmer until it passes. I don’t know if I’ll ever forget the damage that relationship did, but I’m no longer defined by it. I’m learning to redefine myself on my own terms.
It’s funny — he probably doesn’t even think about me anymore, and I’m okay with that now. I don’t need closure from him. I don’t need an apology, or an explanation or a “what if.” I’ve made peace with the fact that some things just end without reason or resolution.
I’m still healing, still figuring things out, but I’m finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And for the first time in a long time, I’m excited to see where that light will take me.
