I’m a clingy person. I know that. I take each and every small detail, any change in tone, any slight inconsistency in routine, and I flip it over in my mind repeatedly until I come up with some bizarre explanation for why something changed, and what I had done to cause it. This is how I lose people. No one has ever really cared to stick around and work through it with me. Yeah, maybe it is a trust issue, but if you had been in my shoes over the past few years, you’d have trust issues too. I don’t necessarily believe it’s all about a fear of abandonment while that may explain part of it. I truly know that if I am left, I can and will bounce back and recover enough to continue on with my life. Hell, I’ve done it enough. I think it’s more of a frustration that people don’t see that I’m trying to fix it. Instead of helping me work through it, they just kick me while I’m down and walk away, further emphasizing the problem. I cannot for the life of me, pinpoint when this behavior started. It must have been fairly early on in my life. However, I can recall feeling like it was being used against me as almost a punishment in a previous relationship which completely destroyed any progress I had made in the past of resolving this “problem.”
Once this person discovered how reliant I was on routine and consistency in a relationship, it felt like they began to purposefully demolish the consistency in the relationship by ignoring me or starting arguments, and even beating me down about who I am as a partner in an intimate relationship. Everything I did seemed to be wrong. Eventually, it turned into constant fights and me feeling like I was always apologizing. Relationships are supposed to be healthy, rewarding and something you can lean on in troubling times with someone who loves you enough to work through your issues, whatever they may be, by your side. Somewhere along the line, I forgot that. I fought constantly to try to keep the other half of that relationship happy, no matter the consequences, so that I wouldn’t be left. There was no compromise; no truly resolved arguments.
Only me admitting guilt and defeat even when I wasn’t in the wrong. Now that I am in a new relationship with a man that compromises, a man that will admit when he is wrong, and a man that makes an effort to never use my demons against me, I still struggle with the emotional toll of that previous relationship.
Every now and then, he has to remind me that silence does not mean neglect or that he’s actively ignoring me, and that slight inconsistencies do not mean that his feelings toward me have changed. It’s a process, and as I’ve very recently discovered, it does not change overnight. I have to have faith in the relationship and trust that he will not do what has been done in the past. It’s a difficult journey, but it is one that I must continue on, not for my relationship, but for my own personal mental health and well-being.
Disclaimer: I’m sure the ex-boyfriend mentioned has a different story about how the relationship felt and looked from his perspective, but this isn’t their side of the story. This is mine. This is how I, as an individual, feel in retrospect. This isn’t to beat him down or to say that he was a terrible partner. I know that I equally share the fault in the deterioration of that relationship. The relationship was just as unhealthy for him as it was for me, and I’m sure he, too, struggles with the aftermath of the events that took place when we were together. I realize that I hurt him too.
