Date someone who treats you like shit so you know what you deserve. Sounds logical, right?
Let me tell you, I have witnessed people that I love date people who treat them like shit… and it does not teach you that you deserve beautiful, simple love. In fact, it teaches you that you should accept less than what you deserve.
This article that went viral called “Date Someone Who Treats You Like Shit,” (I’ll let you read the madness here) concluded that people who date shitty people will, in return, find someone who treats them with respect. It goes to say that after you date someone who practically emotionally abuses you, that you will realize the type of love you want and need.
Cue the rant.
Relationships are not a test run or something you use to see what you really want in life. We can’t choose who we love, nor can who choose how they decide to treat us. We can stand up for ourselves in situations, but at the end of the day, you can’t change a person. You can’t make a person be your own personalized version of them, because it is then we lose touch with the person we fell in love with. We can however, choose who we allow into our lives.
I have watched some of my closest loved ones deal with people who treated them like they were nothing. They dragged my favorite person around like a rag-doll and took them on an emotional roller coaster that left her crying on my floor at 3 a.m. This “person that treated her like shit” didn’t teach her what kind of love she deserved. Instead, she still struggles with loving herself and accepting any form of kindness.
When someone treats you with no respect, you don’t accept respect once they leave you. When someone abuses you, you don’t forget that experience once they forget about you. When someone doesn’t care about your tears, you don’t accept the people who do. You have been trained to deal with these things and you have been trained to think that someone who doesn’t treat you like this doesn’t love you.
I watch people I love still struggle to accept anyone that shows them love. They can’t move on from their bad relationship because they were put through so much hurt—because the person who treated them like shit didn’t teach them shit.
So, do not date someone who treats you like you are nothing. Don’t date someone who leaves you crying on the street corner wondering what on earth you did wrong. Don’t date someone who ignores you for days, cheats on you, or calls you horrible names. This teaches you nothing. And it teaches you that you don’t deserve great love.
We are all deserving of that real, raw love.
If someone is hurting you, emotionally, physically, any way, you need to leave. Plain and simple. That is easier said than done, but once you're trapped in that cycle of hurt, you lose touch with what you really want. We all start off as young people, knowing exactly what we imagine as a perfect relationship. But, the second they cheat or lie, we begin to settle. We compensate our wishes and hopes to stay with this person who isn't meeting them.
You deserve to never feel like a healthy relationship is too much to ask for.
It doesn’t take a border-line abusive relationship to teach you that. What you need is to keep the people who love you close, and accept when someone is actually going to treat you kindly and respectfully. Sometimes we don’t think that we are deserving of a fairy-tale like love, but we are. We just need to keep our loved ones close and the people who treat us like shit far away.
