It's almost like it’s every girl’s destiny to get stuck on a guy in high school. You start to believe in the fantasy of the High School Sweethearts, and you play all into it. When you look at him, you see the boy that will someday be your husband and the father to your kids. This fatal attraction to an awkward, puberty-struck boy ultimately ends up in heartbreak. Now you are devastated because the boy you thought you were going to marry, ended up breaking your heart and he never grew up like you had planned.
It’s common knowledge that women mature faster than men and it seems like a trend that girls often accept and allow their boyfriends to use as an excuse for their behavior. And I’m not saying you can’t make it through an immature relationship, because you can, but it’s important to realize your self worth and what you deserve. Throughout high school I started to make excuses for my boyfriend, saying he just needed to grow up and that he was going to change into the man I wanted him to be, but the exact opposite happened.
The innocence of our relationship was lost somewhere after falling out of that puppy love phase that seemed to consume the first year and a half of our relationship and graduating, and now that I wanted something more serious than a prom date and late night Cookout trips, it started to scare me that he wasn’t the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I seemed to grow up faster than he did. Every time I seemed to find something I wanted out of life he seemed to want the exact opposite. We had fun together, but we argued about everything because our minds and hearts started drifting into different directions. I started to think about our lives after college and what we would need to do as a couple to make it through the next couple years, and his main focus was what the next addition to his truck would be and how much better that would make him look. He started to avoid talking about a future together and eventually started to avoid me altogether. I started to realize how toxic and unrewarding the relationship I had been trying to build was and I knew it was time to find someone who thought about the bigger picture, someone who thought about us, not just himself, but it was hard.
At first the idea of letting go of our three-year relationship scared me. My friends and family started to notice we weren’t the same couple we once were and several friends tried to get me to end things, but I was stubborn and believed in giving us a fighting chance. I fought for us for several months until I finally realized my friends were right all along about him. He wasn’t fighting for us, he wasn’t even fighting for me. Seeing him slowly give up on us and turning his back on me hurt more than anything, but I’ve learned more from him than I could ever imagine.
I don’t regret going through high school with him, mostly because at the time it was great, but trying to fix the relationship that was broken because I grew up and he didn’t, was impossible and absolutely exhausting. Now looking back, I am able to appreciate the person he helped mold me into. He was the reason I wanted more because I often looked at him and his immaturity and didn’t understand how he was so stuck. We had a good run and I wouldn’t be the same without him, but I finally have realized that it is time to move on. The memories will always be with me and I’ll miss all the fun adventures and the silly jokes we shared together, but he wasn’t ready to be the man I needed him to be. He opened the door for someone that can be everything that he wasn’t and I am so thankful for what our relationship taught me about myself and what I deserve.
