It seems so easy. You tell yourself I’ll ignore that text.
You won’t jump when you see their name.
You’ll keep the conversation short. You’ll keep your distance.
Your guard should be up.
But what’s the use of being guarded when someone knows every way to get to you?
What’s the use of even trying when this person knows you to your core?
They know exactly what to say and how and when to say it.
And suddenly you’re completely roped back into this thing.
But still you say, you won’t engage too much in conversation.
You know to keep your walls up because for one reason or the next you know you shouldn’t trust this person…at least with your heart.
But yet they have it.
Someone you’ve probably jumped through hoops for.
Someone you continually tried too hard for.
Someone who continued to get a lot of chances.
Because as much as you want to deny it or how great of a front you can put up…
You still care. You’re always gonna care.
Your heart is always going to beat faster when they suddenly reappear like it’s nothing.
You’ll think a little more deeply when they blow up your newsfeed.
Despite every warning your friends gave, you let him back in so carelessly and easily.
But this is exactly why you shouldn’t.
Someone shouldn’t have to leave to realize your worth.
You shouldn’t have to treat someone the same way they treat you just to teach them it isn’t right.
You shouldn’t have to think too deeply about this but you do.
But what happens when you suddenly pull away from this type of person is you gain back the control in your life as well as the control in this relationship. There are some relationships where that’s all it’s about. Whoever has control is winning.
And for some reason, this person has always been the one controlling everything.
But not anymore.
Because when you start acting based on logic instead of what’s in your heart, it’s then you’ll see a shift.
A time when he used to snap you just to see if you’d answer, then not respond but look at your story.
A time when he’d pick and choose when he wanted to talk to you.
A time when he’d pick when it was convenient to have you in his life when it never was a choice for you. You just welcomed him with open arms every time.
In the beginning, it was all about gaining your trust. Maybe there was a time where he wasn’t this person who just messed with you. Maybe there was a time when he actually tried. The shift was when you fell for him. When he tested you. When he realized how much he could get away with because of how emotionally invested you were in him. Then he tried a little less. Stopped answering every time. Vanished when he felt like only to reappear just when you thought you were over him.
“As soon as you stop thinking about them, they’ll, like, send you a text message or they’ll call you because they know you just stopped thinking about them. It’s like a radar.” – Lauren Conrad
As much as it sucks sometimes the best thing you can do if you really want this pattern to stop continuing if you really want to stop seeing you guys run in these exhausting circles, you have to stop responding.
You have to pretend you don’t care. Even though it isn’t in your nature you have to at least appear like you’re the one that cares a little less.
They say it’s the person who cares less which is the one who doesn’t get hurt as bad. But sometimes we are the ones hurting ourselves choosing people who don’t respect us the way they should.
I know what it’s like to care about someone so much you disregard logic.
I know what it’s like to want to follow your heart and hope it’s right.
I know what it’s like to get excited just to hear from them when you haven’t in so long.
And it took everything in you to put your phone down sometimes.
You waited for them to notice and that silence that broke your heart.
But when they come back like they will and I promise you they will, what they need to see is change in you.
Don’t make it so easy for them when they’ve made it so hard for you.
Show them you aren’t going to jump through hoops for them anymore.
Show them they have to try a little harder and treat you a little better to get your time and attention.
A professor once told me, “life will continue to give you the same pop quizzes until you pass it.”
All that text or call or message is when he reaches back out, is a test. A test to see if you’ve learned from the past if you want any hope of him treating you well in future.
By Kirsten Corley for ThoughtCatalog