The first time it happens, you blame the circumstances. Maybe it’s not the right time. Maybe he’s not ready for a relationship. Everything happens for a reason, and if it had to end then it’s for the best that it was now instead of later. You tell yourself this over and over until you believe it.
The second time it happens, you blame the guy. You think that you just have bad luck; that you attract all the assholes. You don’t have time to be sad because you’re too busy being pissed off. Your friends keep telling you that he did you a favor by leaving. That you deserve better. So you take their advice and delete his number. You get rid of any evidence of his presence in your life.
The third time it happens, you blame yourself.
There must be something wrong with you. Did you misread the situation? Did you come on too strong? You reach the conclusion that there is something about you that sent him, and every guy that came before him, running scared. Maybe you are just too complicated, too something, to be loved.
The truth is, it’s not your fault that he left. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. When he sends good morning and goodnight texts every day, when he calls you baby and tells you you’re beautiful over and over until you start to believe it, and when he holds your hand and kisses you in public, there is no way to misread that situation.
He doesn’t get to spoil you and make you feel important just to rip the rug out from under your feet. Don’t think for a second that he left because you gave it up too easy, because casual hookups and one night stands aren’t followed by “I miss you” and “you’re all that I think about.” Sex isn’t just sex when there are emotions involved on both sides. Don’t let him trick you into thinking that he didn’t feel something deeper.
A guy who’s just using you for sex isn’t going to text you on a rainy day because he wants you to come cuddle. He isn’t going to take you on dates and pay for your dinner. He’s not going to offer to fix your car or introduce you to his mom. And he’s certainly not going to shower you with attention and affection the morning after, and the day after, and the week after.
This is what he didn’t want you to know: you scared the shit out of him. But not for the reasons that you think. You weren’t afraid to put your heart out there and tell him how you felt. You had the courage to ask where things were heading. And when he did a 180 and said that you were just friends having fun, you had enough self respect to ask for some monogamy. You told him that if you were going to keep sleeping together, you didn’t want him sleeping with anybody else.
Setting a higher standard for yourself doesn’t make you less desirable; it makes you admirable. But he couldn’t handle it, so he kept taking steps back until you didn’t hear from him at all.
When you confronted him he told you that he didn’t want to lead you on. That he just wasn’t ready for a relationship, and that he probably wouldn’t be for a long time. He didn’t realize that it was too late for that kind of honesty. You don’t wait until after you’ve made someone feel adored and worthy to tell them you don’t want to be with them. You don’t let someone get their hopes up so high when you know that you’re only going to let them down.
Even though your heart was broken, you still defended him and gave him the benefit of the doubt. You so badly wanted to believe him when he said that he wasn’t ready right now, because you thought that he would be ready in the future. His feelings for you were genuine, and you prayed that, in time, they would lead him back to you.
You never expected to discover that he does have a girlfriend now. You didn’t want to believe that the only relationship he wasn’t ready for was a relationship with you. The amount of time that lapsed between when you ended and they began was so short that you must have overlapped. It knocks the wind out of you when you realize that everything he said to you was just a script that he was rehearsing for the girl he really wanted. He never intended to be with you. You were just a way to kill time until someone better came along. He sweet talked his way into your body, into your heart, and then he threw you out like yesterday’s trash.
You are every wonderful thing that he said you are, even if he doesn’t believe it anymore. You should know that, whether he admits to it or not, it wasn’t all an act. It wasn’t that he never care for you; he was just a boy who couldn’t make up his mind, and you deserve a man who can commit. You should be with someone who won’t change their mind on you.
Whatever he saw in her that he didn’t see in you is not your problem. She might be the love of his life, or she could just as easily be the latest object of his affection until he trades her in for someone else. Someday you will realize that he really did do you a favor, because he taught you that you deserve so much more than a guy who needs to learn how to love you. Everything there is to love about you is already right there on the surface.
By Kelli Elizabeth for ThoughtCatalog