How Staying With The Wrong Person Ruins Your Relationship With Yourself
It can leave you feeling lonelier than ever.
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I couldn’t wait to move into my first apartment.
I was so excited to start a new chapter and build a life that’s all my own. At that point, I’d been wanting to get my own place for a few years, but I kept waiting for the “perfect” time and place.
Since perfect never happened, I settled for opportune. My boyfriend at the time was also looking to move. It felt a lot less scary (and a lot more fun) to make that move with him, so we took that step and leased an apartment in the city.
It was amazing having my own place. We lived in a busy part of the city and we finally had a space to make our own. The first couple of months felt surreal. Living together was easy in its own way, but it became clear this wasn’t a healthy relationship.
Even a month into dating, there’d been enough red flags to cover a football field. I loved our good times together, but there was always a nagging voice in the back of my head calling out all the issues that would kill this relationship. Even so, the desire to hold onto it and the idea of this new life together held more weight. I also loved his family and friends. Despite the frequent low moments of our relationship, I felt a new kind of belonging I didn’t want to let go of.
I underestimated how much harder letting belonging go would be as time went on.
As months passed, it became undeniable this relationship couldn’t last. We weren’t happy. We attempted some version of a semi-functional dynamic, but you could feel the sadness in that two-bedroom apartment. We were the wrong people for each other and we were each becoming worse people as a result.
There’s a particular kind of loneliness that comes from knowing you’re with the wrong person.
Your friends don’t want to hear about it.
My friends were sick of me always talking about the same problems and they were sick of giving the same advice. I couldn’t blame them. The options were clear: end the relationship or stop talking about it. Part of me needed to keep talking about it. Part of me was exhausted by it. I was entirely embarrassed by it.
You can’t get attached to the place you live.
I felt guilty. Trapped. Like this wasn’t even my life to live. Nothing was mine because I knew the end was coming and a lot of things I loved in this chapter of my life would end too. This apartment I’d grown attached to. The quiet mornings I’d spend looking out from its balcony, making plans for my life over a cup of coffee. These new friends I admired and family I loved spending time with. I had more great people around me than ever before, but I knew they wouldn’t be around forever. I’d become dependent on this new life was afraid to start over on my own.
Every time we’d hang out, that same nagging voice would return and remind me that these are his family and friends, not mine. This can’t last. I loved being around them, but our time together was dependent on my relationship. When that would end, so would everything we had together. We weren’t on stable ground. Nothing I’d build there could last. Even so, the complacency and illusion were enough to keep us in it for a while longer.
You stop trusting yourself.
I’d wake up every morning, afraid of wasting our lives together and wondering how to address it and make my next move. Then the day would go on and I’d think about everything I’d lose by ending this relationship. I’d second guess myself. Sometimes we’d even talk about it, or fight, then wake up in the same bed the next day anyway. I’d stay in that cycle for months until I finally (and messily) left.
Predictably, the fear turned out to be far worse than the reality.
Leaving is hard.
Breaking up is hard.
Starting over is hard.
But it’s a lot harder spending every day feeling like you’re losing your life to fear and complacency. It gets even worse once you start to resent yourself for it.
You can’t fast-track genuine connections or a sense of belonging. Anything you build around another person leaves if they do. That being said, I can’t regret our relationship. It was a part of my life. And it’s not like I was left with nothing — the memories and lessons will always be mine.
Being single can feel lonely sometimes, but it’s a lot less lonely than being someone’s wrong person. At least now that I’m facing it, we both have room to heal and everything I build from here on out is mine no matter what.
I have my own apartment now with a new balcony where I can make plans and drink coffee in the morning.
