The 30 Year Heartbreak

I have entered a new stage in my life. A stage I truly was not prepared for.

I turned 30 this year, which is sadly not the stage I am talking about, I happily turned 30. I felt like I had been 30 for years and embraced my 30th year with open arms. I felt like 30 brought with it this grand optimism of a new decade of my life. Everything I had learned in my 20’s could be put to good use. What I had not learned in the last 10 years however, was how to handle heartbreak.

I have been in relationships before, long ones, short ones, ones that could be better summed up as, “Please gather your clothes and exit the apartment through the door to your left. Thank you for your patronage, have a great day”. But the most recent took with it 7 years of my life, an apartment I loved so much I cried when the landlord offered it to us, a dog who was more like my child and a man who I deeply loved. So what happened to our loving utopia? There was attention to be found elsewhere. Attention he didn’t feel he was receiving from me anymore. I went about my life blissfully unaware that he even felt this way, until the moment he admitted he kissed someone else. Now began the spiral of questions that we all struggle with when something like this happens. What could I have done differently? What did I do wrong? Did I push him away? How did we get to this point after a seemingly happy and loving relationship of 7 years, one we always joked was far better than any other relationship we had witnessed. We loved comparing our relationship to other couples we came in contact with and reveling in the fact that we were so happy. But I had clearly missed something along the way.

It took me taking a new job where we weren’t seeing each other as frequently to let the light shine through all of the cracks in our seemingly perfect relationship. It took exactly 2 months for him to look elsewhere for companionship. Instead of discussing the issues he felt in our relationship he confided in another woman, creating an emotional bond between them that eventually led to the destruction of it. It took me 3 months to finally get the courage to walk out the door and end something I had worked so hard to create. The problem with that sentence is the absence of “we”. I had made a life for us, I had done the bulk of household chores and I had worked through any issues we faced. The problem was, he wasn’t apart of most of it. I began to feel like his caregiver rather than his partner. When I wasn’t around as much to tend to his needs he looked elsewhere for someone that could. This was a massive realization for me that I was simply replaceable to him.

This hit me so incredibly hard that I couldn’t stand to live another day in this apartment I loved so much with this man who was seemingly incapable of understanding what I was feeling. Over the course of those 3 months, I tried so hard to get past the hurdles that came our way. The kiss, the constant talking to this other woman, the group trip he went on without me that she was on, the pictures that constantly surfaced of the 2 of them together, her coming into the bar I work at that she had never stepped foot in before and him lying about all of it. I kept putting a timeline on how much I was willing to put up with. How much time I would give him to prove to me that he wanted to fight for our relationship. Those days came and went and came and went and I felt more alone than I ever had. I felt that I had to do everything in my power to save our relationship so that when the time came to walk away, I could do so with no regrets. I had lost 30 pounds in less than 2 months, my mental and emotional health were dwindling and I was starting to feel as though I had gone crazy. We were in a constant argument and I felt like he was trying to push me to the brink of being the one who had to end things. The running trend in our relationship, me having to take charge and make the hard decisions.

It was only when he saw me packing “our” life up and moving out that he asked me to stay. At that point it wasn’t me he wanted, it was the comfort of his life that I had built around him that he wasn’t ready to part with. Another blow, another moment that made me feel completely non existent to his world. The day I moved out, I looked around this completely empty apartment and really saw for the first time how much effort I had put in through the years without realizing. The rooms and walls were bare except for a few items I wasn’t spiteful enough to take with me and a room full of his hobbies. His hobbies that had taken precedence over our relationship and over me for years. I wasn’t there when he came home that night and I’m sure he felt some sort of emotion, but it isn’t one he has shown to me.

I feel like I am the only one grieving the loss of us. My companion, my best friend, my life for 7 years. I feel angry, sad, hurt, betrayed and lonely. Alone. You always hear about grief but you typically associate it with death, at least I always had. I now had this overwhelming grief to work through and the only person I wanted to share it with is the one who created it. It has taken me a few months to see that this is a true form of grief and that I don’t have to feel bad for feeling it. I recently found out that the new girl is pretty much living in our old apartment, just a month after our relationship had ended. In a way finding out gave me a sense of relief. Relief that I wasn’t crazy and making everything up in my head as I was told for months. That a kiss wasn’t just a kiss. He showed his true narcissistic qualities and made it clear that any companion would do, it didn’t have to be me as long as someone was there as a distraction.

I have spent a painstaking amount of time looking back at our relationship and seeing the red flags that I didn’t see while we were together. Every plan he made for the future didn’t include me because he wasn’t able to see past his wants and needs. He was unable to fully commit to the things I wanted for our future as if they inconvenienced him in some way. While I know ending our relationship was in my best interest, it certainly doesn’t make the process any easier.

Just know, if you are with someone that doesn’t ever put you first, they never will. If you are with someone who shows narcissistic qualities, they will never feel bad for how they treat you and it will always be your fault. If you are with someone who values everything above you, they will never see your worth. You will never change your partner, no matter what small compromises they have made they will only ever change what is convenient for them. If their future plans don’t include you, they most likely never will. We deserve more, much more. We are all worthy of love and a partner who isn’t afraid to give their all. While 30 hasn’t been going to plan I know there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. I know this feeling won’t last forever and one day I will again feel whole.

“She was not crazy, she was a victim of your narcissism, finally free from being a puppet to your manipulation. She was not crazy, she was awakened to the reality of who you are, growing aware of the deceit your mouth has fed her ears. When did she go crazy? When she realized her worth and came to the conclusion that she should not be in competition to feel important to her so called lover? When she stopped begging for consistency or demanding it, but found her way out of this love circus instead of carrying your promises in the center of her heart, waiting for the day that you would fulfill them? Was it when she started to doubt your secrecy, refusing to title it as privacy when for you, it was nothing but a way to do your dirt in silence? Was it when your empty “I love yous'” started to feel like bullet wounds to her? She grew bolder, but you created this mind game to make her feel foolish for coming to her senses. You convinced yourself that you were playing chess, trying to out think her moves instead of joining hands with her and making your play about protecting your queen. Crazy is the woman who loves blindly with itching ears, accepting of everything. Crazy is the woman who sees how her heart is being tortured and decided to stay to take care of yours. Crazy is the woman who does anything for love even when that love does nothing good for her. She is many things, but a crazy woman is not one whose blood boils with frustration for being fooled. It is not a woman whose eyes carry anger after being punished for loving too hard, and it is definitely not a woman who is smart enough to recognize your game and demand an audible out, or she will quit. The problem is not that she’s as crazy as you claim. It is just that she wasn’t crazy enough to leave you long before.” -Pierre Alex Jeanty