2016 was a shit storm at best, everybody I know seemed to have a terrible year! It was a terrible year for news with so many music and film legends dying and let’s face it, it wasn’t exactly a great year for politics either.
The first 3 months of 2016 were like riding Stealth on repeat, more ups and downs than 1 person should be able to handle. In the first 3 months I had spent New Year’s in the most romantic city in the world, moved out of home and into a house share with the person I loved, celebrated our first Valentine’s day together shortly followed by our first anniversary… which was then shortly followed by a horrendous break up, great way to start the year.
I had dated guys for short periods of time before and obviously had to deal with the fall out and feelings when things fizzled out, but this was my first real relationship and more to the point the first person I can ever admit I truly loved. We didn’t start out in the most conventional way, we knew of each other but ultimately only really started speaking through the magic of Tinder. We both played around for a number of months, until eventually I said we needed to either try and make it work as a relationship or call it a day, luckily that worked in my favour and 4 months later he said the 3 little words every girl wants to hear (although it was an accident at the end of a phone call whilst he was away traveling for a month, but hey! I’ll still take it!). We were happy as Larry in those first 6 months, we were both as goofy as each other and trusted the other person with everything. But as can happen with couples, you get stuck in a rut and that was our biggest downfall.
I’m not going in to the details that broke us up, that was between us and that’s how things will always stay. We were both as bad as each other and now I’m at a point where I can say that we both contributed to our break up, but at the time this was 100% not how I felt. Because I was not the one who ended the relationship, I took on all of the blame. I started to question everything about myself; Did I push him away? Was I the real reason this whole thing ended? Was I too jealous? Was I exaggerating situations in my head? Was he not attracted to me anymore? I drove myself and my family CRAZY for the first 2 weeks. I convinced myself it was all my fault and factor of all of those things. I couldn’t sleep, I wasn’t eating and I cried a strong 90% of the time, the minute someone mentioned his name or asked me what had a happen I was reduced to a hysterical mess. This whole phase lasted around 2 weeks, the wakeup call was when I realized what impact all these thoughts were having on me physically.
Like most girls, I was comfortable in our relationship so I didn’t care about what I ate or in my case how much I ate (I really like food, that’s not a secret), I am lucky that my lifestyle is extremely active and good genes have blessed with me with a small frame and fast metabolism; so even at my biggest I have never really been more than a size 10. He would make jokes about how he’s fattened me up in our relationship, but sometimes I took these jokes as genuine digs at my weight, so when we broke up part of me thought if I was the same size as when he met me that would miraculously change things (stupid, I know)! But loss of appetite also comes hand in hand with stress and I had none what so ever; whether this was a subconscious effort on my part I’m not entirely sure. My friends and family made passing comments about how little I was eating and that I looked as if I was losing weight, I didn’t really bat an eyelid to this and just brushed comments off by saying I didn’t feel hungry and that I was Ok. After I had gotten through the messy 2 weeks and I started to accept there was nothing I could do to fix things and that actually everything wasn’t my fault; the girls realized that this was about the right time for a night out, it was when I was shopping for something to wear that I noticed what impact the not eating aspect was having. I tried on a size 10 dress and it was too big, I tried on a size 8 and again it was too big… I had gone from a size 10 to a size 6 in 2 weeks, best diet ever right? As I was changing from a size 8 to try a size 6 that was when I started to notice things, my collar bones were really obvious, as were my ribs and hip bones. I had lost nearly 2 stone in 2 weeks… This was a massive reality check, why was I letting a minor issue in the grand scheme of things effect me in such a dangerous way?
After all the tears, irrational decisions and arguments with family who were only trying to help, I started to realize something… This wasn’t all my fault. I left that relationship feeling like everything was all because of me and that I was an awful person but this wasn’t and still isn’t the case. I gave that relationship my all, I compromised on big lifestyle choices that I shouldn’t have even thought twice about, I was there for him when things got really shit and I did everything I could to help him out when he needed it. Yes, at times I would always want things my own way, yes at times I would act jealous or irrational and Yes sometimes I would take things out on him. I’ve never been in a proper relationship, I’ve never had to compromise on things and the same could be said for him. We were both SO stubborn, we couldn’t just let things go and would often argue for hours. We never talked about our problems, we would just bottle it all up until one of us exploded at the other. As much as we loved and cared about each other, there came a point where it just wasn’t enough anymore.
Despite our lack of trying, our break up wasn’t clean and it wasn’t straight forward. We met about a week after we broke up to talk about what was going to happen with me moving the rest my stuff out and to talk over how we were both feeling. We met in a neutral place, mainly so we couldn’t scream and shout at each other. To say that being in each other’s company was uncomfortable was an understatement, we even did the awkward hug at the beginning… It was hard to believe that someone who I loved that much and who I thought of as my best friend now made me that on edge. When we first started talking, he was clearly in no mood to try and work things out, the first half an hour was him blaming me and saying it was all my doing. But I didn’t fight it, or blindly deny it; I just accepted what he had to say and then said my piece. As much as I wanted it to work, it wasn’t going to, He didn’t want to change his lifestyle and I didn’t want to compromise on things I believed in. As much as we wanted to, we just didn’t have what we used to. The one thing we agreed on was that he was going to be there with me while I packed up and moved out so we could learn to be civil around each other and we could sort whatever stuff we shared.
Breaking up with someone is hard at the best of times, but breaking up AND essentially being kicked out of the place you’re living… that sucks! Having to pack as much of your stuff as you can in to one suitcase as quickly as you can whilst your now ex-boyfriend sits watching you is one of the hardest and most confusing things I have ever had to do. By the time I got home my mum and my best friend were there waiting for me, after I had balled like a baby for a good couple of hours my friend offered to unpack my case for me. This is when I then realized I had packed NONE of the relevant stuff I needed. We broke up on a Sunday, I hadn’t packed any of my work clothes or brought any of my work stuff back from the house… Great one Jem, Bravo! When it came to me actually moving out and he was there to help me, emotions were seriously high! It took days for me to move out of 1 room because we would both be reduced to tears sorting through stuff or talking about stuff. Up until this point in our break-up, he had shown no emotion. I had been a mess and a total mess and he would seem as though he was absolutely fine. To see him feeling just the same as me was a massive relief, even though deep down I knew he cared and I knew he was upset, actually seeing it was strangely comforting.
After I moved out, we didn’t stop speaking and we didn’t stop seeing each other. We would sneak around in the hope that no one would see us or know that we were talking, even to the point where I wound up crashing my car after we were caught together. I felt as though no other person in the world would want me and that he was it, this was around the time when the girls planned a night out for me. On this night out, one of my friends bumped in to someone she knew so we started to talk him and his mates. Later on in the night my friend told me that one of the lads in the group was interested in me and wanted to speak to me, but he had recently gone through a break up and wasn’t sure how to go about it. After a gentle push in his direction we wound up talking, the usual sort of chat you have in a club which was then followed up the next day with a friend request. The rest is sort of standard, we start talking and go on a few dates, it never really amounted to anything but this was a massive step in the right direction. After being with the same person for nearly 2 years, I’d been on a first date again; I had done the whole getting to know them thing and I had an ego boost in the process. Me being me, I decided to crack back on Tinder and I can honestly say this was the best choice I had made in a long time! It had now been about a month since we had broken up and all thanks to Tinder I was about to meet someone who to this day I care about immensely!
Tinder is a wonderful thing, it provides the perfect ego boost after a break up, light entertainment on a dull evening and If you’re lucky like I have been it will introduce you to some of the best people. My success rate with tinder has always been pretty good, a lot of the people who I have met on there (even years ago) I still talk to on a daily basis, there are some not so happy endings but that’s a whole other post. The guy that I had the pleasure of meeting was and still is my biggest success story and a person who I now regard as one of my favorite people. We dated for about 5 months in total, He lived just outside of London so we would see each other like every other weekend. But our lifestyles were just too different and the distance was hard, I can honestly say if he lived closer I would snap that up and never let him go because people like that don’t come around every day. After being so self-conscious about myself and being so worried about accommodating another person in my life that way, he made it so easy and made me feel so much better about myself. We still speak most days, spend the odd weekend with each other when we can but more than that I know he is someone who is going to remain in my life for a very long time.
I was back in my prime and loving life! I had grown closer to my existing friends and my family, Made the ballsy decision to quit my job, booked a holiday to see one of my best friend’s half way across the world, celebrated my 22nd birthday by getting horrendously drunk in Brighton by 2pm in the afternoon. I was in a great place, but somebody else wasn’t… It’s true what they say about relationships, or in my case at least; Whilst I had battled through the emotions and the self-doubt and started a new adventure, it was only just starting to hit him. I have (or as it is now “had”) the tendency to be a real people pleaser, I couldn’t bear the thought of him being miserable and despite trying I wound up meeting with him so we could talk, He told me all about how miserable he had been and how he was starting to realize how much I used to do for him and how much I meant to him. It’s hard to hear… Especially when I had just started to find my feet.
To cut a long story short, after I came back from America at the end of August I decided to give things another shot; After everything that had happened It didn’t change the fact that I was in love with this person and he was still in love with me. So we compromised yet again and realized we both had to change, I had to learn to relax and realize that somethings were beyond my control and in return he would alter the aspects of his lifestyle that I didn’t agree with. I had to at least try, I could have said no but there was a risk I would have spent the rest of my life saying “What if?” and for a short period of time it was perfect. I had my best friend back, what’s not to love about that? Except things very quickly went back to how they were and there were a whole new load of trust issues manifesting themselves as a result of our previous break-up. We started to argue again and they just seemed to get more and more spiteful, there came a night when we just both knew what was going to happen. The next day, we met and talked things through; We shouted and we cried but more importantly we stopped kidding ourselves and finally wised up to the fact that actually we were having a negative impact on the other person’s life, so we called it a day… again. The break-up went the same again, we struggled not to talk, we would secretly meet each other and wind up having a cuddle, we both jumped straight back on Tinder, it was only after I drank my body weight in Gin and woke up at his that I decided enough was enough.
A few days later; I matched somebody with someone on Tinder, someone who I had very briefly been texting a few years ago but not much had come of it. He was in the exact same position as me and just wanted company, it was what it was. After talking to someone who knew nothing about our situation; I realized that it just needed to end, so the following day I saw my ex and said everything needed to stop and I can safely say, I haven’t seen him since. We have the odd text here and there when one of us misses the other and there are days where I wish I could go back and start everything over, But… I’m still happy and I learnt a hell of a lot from that relationship, that’ll help me in future ones.
The things I learnt in that relationship:
- Jealousy is killer – I was so proud of what I had but terrified I was going to lose it. I threw daggers at any girl who tried to speak to him, I had nothing to worry about because he was loyal and he was with me.
- Personal space is underrated – I wanted to spend every minute of every day with him! But now? I love my own company! Any guy I date now has to accept that there are times when I just want to be by myself!
- Don’t compromise on something if you firmly believe in it – I compromised because I thought he would change, I thought he would realize how much it affected me and alter the behavior, no. Now I do not compromise on my beliefs, if you want me to then you’re a nonstarter.
- Don’t ever doubt yourself – I doubted everything about myself in that relationship and I had no need to.
- Don’t be so hard on yourself – Reality is relationships come and go, your first is your best and your hardest. It’s not your solely your fault! There are two people in that relationship and actions in the run up will ultimately effect what happens. Input from both parties will break up a relationship.
But most importantly, the world goes on. In the grand scheme of things your break up is a minor hiccup. Pick yourself up, surround yourself with good friends and family and you’ll be just fine; You’re only a twenty something after all.
x
Life, Love & Disasters. 