“It hurts to let go, but sometimes it hurts more to hold on.” ~Unknown
When we’re deep into something it’s hard to see clearly and to hear advice from others. It’s hard to focus on a solution when we are consumed with the problem.
It’s the difference between playing and watching a game of chess. It’s so much easier to see checkmate when you’re not the one playing the game.
That’s what happened to me for the last five years.
I spent every breathing moment consumed with a man, unable to listen to those who watched me struggle. I spent five years doing everything I could to try to force a man to love me, and in the process I forgot how to love myself.
For five years I chased. I begged. I cried. Nothing seemed to work. He would come around when he wanted sex but would push me away when he got his fix. It was a never-ending cycle of depression and humiliation.
I destroyed my reputation and slaughtered my dignity with my crazy behavior, and I still couldn’t understand why he would treat me with such little care. But how could he not? I treated myself with so little love and respect, why would he treat me any different?
Still, I couldn’t stop. I was afraid that if I did he would forget me. For five years I lived in fear of losing someone I deeply loved but never really had in the first place.
And then I got pregnant, in the midst of the chaos and passion that was our on-and-off relationship.
Everyone around me pressured me to have an abortion. I knew they were worried about me, but it just wasn’t for me. I don’t know if it was because I was carrying a child from a man I had loved for so long or if it was guilt, but I just knew I had to keep our son.
And even though my ex’s only consistency in life was his pattern of not raising his children, I blindly believed he would raise our child. While everyone told me he was going to bail again, I vouched for him. I broke off friendships and I fought with those who dared to accuse his character.
I was wrong.
From the moment I told him, he made it clear that he wasn’t going to come through for me. He hurt me during the most vulnerable time in my life. Then months later he told me he loved me.
We did this back and forth game throughout my entire pregnancy. It felt like an eternal emotional tug of war. It was draining. It was humiliating. It was hurtful. But every time he left I chased him because it was the only thing I knew how to do.
I chased him out of fear.
I chased him for me.
I chased him for our son.
I chased him for the home and family I had built in my mind for so many years.
I chased him out of embarrassment for how others would see me. The possibility that people would think I wasn’t worthy enough for him after I got pregnant was more than I could handle.
And most importantly: I chased him because I was emotionally sick.
Although I was able to pull him in a couple more times after my son was born, only to be pushed away weeks later, I still held on to hope that one day he was going to wake up and realize he loved me. And the three of us would finally be a family.
That never happened, of course. My son and I never got that family. And I now know we never will.
I think the hardest part of this five-year ordeal was accepting that my perspective of reality was just a fantasy I had created in my mind.
For the longest time I held on to this idea of love and my ex. I put him and our connection on a pedestal. I idolized and worshiped every part of him.
But when he blocked me from his life, leaving our son fatherless, that pedestal came crashing down, smashing every dream and every good feeling I had for him.
It was hard to walk up to my friends and say, “You were right.” It was even harder to come to terms with the reality that he is less than perfect.
Part of me hates myself for holding on for so long. I could have saved myself years of heartache and gallons of tears if I had just accepted that I couldn’t make him love me. Instead, I spent years questioning over and over why he couldn’t.
I spent another year trying to force him to be a dad.
If only I had tried harder. If only I had been nicer. If only. If only. It took me years to accept that his actions had nothing to do with me. Just like my uncontrollable behavior and emotional instability was beyond him, his actions were about him and him only.
He had his first two children in his early twenties. He then had his third child with another woman in his late twenties, and then he had our son in his mid thirties. Four children. Three different women. Three different sets of circumstances and times in his life. All the same result.
It was never about my son and me. There is nothing I could have done. There is nothing I could have been. The result would’ve been the same: him out the door. Or more precisely, him kicking us out the door.
He is now in love with someone else. As expected, a baby-free someone else. And he is committed to her—which proves that when a man wants to commit, he will commit. There is no need for us to beg and chase him.
If a man is not committing to you, or your child, he just doesn’t love you.
It might sound harsh, but that’s just the way life is.
Loving someone who doesn’t love us back, or even worse, someone who loves someone else, is the most painful thing in the world. But the most important thing we can do for ourselves is accept that certain things are beyond our control and take responsibility for the things that are.
We need to listen to that inner voice that tells us we deserve to be loved. And we need to accept that some people will never love us, no matter what we do.
The grief and the pain will eventually pass. And this will open the door for us to find someone else who will truly love us and give us everything we wanted with our ex.
But first we have to give up hope. It will never be the way we want it to be. That person you’re waiting on won’t wake up one day and realize they loved you all along.
Giving up hope is the hardest part of moving on, but it’s the most important.
We can’t complain about someone hurting our feelings if we keep letting them. We can’t complain about someone mistreating us if we keep coming back. And we can’t complain about wasted time if we keep walking in circles.
If I had spent the last five years putting the same amount of effort into myself as I did chasing, controlling, and trying to get my ex to love me, I would have been president of the United States by now.
I will never get the last five years back. It was a lot of wasted time and it was a lot of wasted effort.
Wasted time is wasted life.
About Brisa Pinho
Brisa Pinho is a project manager, aspiring writer, and single mother of a baby boy. She lives in Los Angeles and when she is not changing diapers and putting out temper tantrums, she is drinking wine and over-analyzing her life. She can be found at www.singlemomoutloud.com, where she shares the joys and desperation of single life and motherhood.
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 
I really enjoyed this article up until the last line “Wasted time is wasted life”. Surely it is not wasted time when you learnt from your mistakes with more self respect and you have a son to care for as a result of that time.
It may seem like he is committed to who he is with now, but I will bet he will find someone else down the road….he has a definite pattern. You are better off without subjecting you and your son to the incongruent behavior. Love and and respect yourself!
A very honest and inspiring post. Thanks for sharing the lessons you learned from this relationship – we can’t keep sabotaging ourselves and blaming someone else. At least it was only five years, right – to keep things in perspective – instead of a lifetime:) Great writing, Brisa!
I want to say thank u so very much for this article. This brought tears to my eyes because I couldn’t have said this any better. Everything she said, its me all over again. The chasing, not listening to anybody, feeling so used and being pushed away when he got wat he wanted. The back and forth of not wanting to be with me and than not wanting to be with me. But my story was way longer than hers. Would have been 15 yrs married this August 18 and 6 kids later. My oldest is 21 and my youngest are twins that just turned 1 this April. He just left last night.
I just want to say how much I admire you for yr courage, even if you think you may have been lacking in it during yr time with this dude. I too got pregnant a few years ago, but it was with someone I had only been dating for a short while. And like yr friends, mine all urged me to terminate the pregnancy as well. That choice wasn’t for me either, but I was scared everyone would judge me or get mad at me or whatever, I had all these crazy thoughts pass through my head so I did it anyway. I lacked the courage to do what I knew was right for me, I let others tell me what I should choose in this life & I have lived with regret & depression & suicide attempts & nonstop misery, soul-crushing despair ever since. I was a fully “normal” girl before the abortion, with no mental health issues, just living my life, then BOOM. I now live a life filled with such regret I literally wake up at night choking on it. But anyways. This is a happy post. I am glad you got rid of the negativity in yr life & just so you know, it wasn’t a wasted 5 years. You got a beautiful baby boy from it. Best of luck to you two xx
This was a great read. I had feelings for a man who didn’t return them. Then my so-called friend suddenly had his phone number and was texting and calling him, and they’re now friends. And possibly more. Dear God, that really hurts. I keep wondering what she has that I don’t have. I am just so sick and tired of being rejected.
I so much understand hw u feel. Right now its my own cousin and she’s married and has kids and it was also a very close friend and b4 that it was any body I brought around. So sad but so true.
Hi Barbara
I am glad you enjoyed the article. I am sorry you are in pain. I know its hard. Hang in there. It gets better with time.
Thank you Nunya!
I am sorry to hear about your loss. Abortion is a loss and it should be treated as such. Be kind on yourself. Stop judging yourself. You did nothing wrong. You did the best you could given the circumstances and the knowledge you knew at the time. Please seek professional help for your depression. Its not shame in that. I have suffered from depression all my life, including postpartum depression and I know its no joke. I hope you start to feel better soon.
Much love
Brisa
You are very welcome Angie and I am sorry your husband left. I cant imagine going through what you are going through. It was already hard as it was and we were never married. Rejection is major loss. Its equivalent to death so please be kind on yourself and take care of yourself.
Thanks! Exactly! I’ve learned that people change for two reasons: when they see the light where when they feel the burn. I had to feel the burn to be able to change and move on.
Thank you!
Hello! I am glad you enjoyed the article! =)
I meant that when we waste our precious time chasing someone who doesnt love us or doing things that hurt us we are ultimately wasting our lives. Yes, my son is definitively a gift! =)
I just said goodbye to the man I have been madly in love with for almost ten years while he didn’t care about me at all. You’re right. I wasted my time.
Amen to all of this, a great read for my present situation. Thx.
Thanks for this post. I appreciate the courage it took to be vulnerable. I feel compelled to share that the new girl did not “win” anything but the same confused, lost, commitment phobic person who drove you crazy for five years. My experience has been that these people keep going, but they don’t change. You, on the other hand, are doing both. And that is what matters. Kudos to you!
I am in a similar situation. How do you move around socially if most of your mutual friends side with him/her and you can’t feel but notice that everyone is behaving normally but you are the one who is hurting
To both Narayan and breeze but is letting go and giving up hope the same thing? Is it not a negative thing to give up hope?. The person who left me is a nice person and even though I apologize and tell that I have changed she doesn’t want anything to do with me. I didn’t hurt her at all ,just she got annoyed as I was too friendly and needy and cut me off after an argument.Now I have to see her hanging out with all my mutual friends with her ignoring me blatantly.How do I give up hope or let go when I have to see her everyday. If it is a bad person I can give up hope, bit she is a nice person. Also I feel that I screwed it up every time I see her and unless she says its okay, I dunno how to.move on or find closure. But she is not the the type to talk about these things on her own neither does she want to hear me out. I dunno how will I find closure.
Thank you!
But you gained wisdom! And that’s priceless!
True! 😀
Pattern sounds way too familiar. I’m hoping I’ve finally learned my lesson. That tiny sliver of nonexistent hope gets me every time.
Wow! Thank you! It’s been a year since I left a 5 year relationship where I had 80% of what I always but was ultimately kept at a distance. He has a new girlfriend and boy was it painful to hear about! Your words explain everything I’ve been feeling. I was so mad at him and myself and felt like i’d wasted so much time. But I’ve learned a lot and am more sure of what I want and more confident than I’ve ever been! I never could explain why he’d want to marry me and at the same didn’t want me to meet his friends and family. So many things just didn’t add up and it took me 5 years to finally say, this doesn’t make sense and I need to quit trying to figure out why it’s not working. I put in so much work. It was exhausting. I’m grateful that would share your story so I know i’m not a lone. I’m awesome and life is great!
It gets us all!
At least u had sex, not too bad
Yes. Extremely addicting sex. Which can be a problem, because it was one of the reasons why we kept going back and forth for so long.
This is classic narcissistic personality disorder behavior. I guarentee that he will not stay committed and faithful to whoever he is with now!
Wow, this is exactly my situation. I can’t believe I put up with it for so long. I was always there to take care of him when he was sick or lonely. But he ignored me in public and wouldn’t acknowledge me. I am so angry I let myself be insulted, used, and discarded for his ego trip. When I got pregnant, he made sure to tell me he would have been nicer if I was anyone else, tried to bully me into aborting my child, made fun of my morning sickness, and never took care of me. Now that I’ve had the child, he wants parental rights. It has driven me crazy. Besides, no matter what he does, he is always the victim in his circle. How are these people so charismatic? In the meantime, I’m working on focusing on myself and my child. I’ve been treated well before and will again. I deserve love and to not be with someone who is ashamed of me and destroys my self esteem.
Wonderful article, Brisa! I’m sorry to hear what you and your son went through. I’m happy though to see you have risen beautifully out of it. You bring up a great point: Loving yourself and acknowledging your own desires is incredibly important.
Thank you! =)
I am sorry to hear that Maggie. I hope things get better soon. The best you can do is focus on your child and yourself. Be good to yourself. Dont be too hard on yourself. Everything in life is a lesson. I have learned that people change/move on for two reasons: because they saw the light or because the felt the burn. I had to feel the burn in order to come to realization that I couldnt continue on the path I was on. One day it just hit me that something had to change. And things havent been better since. I hope the best for you and your little one!
You are definitely not alone!
After reading this story, I feel like I wrote it…..
This article hit close to home in many ways, Thank you for
sharing your experience. I am going through something similar with my son’s
father. I do not love him nor was I ever in love with him but I have been
wasting my time trying to make him want to be a father to our son. The lesson I
have learned is when someone shows you who they are believe them. If I would
have done so in the beginning I would have saved myself an ocean of tears.
Now the man I had been dating for the last year has said he
is not ready to be dating a single mom, so I believe him and as much as I love
him I have to let him go. I know someday I will meet someone who will love me
and my son, until then I am trying to love myself more.
Again, this just seemed me. The conflicts, the pain of rejection, the chase, everything. And reading this post and the comments, there are so many in a similar boat. i am glad you were able to accept and move on Brisa, i am trying to do the same.
Here’s a little lesson for people who struggle to see that gay relationships are just like heterosexual ones; I spent the last 5 years in a similar situation with my ex-girlfriend. She loved me madly and then she threw me away like I were garbage being taken out to the curb. The good thing was that I reached a state of enlightenment when I realized that I had started loving her more than I was loving myself. I learned about my co-dependency and now I am working a recovery program. This is what happens to the child who grows up in a home full of alcohol and drug addiction. I learned to forgive myself and I am moving on. Everyday is a struggle but the struggle is getting easier and easier. I tend to think that these people come into our lives for a reason and that is never time wasted.
There s a really good book that has been around for over 20 years that speaks to this issue, it’s called “Codependency No More” by Melody Beattie. I have been reading the book and working the workbook. My relationship left me devastated and this book (along with lots of meditation) has carried me through. I wish the best for you Brisa and for you Maggie. Peace, <3
Thank you for sharing your story.
This was exactly me for 4 years instead of 5. I used to wonder why God put me through such shitty times but I now know that it was to make me stronger. It was the hardest time of my life (even worse than my father’s death; yeah I know, f’d up) but I’m grateful now that I’ve gotten as far as I have now. I could feel and resonate with your pain, and I totally know how much it sucks. Just be glad it was only 5 years instead of 50 😉
Thank you for sharing this! Aside from having a child, this story could have been mine. And the sex was definitely what kept us both from walking away. I’m afraid I’ll never have that much excitement with someone who doesn’t abuse my heart. I feel so humiliated chasing someone that everyone but me could see would never couple with me. Although he always said he wanted to be good
friends, he also gave me messages that I was mentally ill or that if I did A, B, and C I would get more of what I wanted from him, but then when I got more grounded and started doing what he’d been asking, he still didn’t come around. I have no idea how to deal with the garbage dump of feelings I have left over. Was I abused? Was I just a fool in love? I definitely don’t feel loveable these days. He’s happily moved on to someone he’s giving all the love and commitment I always wanted.
I have been through a similar situation. Brilliant friends at first and the compliments were flooding in ‘your the kind of girlfriend i want’ ‘you would be the kind of girl i would bring around my friends’. then feelings grew and an immature me wanted to crack straight on with things (hey we already knew each other well so why play games and wait around? tbh i was lonely as well). We starting sleeping together and i would say only 20% of the time was spent in bed, we hung out as well…only round his house though…(writings on the wall). After probing the question 6 weeks in…so whats going on here then? the walls came down and this whole thing had been in my head basically (even when hearing him tell strangers i was his girlfriend). Everytime i was done, he wasnt. Everytime he was done. I wasnt and the whole stupid thing went on for 3 more months. I even visited his miserable ass on christmas day as he spent it alone, bought him a present…no present for me. It was when i saw him again shortly after and his attitude towards me was disgusting i realized ‘I dont want to be the one dumped in this situation, if i dont finish with him i will lose the last bit of dignity i have in this situation’. so i did. I called it off. He said he didnt care but I got abusive drunk messages from him at midnight. so whatever. He was just mad that i beat him to it i think. Anyways, he got a new girlfriend within a week, spoke about her like garbage and has cheated on her. They live together now. poor love. Moral of the story is ladies, the EX may seem like he is giving the new woman all this commitment, because thats what he needs to do to keep her (we gave it up to easily im afraid) BUT he is still the same troll he was to you, he is just less honest about it with her. I know i would rather have someone treat me like garbage to my face than behind my back! I was hurt for a long time as we were friends before, i really trusted him BUT I know i will never let any man treat me like that again and I will never treat myself like that again, life is to short to waste it on someone who thinks you are a waste.
This is an honest sharing and it highlights how we allow abuse in relationships when we are chasing the love that we are not willing to give to ourselves, so we become needy and clingy for someone when we know the relationship is not honouring and respectful of who we are.
Yes, I agree with you Fran. When we deny loving ourselves, we are already in a relationship of abuse with ourselves… and this then opens us up to allow all manner of behaviour from others that would otherwise be totally unacceptable.
And I love this line Brisa ‘If I had spent the last five years putting the same amount of effort into myself as I did chasing, controlling, and trying to get my ex to love me, I would have been president of the United States by now.’
We can choose to either invest in choices that distract us from, and take us away from the one thing that is most precious to us; or, we can choose to invest in the one thing that guarantees the quality of everything else in our lives – that is, building a loving relationship with ourselves.
I agree Gem firstly with “. . gay relationships are just like heterosexual ones” as whoever we are having an intimate relationship with whether it be same sex or opposite sex the very same issues come up. From my experience after separating with my husband of 35years I moved in with a woman I had been friends with for about 30years and before long all the same issues I was having with my husband starting coming up with her. She seemed to doing everything that ever annoyed me the very same things I had attributed to my husband. And we were not even in a sexual relationship just living together as housemates. So in the end I concluded that I was the only common denominator in the scenario. It was then I could see that I needed to take responsibility for my attitudes, my beliefs and my ideals that were
causing the annoyances and the conflicts that followed. Since then I have been
able to understand how my husband must have felt and we are now dating again
and working on rebuilding our relationship from a totally different
perspective. So I agree “people come into our lives for a reason and that
is never time wasted.” . . .if we are open and willing to look at our own
part in the process. Also your realization that you were “loving her more
than I was loving myself.”. . .was major, as I now know the more we love
our self the more we are able to be open to love, and part of loving our self
is taking responsibility for our part in what ever life is offering us.
Hi Brisa, my feeling from your article is that you are being way too hard on yourself. From where I stand I can see that you have learnt many valuable lessons from this relationship so
there is no way you could call this a waste of time. You have been able to
accept “that my perspective of reality was just a fantasy I had created in my
mind.”. . these are your words and this is a major realization and the first
step needed in order take responsibility for what comes up in life. But by far
the greatest realization you have shared is this “If I had spent the last five
years putting the same amount of effort into myself as I did chasing,
controlling, and trying to get my ex to love me, I would have been president of
the United States by now.” This is a super important revelation that is the key
to all our relationship problems. I spent 35 years trying to get the father of
my 4 children to say that he loved me and he very honestly would say was that
he didn’t know what love is. He agreed to married me after a discussion with my
father after I had become pregnant with my first child.
We broke up about 4 years ago and I have realised since that what I wanted him to give me was what I needed to give myself – the love, care, time, patience, consideration, tenderness, appreciation, acceptance, understanding and the list goes on and on. Since I started this new relationship with myself in the full commitment that I deserve, that each and everyone deserves. Since then he has seen me in a whole new light and visa versa. We have now been seeing each other for the past year and have got to know each for the first time in the 40 years since we first met! It is amazing how we can cloud our vision of another if we
demand from them what we are not willing to give to our self.
No relationship is a waste of time. After all if life is not about learning to love what is it about?
Beautiful Kathleen. It’s so true what you have said here, ‘It is amazing how we can cloud our vision of another if we demand from them what we are not willing to give to our self’. I notice this daily – if I am not bringing myself the love, and deep care to nurture me, it impacts on all of my relationships, not just with my husband, but the way I see and relate with my work colleagues, friends, family and even the people I meet at the supermarket.
Its simply not possible for you to control how the other person acts, and willing that to happen is a source of pain for so many people (even in this thread). In my experience the only way forward is in learning to love yourself, regaining your self worth no matter what. Fill the emptiness from the inside, with an appreciation that you are already this gorgeous, divine person. No one can take that away from you.
And the difference when you meet someone who overflows with a love and appreciation of themselves is immeasurable – its the most magnetic quality of all
I know that feeling of ‘it was such a waste of time’, and that can be very true. After 20 years there are some real basics in my relationship that are very painful to look at. But that is my point – I have not learnt despite all these years, just to be myself and stop trying to please other people.
If I choose a life for me that is full of love, and break the cycle / live a different way, then I evolve, the relationship evolves. When I fill myself with love, it naturally overflows and everyone gets it (partner, kids, friends) and that is the greatest thing we can learn in this life.
Hi Kathleen,
Thank you for the kind words! I did learn valuable lessons and I got a beautiful parting gift =). I just wish my son didnt have to suffer because of my poor choices. But I am also a firm believer that everything happens exactly the way its supposed to happen so I am excited to see what the future holds and what beautiful man will end up being my son’s dad. I am happy to hear that things are working well for you and your husband! I am a complete sucker for happy endings especially if it includes kids and family. Once again, thanks for the kind words!
Exactly!