“True love does not only encompass the things that make you feel good, it also holds you to a standard of accountability.” ~Monica Johnson
I remember the confusion I felt as it slowly began to register to me that he had indeed read all of my messages and was indeed ignoring me. Even though my eyes were telling me this, it still didn’t make any sense.
Just the day before, he’d initiated contact, called me beautiful, and wanted to know the details of my day. We’d talked all day that day, as we normally did. But this was a new day. And he ghosted me. He discarded me.
It hurt like hell. My heart felt like it had literally been ripped out of my chest by the Hulk. It was forceful and it was intense.
This absolutely could not be happening. So I ashamedly sent a few more messages, but he still ignored me.
My tears flowed like a steady spring rain. My head hurt. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want to sleep. I didn’t want to do anything but see a notification from him, proving me wrong. Proving to me that he did not ghost me, that this was a terrible dream.
But that solace never came.
For the first few days after this, I craved him like my favorite dish.
But then I started to realize that this man who’d shared so much intimacy with me had just left me with no explanation. No goodbye.
So I became angry.
I was slowly going through the grieving process. Denial. Sadness. Now anger. I was about to enter my next phase, which was acceptance. I reached this phase through accountability. I realized that even though the way he exited our relationship wasn’t mature, I wasn’t innocent.
I’d been needy, desperate, and clingy, and I’d hung my self-esteem on his “hey beautiful” texts like a person gasping for air. He was my air. His validation is where my self-worth started and began.
I began to realize that I had pushed and pressured him. I had made him the source of my joy. I had put a heavy burden on him. I was taking love from him and not giving him love in the way he needed it.
It would have been easy to play the victim, to say “woe is me” and hate him. It would have been easy to be resentful, bitter, and full of venom.
But instead, I chose the road of accountability.
I extended him grace and realized that as humans, we are always doing what we feel is best for us at each moment. I extended him forgiveness and I forgave myself.
I looked back over the last months and realized that I had abandoned myself. I had abandoned the self that was secure and had outsourced my self-esteem to him. It wasn’t fair to him. He hadn’t signed up for that.
Yes, he could have handled it better. He could have had a conversation with me. He could have done all kinds of things. But at the end of the day, that’s his cross to bear. My cross is that I had to begin to heal from this experience, I had to grow from this experience, and I had to evolve into a woman who was ready for true, genuine, reciprocal love.
I knew, deep in my heart, that he was the catalyst. So I thanked him. I released the hurt, anger, and confusion. It turned out that ghosting experience was the best thing that could have happened to me because it put me on the journey to true love.
Through this experience I learned:
-The importance of knowing your worth in a relationship
-To recognize and understand my boundaries
-That it’s okay to be selfish and put your needs first in dating
-What it really means to love and accept myself
The day I thanked him in my heart and released the pain from that experience I learned so much. That day mostly taught me how living as a victor will attract the deepest love you have ever felt. I’m so happy I didn’t listen to my ego and stay in victimhood. I conquered. I took accountability.
If you choose to see what you gain from breakups, even the ones that break your heart into a million pieces, you will be much closer to experiencing a love so strong it will knock you off your feet.
If you want a deeper love, you need to be whole. Wholeness requires healing.
So many people are walking around as empty zombies, full of resentment and bitterness. Usually this happens when we’re unable to take responsibility for our part in a hurtful situation.
I understand you may have been cheated on, lied to, left in the cold, used, or, like me, you were ghosted. But do you see how in some ways you might have ignored red flags, or you were not firm in your boundaries, or how you sought validation outside of yourself, or were clingy, or pressured the other person into a relationship?
I am not blaming you. I am not making you wrong. I am asking you to take accountability for how this situation can teach you where you are wounded, and use it as your catalyst. After you’ve come out the other side you will be so much closer to transformative love.
The purpose of accountability is not to negate what the other person did or to make you feel regret, shame, or guilt. Those emotions do not serve you; they only keep you stuck in a downward spiral.
No, accountability is about realizing you have more power than you think. In many cases we get our hearts broken because we give our power away. We make others responsible for our happiness, joy, and worth. It’s not fair to them.
When we put people in this position, they may feel cornered. They may feel they have no other option but to run. That doesn’t condone immaturity or insensitivity. But odds are, they don’t mean to hurt us; they just don’t know what to do. It happens. If we dry our eyes and ease our anger we will see that this situation provides an opportunity to take a deep look at ourselves and recognize just how much love we are giving ourselves.
In order to get love from anyone else, we have to love and heal ourselves. We then are able to attract whole and healthy people who are ready to love us like we truly deserve.
Guess what?
The next man I met became the love of my life. And six years later, he has never ghosted me.
About Angela Holcomb
Angela S. Holcomb, aka the Wifed Up Coach, coaches women on how to embrace their authentic feminine essence and become high value women who date intentionally. She is also the author of, 21 Days of Feminine Magnetism, you can get the first two chapters of her book free on her site. Also, be sure to join her Facebook group.
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.
Empowering article and yet elegantly written in ways that touches the soul of many who’s going to be reading this. At least, I know it did for me. As I read through each and every line, it brought back memories of the past. Even though it was a difficult time in life, it made me for what I am today – a better person, a much stronger and resilient me. We grow from our own experiences. In the end, we hold ourselves accountable to being all that we can be.
sometimes it serves one better to live and enjoy life independently, than to hope for a ‘deeper love’ which may never happen.
Thank you for this article. It is exactly what I needed to read in this moment.
Nothing like the experience of breakup to open the door to the opportunity of discovering a deeper relationship with ourselves and Love. Its great when that can happen within a relationship however it often the pain of a breakup or two that we be come aware.
Exactly this happened to me and reading your story brought back memories. The good part is, I released him in my heart and even though he came back with a flimsy excuse, I have decided to love me 1st and not anyone be in charge of my happiness
A breakup doesn t make room or open the door to stronger relationshops. Either it makes you cynical, or fearful of love or closes your heart to love, well for me it turned me to a cynical and sceptic about love.
Exactly what I needed at this time in my life. Thank you!
Thank you for your insight. And that was the intended purpose to help others who are growing through those difficult relationship times.
“The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you’ll never have.” ― Søren Kierkegaard
I’m sorry your experience of Love has wounded you so. There is a time for all things including cynicism yet I wonder what might be discovered if and when you open the door and allow yourself to flow through.
The word wound is interesting as it is related to the word wonder. To be wounded is to be opened and opened… we wonder. All wounds are openings. Love is a opening… is there a connection? Can we be fearless and risk the wound for the gift of wonder?
“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious.
If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door.
If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door.
If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.” – Clarissa Pinkola Estés
“Oh world who is young, and has loved so deeply,
and been so betrayed,
whose skin hangs like rags,
whose arms have no muscle,
whose eyes have lost luster —
Open the door of your heartache,
step through the door of your betrayal,
pass through the hole in your heart,
Pass through!
It is a door.
– from Clarissa Estes poem ‘Abre la puerta, Open The Door’
Open, easily said but very hard to do. Where is the door, and how to open it? This is a language i can t undestand. That is what my therapist tells me, but doesn t seem to tell me how to proceed. He says i a m refusing to see.
How to do that practically? This post doesnt tell how to do that in real. Everything else is literature.
Perhaps it would be better to find new interests/hobbies which would make life more interesting, rather than dwelling on what might have been. Good Luck
In hind sight that question, What love got to do with it and or what is Love was me walking through the wound as I sought out help.
I look back now and realize that walking through the door of the wound started by feeling it, all of it which eventually allowed me to separate myself from the experience. I let go of blaming my x for the pain I was feeling and instead felt it for what it was, I let go of the imagined future I had created by mourning it.
This created space where I could do the work Angela Holcomb column points in discovering what part my expectations of relationship and Love played in the experience. It was difficult not keeping the focus on my x and what I lost so for me I might say it was a process of forgiveness (forbear, forgo, forget as in not dwell, forgive.) Surprisingly mostly needing to forgive myself however we all enter this journey by different paths.
I think when people talk about the wound having been an opening to self discovery were doing so from a place of hind sight. If I was told that my wound was an opening to healing and deeper relationship to the idea of love after having been gutted after a breakup, I don’t think I would have been able to hear it.
I needed to be angry for a while and cynical, depressed, mostly angry. Angry at the person I loved and knew loved me… but it wasn’t enough, angry at myself, angry that the world didn’t conform to how I thought it should be. I wanted to understand and was frustrated when I couldn’t. What’s Love got to do with it
You may not realize it now however I suspect as you are asking these questions and seeking help you have stepped through the door of your wound.
Be kind to yourself as you make your way
The weird thing is everyone seems to know exactly what it is all about. Everyone seems to be very aware of this opening thing. I must be too stupid to see the way, that is what more frustrating.
Guess since when i suffer from this state? Eight year and i have seen nothing or realized nothing of what you told me. Nothing worked for me. The last thing i did is stop trying. I am sick of trying and expecting.
Thank you. I am not dwelling on it. But i know that if i don t put a full stop on it (a real one) i cannot move on.
Thank you for sharing this. My wife didn’t ghost me, but she left after 15years. It forced me to look inward and found so much i did not know about myself and how I contributed to the most wonderful woman leaving me. Yes my heart is broken, but I am not, and I am a better person for it.