“When you blame others, you give up your power to change.” ~Dr. Robert Anthony
On March 18th, 2011, I received an email that forever changed my life.
“You got me—I’m seeing someone else.”
That’s the only line I remember. I had noticed that my boyfriend at the time had been acting “strange” and confronted him on it. He fessed up to me in an email while I was at work. There was nothing I could do and nowhere I could go.
I felt that burning sensation on the back of my neck. I wasn’t sure what to do next, so I sat there at my desk in my office in a haze for the rest of the afternoon.
I spent the next few days plugging along, assuming that since I had not shed a single tear, everything was just fine. It wasn’t.
Three days later, I walked into my house after an evening of hanging with friends, and all of sudden it hit me: He was gone. I was alone.
I broke down, sobbing uncontrollably. I saw no hope, just days and days of pain ahead of me. Unfortunately, that would come to be true.
Until that point, I was a “relationship jumper.” I’d move from one relationship to the next with little to no break in between, and had done so for fourteen years and four serious relationships.
Not once during that time had I stopped to think about what I wanted.
My fear of being alone far outweighed any desire to get to know myself, so I continued on from one relationship to the next, wondering with the ending of each one why it had failed.
Of course, I blamed all of them. There couldn’t possibly have been anything wrong with me. I was a good girlfriend—I supported them, was there for them, gave more than they did, kept my mouth shut and tried not to get angry with them, stayed with them even when I knew something didn’t seem right. (more…)
