I am a strong woman. I’m certain of myself, confident in my abilities and am comfortable with who I am. I’m proud of that.
But the second you get involved in my life, all of that certainty goes out the window.
Traditionally, I can compromise with anyone willingly, with you I’m forced to in hopes I can keep you around. I lose my opinion and my voice that I am so used to having. You call it compromise, I call it caving in order to make you happy, even if it doesn’t mean I am. It’s a sacrifice I make all the time and I can’t stop doing it.
I usually get text messages or Snapchats and either take hours to reply or can do it within seconds of receiving it. With you I strategically plan my moves. I might read it, but how long should I wait to reply? The calculations swarm my brain and I find myself in an unintentional mind game because I don’t want to come off as clingy to you.
I’m an open book and often voice my opinions and thoughts fairly quickly. But with you I’m in restraint and cannot voice my affection as much as I’d like to.
Without you in my life I keep all options open and am as free-spirited as they come. But then you pop up and ruin that. I become closed for business and have to put up a front because I know that’s the way you think I truly am. You’d get overwhelmed with my true self so I have to contain her not to scare you off. I know I should let you walk away if that has to happen to keep you around, but I can’t help it.
I fall apart the second you come around and no matter how hard I try I can’t hold it together.
My rational, logistical and realistic side vanishes and I suddenly focus solely on you and your needs. I care too much about your opinion and let it alter me unwillingly. It’s as if you need to leave for good so I can move on and find someone who genuinely wants me and loves me for the real version of me. Not the broken girl holding herself together to keep you around.
What kind of sick power do you have over me that forces me to change myself? I can’t put my finger on it. And right when I think I have made the right changes and have put my finger on the contributing factor, you show up and it’s all out the window again; then I’m reaching out to grab the pieces of me I just collected that are flying away as easy as feathers.
This guarded version of myself shouldn’t be the woman the person I love sees. This should be what a stranger sees who I’m trying to leave a good first impression with. I’d like to try and keep my options open and this strong version of myself alive, but it’s unrealistic. There’s zero chance that this could ever work out long term. So why do I repair myself knowing I’ll get trashed again?
Letting you in used to feel like a blessing but now it feels like more of a regret. With each time you leave, I’m broken. And each time you come back I’m still destroyed but frantically trying to put myself back together so you don’t see the shattered image of this girl.
The worst part is you have no idea how much damage you have caused me. Or how hard I’ve fallen apart because of you. You’ll still always see a smile and painted-to-perfection type of mask. And I’ll never let you see the shattered pieces.
Featured image via Photo by Angelo Lacancellera on Unsplash
Hi girl, I came onto the Unwritten looking to see if there were other woman who might have similar feelings in dating as I do right now. About six months ago, I accepted a job across the country in Alaska. The morning I was boarding my flight I found out my boyfriend of 2 years cheated on me. I was devastated, fucking pissed, and near hysterical. I sobbed on the whole 4 hour flight to Seattle, wipping snot and tears in a middle seat with my scraf, no shame, just broken and letting it soak in. The only room I had in my brain space were my emotions and my emotions alone. In previous relationships and dating, I felt very similar to what you described. I felt calculated, forced and an overall restraint on who I was in that sphere of my life. Which fucking sucks so hard, right? Being the outspoken, confident humans we are, who love this world and want to express that in all facets, it makes being in a relationship where you cant express that near painful. When I was cheated, he made a choice that directly impacted my life without consultation. I cherished our relationship. He ended by fucking up super hard, whether intentional or not, not even mature enough to break up with me or to even tell me he cheated on me. It was deceitful, and honestly, felt fucking rude.
I had such rage for the first few months, I couldn’t be anything but bold and outright in my thoughts. That period of absolute fury lasted a long time. I started seeing this guy who I challenged at every opportunity. And he would get this deer in the headlights type of look, like this might have been one of the first times a girl in his life directly called him out on his tendencies, no passiveness. And every time I push, I get afraid that i’ll loose him, right? What if i say or do too much? But a little piece of my brain is like ” fuck no, fuck that, seriously fuck him, you are a fucking GEM”. I assure you and anyone else who’s reading this, you’re a gem too. I always find comfort in ” you could be the juiciest peach in the world and some people just don’t like peaches”. You’ll rock someones world, but don’t settle for an apple person. It is truly empowering to be who you are, and have someone love you for it. And utterly devastating being something less than yourself for anyway. Be you, you rock. I promise.
Hi Maggie! I am so sorry for what happened to you. I too can relate and I know many other women, and even some men, around the world can relate too. In terms of whether or not you should continually speak up for yourself, I think if it’s something minor (like if he’s messy or something like that) than let it go only because there are larger issues at hand. If it’s something little that keeps re-occuring then sit down with him and talk about it calmly. If it’s something flat out rude or degrading then absolutely speak up. I think it’s all in the tone in which you speak. It’s natural to feel like your pushing him away, but if he can’t accept the fact that you refuse to be treated a certain way sometimes or spoken to, and isn’t willing to change his ways this may lead to a huge problem in your relationship. Hope this helped, thank you for your positivity!