I realized this morning how incredibly needy and stupid I had been acting recently. After a conversation with My Husband that ended with me begging for him to respond to my texts and emails, I sat back in complete horror. I hadn’t learned a freaking lesson in the last 3 years.
This time 3 years ago would find me locked in my room, watching endless Friends reruns, and subsisting solely on saltine crackers. My college boyfriend had broken up with me a few weeks before, and I literally stopped functioning as a normal person. I was always sad, had stopped eating, and continually cancelled plans with friends. For the first week or two after the break up, I was delusional enough to believe he would call and tell me he made a mistake. I left voicemails and sent text messages. Then I woke up one day and thought to myself, “He would have called if he missed me.” I went cold turkey – not an email, text, or call for at least a year. I didn’t even open a Facebook message he sent me, deciding I’d rather not know what he had to say because it definitely wasn’t going to be what I wanted to hear. I eventually recovered, as all broken hearts do, and moved on to new relationships and new adventures. I was always proud of myself for that day, when I acted on the decision to stop being a needy, annoying girl.
Three years went by and I did a great job quickly moving on from the guys who didn’t call and breaking up with the ones who were making me unhappy. When I found my friends stalking Facebook walls I would always silently congratulate myself for not having Facebook stalked an ex in years. Karma’s a bitch though, and all that self-congratulating caught up with me yesterday. I realized I had fallen back into old habits. You know the ones, like checking your phone even when it didn’t beep, looking at time stamps on Facebook to see if he was online, therefore maybe checking his email and possibly reading what you sent, and of course the biggie – pleading with him to respond to your messages. I am so unbelievably embarrassed that I would fall into the trap and become that clingy person again.
So this morning I made that conscious decision again and am setting myself free. For those of you who have never done this – it does NOT come easy and you have to be committed. I took some important steps to becoming independent again; I logged out of Mobile Skype so I would stop checking to see if he had messaged me (the ratio of my messages to his over the last week was embarrassing) and called a friend about a life development instead of emailing him. Now I should be clear that this is a completely different situation from the break up in college – I have no plans to end communication with My Husband! I just need to rescue myself from Got-Stupid-Because-Of-A-Man Limbo. I did it once before and I can do it again. Becoming aware of the situation was definitely the important first step.
One of the toughest parts about becoming independent again is finding people to vent to and ones to listen when you are excited over silly things. You can’t overburden one or two people here – that’s probably why guys get annoyed in the first place. Looking back, I know where I went wrong with My Husband. I complained too much about being lonely here without my girlfriends and he tired of hearing all my different life plans. Since I know this now, I can change what our conversations are about and talk to other friends about that bad day at work or my attempt at a new recipe. I traveled alone through Thailand for goodness sakes; I don’t need a man to text me to have a good day. Of course it is nice to feel like someone is thinking of you, but I was fine without it before. And why does his opinion make or break a decision? I have no idea, and I hate when I feel like this. It's time for me to make myself happy and do my own thing. Hopefully My Husband will make me smile once in awhile, but if not, this time I won't let it get to me.
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