10.)
People say you can’t control what people do to you, but you can control how you react—including your emotions.
That’s not true. You gave your heart to someone. You bared your deepest fears and most painful vulnerabilities. When you get rejected and replaced, of course you’d feel little, insecure, and unworthy. Your feelings are valid, even though your self-loathing lies are not truths.
9.)
Never take your insecurities out on the person who will eventually replace you. You don’t have to bring others down to bring yourself up. Today, you’re somebody’s ex. Someday, you’ll be somebody’s new significant other.
8.)
Feel free to make self-imposed rules:
– You can’t check his Facebook profile.
– You can’t check your phone every five minutes to see (or hope) that he texted you.
– In 30 days, you have to stop crying yourself to sleep.
– Most of all, you can’t text him to ask how he is!
Good job on trying to reclaim you life; good job on your attempts to move on!
7.)
…But know that rules are meant to be broken—especially self-imposed rules. You will still check his profile. It would hurt when you see him moving on, even if you both expected it.
It would be like getting an injection. You know it’s going to hurt. You know it’s inevitable. But does the knowledge lessen the pain? Could you ever truly prepare for being rejected and replaced?
He’ll post about things that you used to share: new episodes of series that you used to watch, photos with friends you used to hang out with, and places you used to visit together. You will be the sole and most jarring omission.
It would hurt if/when he deletes photos of you together. Which would hurt more: his attempts to wipe you off the virtual narrative of his life? Or his undeleted photos reminding you of happier (and perhaps romanticized) times?
How you’d wish that deleting those old photos could be as easy as deleting the pain.
6.)
You’ll be pinioned by the past you shared and the future you planned.
But the time and emotional investment in your shared past should never be a sufficient reason for you to sacrifice your present and your future.
That feeling of being pinioned and pained won’t last forever. (Barely anything does—but you probably already know that by now.)
5.)
Take your time. It’s never a race of who gets to move on first. We all love and let go at a different pace.
4.)
You might get romantic hopes and delude yourself that he will finally see your worth now that he lost you. It happens very rarely, so don’t count on it.
Never put your life on hold for someone who didn’t see your worth until he lost you.
And you don’t owe everyone a second chance. Sometimes, second (third, fourth, fifth…) chances are repackaged versions of the failure to learn from past mistakes.
3.)
Beware of this quote: “If you love someone, let her go. If she comes back to you, it’s meant to be.” It’s often a hackneyed euphemism for, “I don’t love you enough to fight for you.”
2.)
The tears he sheds as you part ways are never the measure of how much you mean(t) to him. Changes are usually terrifying. Perhaps he’s terrified of losing the comfort zone that is having you—not necessarily terrified of losing you.
1.)
Women are often told to play hard to get: the harder a man chases after you, the more precious you’ll become in his eyes. This mindset is dangerous, because we might confuse his love for the chase as his love for you.
You deserve to be loved as you are, not for the exciting game that is the quest for your well-guarded heart.
After all that happened, you’ll probably guard your heart even more. But know that you are loved and cherished deeply by so many people. Your well-guarded heart, broken as it is now, is still as beautiful and radiant as ever–just like you.
For PH, with love. <3
