We Dated People We Knew We Could Never Be Vulnerable With

I was listening to one of my favourite podcasts: On purpose with Jay Shetty

in this episode with (guest) Stephan Labossiere they talked about “Signs you are wasting your time in relationships & how to be vulnerable and attract real love”

Stephan Labossiere talked about our first relationships and how we were vulnerable but because we got hurt, we move on to date people we know we can’t be vulnerable with.

And I can relate with that.

I was 14/15 the first time I hopelessly and really liked (loved) someone, that was my senior high school, he was like my best friend because I felt we had gotten to know each other that well, he was my first kiss, I wanted to be everything for him. I would have done anything for him or I did to an extent lol, and he treated me badly.

Very very bad.

Made me feel like shit, made me feel like I wasn’t good enough, I was young and in love(and he was young too) lol and I can say the next people after that never really got to experience that part of me.

14/15 years old is young, and it’s okay to have these things, I mean crushes and liking someone but what I didn’t have was a strong sense of self. Plus we kids knew nothing about how to process certain emotions.

I didn’t know anything about self love, I didn’t have a secure self esteem and I definitely had no idea what heartbreak felt like, I didn’t have anyone open minded or conscious enough to have the discussion with. But I had examples around me of women who were in pain because of love, so being treated badly by someone felt like a price to pay.

So being in a position where I constantly had to prove that I was loyal, I was trust worthy and he needed to pick me felt normal to me.

In the future, the people who crossed paths with me, met the me that carried the hurt from the humiliating first experience that I never healed from.

Reflecting now, I know we were all carrying our own hurt, I can try to list some of the things my exes did that showed they had their own hurt they carried too, from the one that never had my picture on his phone, stored my name weirdly on his phone, or the one that constantly compared me to other people and criticized everything I did or the ones that stood me up, said mean things to me, gaslit or were just mean when they stopped liking me.

This is not to excuse their behaviour just recognizing their hurt.

Like we usually say, Hurt People Hurt People

Anyway, this post is about me.

Like Stephan said, we get with people we can’t be vulnerable with and for a lot of women, people we feel we can change. (a colossal disaster).

I remember holding on to that first love for a long time, even when someone else liked or showed interest in me or when I started to like someone else, I was deep in the mindset of thinking “he was my true love and I could never love anyone the way I loved him”, I know that’s false now but I didn’t then.

One of my favourite movies now, “Eat pray love”

Liss talked about how since she was 15, she was either with a guy or breaking up with a guy.

Moving from one relationship to another, never been by herself, and that’s me or should I say was me.

It wasn’t only that I jumped from one relationship to another but that I carried the hurt like lessons of what not to do in the next relationship.

For example, never letting anyone hurt me as much as that first love did.

So for someone who mostly kissed the first boy she had a crush on(like a lot lol), I never wanted to kiss again.

I saw it as disgusting, because I associated being vulnerable or that close with some as weakness and weakness was disgusting.

Moving with unhealed trauma or hurt is how we get manipulative, playing games, trying to control how close we get to someone or how we want them to see us, but most of the time, they never really get to experience the authentic part of us, just the hurt, unhealed, overly guarded self that is in search of a perfect partner that we aren’t in the first place.

I was young and I never learned about letting go, as girls or women we learned that we were supposed to do all we can to have a successful relationship as a woman. I didn’t know letting go, heartbreaks and a lot of other things were part of life experiences.

I didn’t know how important liking and loving myself was.

I didn’t know wanting things for myself was important. So jumping from one relationship to another absorbing, and adopting their goals and dreams landed me at the same place Liss was. Having no dreams, not knowing who I was, having no excitement or craving for life.

So like Liss decided to go to Italy, India and Bali, I surrendered and did my journey inside.

Going back to go forward, forgiving myself for allowing my exes and love interests treat me a certain way, forgiving myself for all the things that felt like self betrayal, forgiving myself for not knowing better. But also getting to know myself more.

On my journey, I have learned a lot, I learned having a broken heart is not the worst thing in the universe.

“having a broken heart, It means we have tried for something“

Reflecting, one thing that made me feel so bad about myself was that I always waited for them to break up with me, I was the accommodating, constantly enduring disrespect and certain things I didn’t agree with, trying to make it work, but for them, it was different. This felt like self betrayal because I was unhappy but would endure.

So this journey healed me.

I got to know myself more, got to rediscover things I like and things that fill me up with joy, and I like myself a lot now.

I learned about boundaries, I got to redefine my values or the things I valued. And most of all, being compassionate with myself and anyone I cross paths with.

Compassion has helped me create boundaries and let go of people who are not supposed to be in my life anymore.

These day, my life isn’t govern by what a man thinks, I am aware of the things that are important to me. And my life, work, relationships all are, I healed myself because I always want to show up as the best version of myself, it isn’t about anyone else.

It is about me and who I am being is important to me.

I look forward to being in love, healing, letting go and creating healthy relationships around me not just romantic ones but a community with a healthy bond. Where we learn from each other, heal and show up for one another and separately ourselves too.

Fortunately, I have this now and I am grateful for it.

Moving forward, I date people I can only be vulnerable with, I date people that I want to share every part of me with, living and loving fully. Being all in and present with it.

I hope you heal your heart too.

Thanks for reading.

Cindy Cinderella

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Check out my previous blog posts too!

Click the link to check out On purpose podcast & Eat Pray Love is available on Netflix, I recommend!!

Featured Image: Photo by Charlie Foster on Unsplash