image by Unsplash
I never thought that I could feel such emotional pain until I found out that my ex had left me for his estranged wife. You see, he and I were in the process of working things out after being on a break and although I was uncertain of many things, I was certain that I loved him and had never loved anyone the way that I loved him.
I found out the news before I moved to Los Angeles. And, after I received it, I sent him a message that he is a bad person and that I never believed in evil until I met him. These words, I truly believed. I was filled up with victimization, upset, betrayal, negativity and mistrust. I couldn’t take it anymore. Hate is truly a burden to bear.
I began my first month in Los Angeles happy to be away from him and his ‘toxic energy’. In my eyes, he was toxic because I gave him so much for many years and I never seemed to be enough for him.
Two weeks after I had moved to LA, I took a SoulCycle class in Santa Monica and the instructor played James MacArthur’s song, Impossible. I felt tears rolling down my face. The tears came as I realized that what everyone had told me would happen, had happened. I felt like my heart was defeated. I had previously been so full of genuine love and didn’t feel it reciprocated. I wanted to run and hide from myself and the world. I asked myself how I could’ve been so dumb to trust him and the idea of us when all of the odds were against us.
The odds being that we would make through his going through a divorce when we began dating and be together forever without remembering who and where he had come from.
It has taken me a few months; however, today I am grateful to be full of forgiveness towards him. This is why I have chosen to forgive him:
1. Sometimes we love and we get hurt.
We have this idea that just because we love something, we have to get the love back exactly how and when we want it to. But, that is not the case. I call this, Tit-for-Tat Love. With this kind of love, we try to manipulate people to behave the way that we want them to and, if they don’t, we leave them or are angry at them. I accepted (and am still accepting) that the love I gave him was not measured, might not come back to me from and that is okay. Unconditional love is being open to the idea that no matter what is thrown our way, we choose love because hate is heavy. I forgive him because the love that I choose to give out is not only for him.
2. Growth happens when we fall, get up, learn and move forward.
When I found out that he had gotten back together with his Ex, I felt like the biggest idiot in The World. When we had started dating, I lost many friends who refused to watch me date this older and married man and after everything, I felt like they were right. If they knew, why did I refuse to see the truth? The answer is that sometimes we have to fall to learn because once we fall, we can pick ourselves up, learn and move forward. I forgive him because I learnt that I am stronger than I thought. If I could get through this feeling of emptiness and loneliness, I proved to myself that I could get through a lot.
3. For love, I would do it all again.
After I published the last article, a friend asked me if I would live this experience again. I said yes! I would do it over again because we shared a lot of love and memories together. All of which, I don’t regret. From the moment that I saw him see me the first time we met, the moment that he saw through my ‘pretend like I don’t know you’ attitude, and the moments that we laughed together. It was all worth it. I forgive him because he had a purpose in my life and I am grateful.