How I Fell Out of Love

About a year ago, I wrote a post on how I fell in love for my English class. The boy I wrote about and I have since broken up. You don't have to feel too bad though, the break up, as break ups go, was a good one. Almost too good, actually.

The day I broke up with my ex was actually one of the easiest days I've had. I cried of course, but once it was over, I felt surprisingly unburdened and almost weightless. I had to think about this of course, because I was told break ups are supposed to be hard, heart-wrenching, sitting-in-the-library-and-eating-nothing-but-celery inducing melancholy type of thing. But I felt just the opposite. I wanted to run, I wanted to flirt, I wanted to take selfies and show the world how hot and ready I was to date. Sincerely.

But that kind of thing makes you think. Well, it makes me think at least. I started to look back on my relationship, which was my first, and I had to ask myself why I dedicated a year and a half of my life to it, when being free from it felt so... right?

We fought. As normal couples do. But we fought until one or both of us was shaking from frustration, anger, or quite frankly fear. As normal couples do not do. It's not necessarily easy to speak on this, but like I said, we had a really good break up. And what that means is that I did not get to yell or tell him to burn in hell, once again as most normal couples do. So the best way, and the only way I know how, to have my cathartic experience is to write the hell out of it and then never look back. Consider this part of my annual inventory.

I deeply romanticized my relationship when I was still in it to anyone who wanted to hear. How are things with you and X, you guys are just the cutest couple! They're great, he's great, we're great. Things, actually, were not great, but none of my friends knew. This was because I knew that if I told them about our fights, they would tell me to get the hell out and the girl I was then did not want to get the hell out, she very much actually wanted to stay the hell in. She loved the attention, both from her boyfriend and from her peers telling her how jealous they were of her amazing relationship.

As a matter of fact, one time while in the middle of a fight with X, I was texting my best friend. The fight was about his drug use and how I found it to be excessive and unhealthy. And by "excessive and unhealthy" I mean, spending all his time, money, and interests on it. (I'll bet he can name you more strands than he can name you presidents.) He, on the other hand did not. Actually, he wildly opposed this sentiment. We were both on his bed while having this "discussion," I was sitting near the headboard and he was curled up into a ball near the foot of the bed and avoiding looking at me the whole time. I tried to be reasonable. "You don't have to stop it's just sometimes..." "No! You're just trying to change me. Everyone's telling me this shit, but I don't care." This conversation didn't go much of anywhere. Oh, except that in the middle of it, he called his friends over to get high. And I shit you not, I stayed while they did. I was going to leave because I was supposed to hang out with my aforementioned best friend but was told, "If you leave, we're done." and the sad, scared little girl that I was, stayed.

While I was texting my best friend about all of this she kept saying, "Are you serious Priya? Leave. Are you okay?" I was serious. I was seriously staying to witness the very thing that was upsetting me in the first place. I stayed and ditched plans with my best friend. I stayed because I thought the consequences of leaving was not worth the sacrifice of staying.

Ultimatums were pretty popular in this relationship. Another fight, one I would argue to say was our biggest was over Thanksgiving Break in 2013. I was going to be home from college for a week. X had made plans to take me to a concert on the same day of my parents' 30 year anniversary. He had originally wanted to spend the whole day together, but as the circumstances were, I couldn't. We went to the concert and things were fine. I carried on like a normal first semester college freshman on break, I met up with all my friends I hadn't seen in what felt like so long and we talked about college and all its glory. 

The last Saturday of my break, I was to spend with X and a few of our friends. He had gotten to their house before me and when I arrived, he was wasted. Just him, not our 4 other friends there... just him. He was being a little cold to me, but as he did not usually drink, actually never drank, I figured it was just his drunkenness. Later that night, I drove him home and went inside to hang out for a little while. When we were in his room, there was still a coolness to his attitude though the alcohol seemed to be at least starting to wear off. I asked what was wrong and just like that I was hit with a barrage of reasons of why I was what was wrong: I went to my parents' 30 year anniversary instead of spending the day with him even though I knew about the concert, I hung out with 2 of my high school friends one Saturday night instead of him and one of them happened to be one who in his head, not in reality, I had a romantic past with, I didn't consider him enough, or how he wanted to spend time with me over break, or or or and the list went on... and trust me it went on. The fight started at about 1 A.M. and did not end until about 5.

In that time, he had gotten up to secretly throw up from drinking too much, slammed the door on me, and turned the lights out and announced that he was going to bed while I was talking to him. From that moment I sat there stunned. I'm not good at fighting, it's why I'm a pacifist, it's why I actively avoid confrontation, it's why I'm almost too rational in my approach of dealing with people. I don't like to yell, if we fight, I tend not to raise my voice or curse because I find it belittling. But belittling is what X did best. When he turned the lights out I sat on the edge of his bed and went back and forth from looking at the clock on the nightstand, looking at the car keys in my hand, and looking at the door for at least 5 minutes until his voice interrupted the stillness I was growing uncomfortably a part of.

"Say something or leave"

What?

"Say something.
Or leave."

My voice was hardly audible because I choked on the thought of leaving. I swear to you that night was miserable, almost every second of it, yet no part of my brain could will my legs to stand. I thought about how pitiful I was. I thought, "God, you must be the most pathetic person on this damn continent if you can't--"

"SAY something. Or LEAVE."

If words were teeth, that is exactly the sound I imagine they would make while grinding against each other. Hard, raw, friction that makes you want to cover your ears or crawl out of your skin.

I didn't have any words. I told him that actually. And he told me to leave then. But I sat there still.

I pictured myself leaving, I pictured myself opening that door to a hallway dimly lit by the bathroom light. I pictured descending down the dark stairs into an even darker kitchen, stepping over the sleeping dog who I would never kiss again, opening the door that was never locked but might as well be if I walked out. I imagined getting into my cold car and driving off into 3 A.M., but 3 A.M.s are never good when they're spent alone, I thought. So I gave him what he wanted. I apologized. Not for the first time that night. But the previous apologies did not meet his standards and so I gave him the most heartfelt and bullshit apology I've given to this day. I apologized for spending my parents' 30 year anniversary with them (and later apologized to my parents for leaving their anniversary early), I apologized for spending too much time with my friends (and later thanked them for loving me in spite of neglecting them in order to hang out with my boyfriend), and I apologized for not knowing how to apologize.

He forgave me and I was overcome with gratitude. I could not believe my luck. That I would not be leaving my sad little town without knowing I had my sad little boyfriend waiting there for me.

On the car ride back to school, that next day, I deleted my friend, who X thought I had a romantic past with, out of my phone and did not tell X about it. It's what good girlfriends do, I thought to myself. And gave myself a real pat on the back for being such a loyal and trustworthy girlfriend, though that was what I was before the whole melodramatic Gossip Girl-esque act of deleting the contact. In the long run, I ended up hurting that friend more than I knew from that simple act.

I could go on... I could tell you about how my mom found out we were having sex and ended up fighting with me about it. I could tell you how much it hurt and how I thought I had ruined my relationship with my mom and how when I sought solace from X, he turned it into a fight about how I had ruined his chances and reputation with my parents. I could tell you about how for our year and a half "celebration" he took me out to get a burger. I could tell you how he pretty much ruined our trip together by complaining the whole time and blaming me and the rest of the world for his misfortunes. I could tell you how one of his family members asked me to help them coerce him into therapy. I could tell you about all the times I sat with him while he was high out of his mind and I was bored out of mine. I could tell you about the bad and at best, mundane sex and I could tell you and I could tell you and I could tell you about the shit storm he created out of everyday things and how he turned that shit storm into his life and how I thought I could help change the weather or at least help him hold an umbrella but I just ended up caught in it too. I could tell you all of that, in explicit detail, but I won't. Here's what I will tell you:

Love doesn't feel like any of the things I mentioned. It doesn't feel like ultimatums, it doesn't feel like the silent treatment, it doesn't feel like throwing things against the wall, it doesn't feel like sitting in silence, it doesn't feel like being an obedient counterpart to your significant other.

I didn't get that for a really long time. Don't get me wrong. Love is fighting sometimes and love is heated and angry but it doesn't mean that at the end of all that roughness that either person should feel like they just gave their whole being and compromised themselves to make the other person happy. We romanticize that too much. I thought so often that what I was doing was noble and good-hearted. But it was weak and cowardly. I wanted so badly to be the girl who fixed the boy, who sat with him at his lows and understood his anger and frustration and was so brilliant at being a docile creature that no one could deny she took more shit than toilets do.

You see, I'm happy to say I'm not that girl any more. I'm happy to say that I no longer keep quiet because I'm scared of the reaction it will evoke from my partner. I'm happy to say that when I'm angry, he knows, and we work it out. Like normal couples do. I'm happy to say that we work on maintaining each other's happiness. Not just his. Not just mine. Like normal couples do. I'm happy to say that we talk like my 17-year old self wanted in her relationship, and we're both sober... well at least usually, and at the very least during the weekdays we are, and when we're not, we're both enjoying it.

I feel lucky. Not just to be in my current happy relationship. But to have fallen out of love. In that process, I fell deeply in love with myself. I found what made me happy and made a home out of those things instead of trying to force the aesthetics of happiness on my life and trying to convince everyone that I really was happy. Now people can see that I really am happy. And if I'm not happy, I'm transparent and brave enough to be unhappy. It's a great blessing and one that I won't take for granted, getting to be genuinely yourself, saying the things you want to say, and still being loved by the people in your life and most importantly, by you.

xo

Priya