I spent so many years believing that I was ready for real, serious love and marriage and everything that I thought I deserved. So I gave all of myself to people who sucked the life out of me.
And I could never understand why it kept happening. Why doesn’t anyone treat me the way I deserve?
But the truth was that I wasn’t actually ready for all of those things. I didn’t have what it took to commit to someone, despite how hard I tried, because I wasn’t a strong individual.
I allowed my identity to be ruled by whoever stepped up to take advantage of my malleable heart.
My love may have been real and kind and unconditional, but it was still selfish because I was pouring everything into someone else in hopes that they would fill me up in return.
I loved without boundaries, and that is the worst, most immature way to love someone.
I finally learned that your identity can’t be found in anybody else. You can’t find your heart in anyone else’s because a successful relationship stems from two individually established people.
A successful relationship is a living, breathing entity that deserves two people willing to bend and compromise, but who are also firmly rooted in their own identity. I finally realized that I couldn’t spend forever asking someone else to be enough for both themselves and me.
So when I met him, I was unsure.
I was afraid and I questioned if this was right because he was so different. But I realized that he was different because I was finally different.
He wasn’t the heated arguments every night that I had grown accustomed to, or the lust so intoxicating that I couldn’t see straight. He wasn’t the mysterious guy with a questionable reputation or the guy that sent mascara streams down my cheeks.
He didn’t create the infatuation that I was use to inside me. But that’s because no couple built to last could sustain that kind of passion.
And if it hadn’t been for the all of the burned out flames of my past, I don’t think I would have been ready for him. I certainly couldn’t have loved him the way he deserved to be loved.
Most people beg for a fiery, passionate soulmate, but I am eternally grateful for the steadfast love and respect that he brings me. My heart is finally content with him in a way I never would have known, had I not taken the time to create in myself the intense stability that I searched for in too many others.
For more from rc, visit her writer’s page here.