Let me start by saying my dating history is trash.
There was the date that was just a series of different buses around London. He promised we were going to a restaurant but ended up taking me on and off buses into the city, ultimately ending up back at the bus stop near my house. There was no second date, although I do like train journey’s so maybe I should have stuck with it.
The Australian guy who spoke in a British accent because his great, great grandfather was born in England. Not only did he live in Brisbane but he had never left the country.
The boy with the lion tattoo, who talked incessantly about his 60-year old ‘work wife’. Definitely not ageist but mummy issue alarm bells were sounding like the Notre-Dame.
And of course the guy who was still dating his “ex” girlfriend. Lovely.
It’s a pretty dire history but it was also very reflective of where I was on my soul mate searching journey. In theory, I wanted a relationship but in practice I was doing everything I could to avoid one. I didn’t really like myself, I didn’t trust anyone and I absolutely refused to be vulnerable or stand up for myself. It doesn’t take a relationship expert to tell you that this is kind of mental state attracts dating disasters and blocks normal stable people.
What I learnt through my relationship quest is something I’ve continued to learn in all aspects of my life. What you fear the most is the thing that’s going to change your life for the better. The idea of someone getting to know the real you, seeing the ugly, learning about your trauma and knowing that sometimes you have to try really hard just to come across as normal, for some of us, is truly terrifying. I had a very unhealed relationship with myself for a long time. I am a naturally avoidant person and spent many years pretending I was happy, because deep down I knew the truth. I was actually very hurt and had a lot of work to do that, emotionally, I was not prepared for. That treasure trove of misery stayed locked for a very long time until one day I got SO bloody bored of myself (and maybe bored in general), I opened it up.
I had grown tired of having the same conversations with myself, of seeing the same experiences show up over again, of feeling like Eeyore, moping around, being the victim, that eventually the fear or NOT changing became greater than the fear of possibilities.
It's a cliché narrative of the disaster – rock bottom – turn around – rom-com but it exists for a reason. It’s true, it works, it’s the cycle of life. If we want things to change in our life we have to take action. Our external experience are influenced heavily by our inner thoughts and beliefs. Any major, long lasting changes has to come from a place of honesty, vulnerability and choosing different thoughts and better actions. It took a lot of pushing blindly past fear to open myself up to a good, stable, loving relationship, but it was obviously worth it.
What I will say is that I definitely wasn’t the final product before I found “the one”. I got through the first layer of “stuff” but like any delicious onion there were many more tears to come. I had to consistently reaffirm this new belief system, bulldoze through many walls and address self-sabotaging behaviour. Luckily, when you’re in the right relationship, you have someone happy to walk the journey with you and you realise that there isn’t really anything to fear.
(Well, happy to walk the journey might be a stretch but they’ll do it anyway )
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