Life often keeps sending you signals as to what is the right course of action. It is very important to pay heed to our precious intuition, especially if it concerns an emotional and/or romantic relationship. This is because when people emotionally invest in something, they are sure about their own feelings and good intentions but it is absolutely impossible to gauge what the other person thinks or feels about you. Therefore, paying close attention to signs that reflect abuse, violence, indifference,partner neglect etc is very important.
Misunderstandings in relationships are quite common and can happen due to a lot of reasons.It is very important to give people, especially people you love and care about, the benefit of doubt. But, if it is something that you keep doing again and again, then maybe it is time to re evaluate what your needs are and how this particular relationship fails to fulfill them. Women are often socialized from a young age to be the martyrs in a relationship, where they are expected to unconditionally love and accept their partners. ‘Need’ then becomes a very tricky term and is seen as an undesirable quality. And so, women are taught to deny their wants and desires. Encouraged to create false versions of themselves. As the wonderful Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said, “We raise girls to cater to the fragile egos of men. We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We tell girls ‘you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten the man……We teach girls shame – close your legs, cover yourself!! We make them feel as though by being born female they’re already guilty of something. And so girls grow up to be a woman who cannot see they have desire. They grow up to be women who silence themselves. They grow up to be women who cannot say what they truly think. And they grow up – and this is the worst thing we do to girls – they grow up to be women who turn pretense into an art form.”
While it is important to acknowledge the importance of selfless love, we also need to recognize that in a patriarchal culture, it is usually women who are expected to act as self sacrificing figures inside a family or in a romantic relationship. What these popular notions of ‘true’ and ‘unconditional’ love and romance do is create gender based expectations for relationships that are quite unfair and unequal in nature.
I have been hurt in the past. I know what it means to put yourself out there for someone and then watch it crash and burn in front of you. I have been crippled emotionally and so much so, that I found it difficult to stop my tears for hours and sometimes, even days. I guess the worst act of self hatred I committed (At least that’s what it seems like in retrospect) was that I blamed myself entirely for the way a particular relationship or friendship ended. Everything seemed to be good in the beginning and then when things started to go wrong, I felt so lost and confused. Was voicing my opinions very un-‘lady’ like? Am I supposed to bottle up my true feelings? I myself have been very impatient when it comes to relationship mind games and also been brutally honest about my feelings at all points in time. How can people not be their true authentic selves, I wondered. And then it hit me, if me being myself is something that goes against the popular dictates of how a desirable woman needs to act, then I would rather not be in such a toxic relationship.
I have also encountered what is termed as ‘gas lighting’, a sort of emotional abuse that is (not surprisingly) very common in society. How many times has it happened that a woman calls out her partner’s behavior for being the primary reason behind her anger and disappointment and he turns it around and puts it on her by saying that she misunderstood the situation and/or is simply over reacting. Let me tell you something ladies, you KNOW when you are being taken for a ride, you KNOW when you are being disrespected. Believe in yourself. There should be enough space for open and honest conversations within your relationship and if that is lacking, take it as a warning signal early on. Do not let anyone tell you that your emotions do not matter. Do not be afraid to let someone leave – trust me, I have been there and I know how painful it is when someone who you thought was your closest friend and companion, turns out to be completely oblivious to your pain and suffering. But, let it go. LET IT GO.
Please do yourself a huge favor and simply let it go. This is not a relationship worth having. Stop investing your time and effort. Cut your losses and move on. And most of all, do not deny your actual self that needs looking after. That nagging voice in your head that kept saying that a particular person isn’t treating you right….well maybe, the voice was correct all along! Take out time and listen to your intuition. Only you know whether or not you have been a good partner during the entire course of a relationship. And if you have been loving and caring towards someone, you deserve the same love and care back. Yes, let me repeat this. YOU DESERVE IT! Do not let society tell you that you need to push back your feelings of unhappiness and play the role of the ‘giver’ all the time. Yes, give as much as you want, love as much as you want, but make sure you aren’t dissatisfied with your relationship. Only you and your partner get to decide what the rules of the relationship are. And if you aren’t happy, leave. Start afresh.
You owe yourself a fresh start. You owe yourself the best love story there ever is. However, this can only happen when you truly start loving yourself.You need to distance yourself from the source of your pain, no matter how impossible it may seem right now. Time truly is a great healer. Take my word for it 🙂
And this post is me telling you that the Universe loves and appreciates your existence.I appreciate your existence ❤ ❤
Featured image credit : Ryan McGuire
Aindrila Chaudhuri 