Trying to Date Again and Doing It Badly
Written by Author's Corps fellow member Amanda Phillips
It is a Tuesday afternoon, and you are a ball of nerves equally you walk down the plaza toward your favorite coffee store. It's the same place you lot've camped out in, tucked away in the corner on so many other afternoons — simply today, yous're going in that location for a date. And not just a date — it'due south the first date since y'all got out of a toxic relationship.
"Y'all know who you are now. You take washed so much work, Amanda. Yous know now non to bend and bend and curve for another person. Y'all know how to not lose yourself, " your mother reminded you, on the telephone earlier.
But dating again is still really hard, and you still feel uneasy almost what volition happen once you go to the coffee shop — and you can't help merely see a stream of "what if's" run through your mind.
What if this person turns out to be toxic as well, but you still can't recognize the unhealthy behavior?
What if it'due south also hard to exist vulnerable?
What if y'all tin can't trust yourself after all?
Did your unhealthy relationship harm you with all the gaslighting?
What if you tin can't do this?
You can't help but be afraid that you haven't grown every bit much equally you thought, and that you aren't actually capable of being in a healthy relationship.
But then, y'all think back on the work you've done and you're reassured. Yous think about the people you lot have in your corner. You recollect about the things you know now that you didn't earlier.
Yous open up the door to the coffee shop. And you see the new person, and he has a kind face, so you exhale a little easier. You both order different lattes and he chats with the barista, and when you sit down, he asks what your Love Language is, almost your dreams, and how you lot experience loved and valued in a relationship. You tell him that you don't quite know how to answer that, which is an honest respond, every bit you have never been in a healthy ane. You lot give him the Spark Notes, and y'all talk for some other hour before he has to go back to the part.
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Your phone has been in your bag the whole time, with group texts from friends wanting to know the details and gush with you later well-nigh the 2-hour coffee date that felt similar ten minutes and ended with a plan for dinner that weekend.
Merely in all the gushing, y'all start to worry. You lot worry if you lot said too much. You worry that you shouldn't have told him that you have a mental affliction, that you struggle with anxiety, or depression, or both depending on the day. You especially worry that you lot mentioned your previous unhealthy human relationship, with a man who was abusive. Yous worry that he'll disbelieve y'all equally damaged goods subsequently hearing that, and will slowly stop responding to your text messages. Something that has helped you heal is authenticity — owning your story — but yous worry that you lot should have, well, held all of that back. Yous worry that yous were too much, which is something you heard a lot while you were in your unhealthy relationship.
As you walk up to the restaurant for your second date, y'all remind yourself that the unhealthy human relationship you walked through was a teacher instead of a setback because you took the time you needed to heal . You decided not to let information technology concur you dorsum, so yous took notes on the hardest parts and worked through them. You said yes to a third date remembering that you have what it takes to date once more because you have good instincts and you can trust yourself considering you know what a healthy relationship looks like now.
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You know now that you deserve to exist in good for you spaces.
Y'all know now that you don't have to apologize for asking for the things that keep y'all well, and balanced.
You know now that the fact that you've been through an unhealthy relationship is n't baggage – information technology's simply context that someone who wants to love you well will demand in social club to practice only that.
Even if you do not stumble upon them anytime presently, and fifty-fifty if the human being in the coffee store does become distant for whatever reason and this was but an practise in bravery – yous have what it takes to decide if something is healthy or unhealthy. You have amend tools. You lot have learned to use your voice. You lot have group texts full of friends cheering you lot on, and welcoming your questions in instance y'all're unsure of something. Mostly, they reinforce your bravery. So does your therapist.
Things don't stick with the man in the java shop, because you figure out that time with him is non a good for you space. He was nice to y'all, only the initial excitement fades when you realize that on your fourth date, he forgot to ask about your life for the unabridged two hours. You lot take brave steps and voice your needs — for things similar letting you know when it'll exist a busy week at work and he may not be smashing at responding to texts or asking about your day.
You know now that a healthy partner will prove care and compassion by valuing your opinions, but the human being from the coffee shop never really fifty-fifty asks what y'all retrieve or how you feel well-nigh annihilation — which makes you feel anxious, like you aren't interesting, and that you're just his guest at the dinner table to hear about what he likes, what he thinks, and what he needs.
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Yous know now that a healthy partner will brand yous feel respected, but yous feel more similar you keep showing up to show-and-tell instead of dates. You don't even feel heard, much less respected. None of this necessarily means annihilation is headed toward becoming abusive — something you fearfulness — but this certainly doesn't feel like a good fit for what you need subsequently being with an unhealthy partner and that's ok.
Your inner voice chimes in, and your gut tells you something is off. It is tempting to go along to only talk about the pretty parts to your friends — how he ever opened the door for you — but you tell them the whole story instead. He may take asked you how yous felt loved and validated in a relationship on that first twenty-four hours in the coffee shop, but you begin to wonder if he even listened to your respond.
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You know now that role of what kept you in an unhealthy relationship for then long is that you were isolated. You didn't tell people the truth most how bad things were because when you lot did, they told you that you should leave, that he was bad, that it was all wrong. They tried to drag you to safer places; they tried to get you to skip steps. Of course, you knew things were bad – but you weren't in a identify where you could walk abroad for skilful even so, so you couldn't hear them. But you took some fourth dimension after that unhealthy relationship to heal – and at present you know non simply how to use your voice, but how to trust it.
You know now that you are not damaged goods, and the unhealthy relationship that hurt you lot and then much is besides the reason y'all have grown and learned so much.
You know now that y'all are on a journey, just like the homo in the coffee shop. Yous hope he finds peace in his journeying, are assured that you volition detect it in yours because yous know at present that information technology'southward more important to trust your gut than to bend yourself into something that isn't correct.
You lot feel proud of yourself. You feel stronger now. You feel less anxious, and y'all give thanks yourself for validating your own feelings — for owning your story. For trusting your gut. For claiming your right to healthy relationships.
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Source: https://www.joinonelove.org/learn/what-it-was-like-to-start-dating-again-after-my-unhealthy-relationship/
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