It’s been nine months since my nine-year relationship ended, and my perspective has completely shifted. We grew up together, lived together, were best friends—I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it.
Now, for the first time since I was 16, I’m no longer holding onto a version of the future where he’s waiting for me on the other side of this time apart. And in letting that go, something in me has shifted. It’s brought a kind of clarity I didn’t have before—about us, about what happened, and about why it ended.
Breakups happen to all of us, but the longer the relationship, the more complicated the unraveling can feel. My perspective at one month, three months, and six months out was completely different each time. And with every month that passes, my relationship to the relationship continues to evolve.
So here’s what I’ve learned now:
A lack of respect and commitment can be hidden in the details
I had an interesting realization the other day: he was never my emergency contact. After nine years, I expected our lives to be so intertwined that we would instinctively choose each other. But looking back, I don’t think I ever felt fully chosen—chosen in the way I needed to feel secure.
I look back now on the many moments when I felt left behind. He would barely text me when he was going out with friends. He planned his life independently, and he only seemed to make space for me when I followed and squeezed myself into what was left over.
After being together for so long, I became used to feeling like an accessory rather than an equal partner in the life we were supposedly building. I used to laugh when people said, if he wanted to, he would. It felt far too simplistic for something as complicated as love. I thought there were always circumstances, exceptions, and reasons. Now, I think differently.
I recently met someone, and we dated for a few weeks before I moved out of the state and he left for a long trip to Europe. I expected our communication to fade, but instead, he checked in every day, made time to call me—even when it was two in the morning his time—and booked a flight to visit me as soon as he returned.
Ladies, if he wanted to, he would. Sometimes a breakup hurts for only half the reason you expect—you lose someone you love. The other half hurts because you abandon yourself to be chosen, and you push yourself so far away you lose them, too.
Pay attention to how someone fits into your life—or maybe more accurately, how hard you have to work to fit into theirs. Relationships should feel like a partnership, not one person constantly chasing the other. Your soulmate won’t leave you on delivered while they go live beautiful experiences without wishing you were there beside them.
To put it simply, if you don’t feel like an equal, you probably aren’t being treated like one. Commitment to the relationship—and respect for who you are outside of it—has to go both ways. Sometimes the signs are subtle, like not getting a text back. Sometimes they’re painfully explicit, like being told you were never “wife material” (yes, he actually said). Either way, everyone deserves to feel valued and celebrated for who they are. If you’re constantly shrinking yourself to make a relationship work, it may be time to reevaluate.
Their excitement about what makes you excited matters
When I met my ex-boyfriend, I was in a difficult place in my life—at odds with many things and looking for a way out. In many ways, he became that for me. In the early years of our relationship, I stepped fully and willingly into his world.
But as I got older, the parts of me that didn’t mirror him—my interests, my voice, my ambitions—started to feel like an afterthought.
Over time, I noticed a pattern: the things that made me happiest and ignited the most passion in me were often the very things I couldn’t share with him. He thought my writing was too vulnerable and intangible, my career too untethered and “wishy-washy,” and my passion for mental health something I should fix privately and stop talking about altogether.
At the time, I framed those criticisms as differences in opinion. But looking back, I never picked apart his life choices. I leaned into his hobbies, his family, his culture, and his lifestyle. He tried to be involved in my life, but there was always a disconnect.
In long relationships, it’s easy to lose yourself. He became my priority, and I focused on whatever I needed to do to support him, often at the expense of feeling supported in my own ambitions.
And to be fair, he was growing too—figuring out who he was and what he wanted. But I never felt that he saw our growth as something meant to merge unless I was willing to stand behind him and follow the path he was already walking.
Your partner doesn’t need to be identical to you, but they should meet your excitement with curiosity, support, and openness. That matters. When that foundation feels uncertain, the cracks widen unless both people are willing to keep finding their way back to each other again and again.
Your forever person should jump up and down when you’re excited—it shouldn’t matter what it’s about. If you feel embarrassed by who you are, ashamed of what interests you, or criticized for the things that make you feel most alive, that’s a major red flag.
Unconditional love has a breaking point
I’ve struggled with my mental health at different points in my life—sometimes in deeply intense ways. And that can be hard on a partner. There’s a real kind of fatigue that can come from loving someone who is struggling, especially when it starts to impact the relationship.
But now I understand how much the response matters. I needed curiosity, patience, and a willingness to understand what I was experiencing. Instead, I often felt like a burden.
It got to a point where, when I was visibly struggling, I would brace myself—not for support, but for frustration. What made it even harder was that I could see his perspective and empathize with how much I was putting on him, and I tortured myself trying to understand why I couldn’t just feel better.
During the last year of our relationship, I struggled with crippling anxiety. Anxiety is complex and rarely comes from one place, but a large part of mine stemmed from the fear of having a panic attack and not feeling safe in how he would respond. That anticipation—the lack of trust—made everything worse. I knew his exhaustion, but it also eroded my sense of safety around him.
I didn’t need him to fix me. Instead, I needed steadiness and compassion. But by that point, we were stuck in a cycle: he was exhausted, and I felt rejected. When our breakup finally happened, we had already lost each other.
Untangling
Two people can love each other fiercely and still reach a breaking point. What I can see now, with distance, is that my intuition had been screaming that the relationship was no longer working. But I couldn’t hear it because letting him go had never felt like an option.
I had tied my worth so tightly to his perception of me that his rejection reinforced my deepest insecurities and made me hold on even tighter. My anxiety grew louder, and the cycle continued.
Unconditional love is a beautiful idea, but sometimes we confuse unconditional love with attachment, trauma, and fear of letting go. I’ve learned that sometimes two people need distance to understand what is real love and what is simply an unraveling they’ve been too afraid to name.
Unconditional love doesn’t mean ignoring the darkest corners of your relationship—it means walking toward them together with a flashlight. We had many conversations in the last couple of years of our relationship, attempting to uncover those darker parts. Finally, it reached a point where he wasn’t interested in growing in those areas.
One of the hardest experiences of my life was witnessing the person I loved most give up on us. But I look back now, and I feel gratitude: in his giving up, he actually handed me back to myself. Believe that after a loss of great magnitude, what you learn about yourself afterwards can be just as beautiful as what’s now gone.
In the name of love
Now, as more time passes and my anger fades, I feel no need to criticize or assign blame. Only to empathize. I can see where my ex’s insecurities and inability to communicate caused him to check out emotionally. I can also see my own blind spots, which I cringe at when I think about them.
The truth is, these patterns didn’t appear overnight. They existed in quieter ways from the beginning, but we never fully confronted them. Our opposing characteristics created a passion that kept us warm for nearly a decade—but eventually, we stopped feeding it.
The beauty and fascination I found in his mind remain some of the deepest connections I’ve ever experienced. In the end, I was more willing to hold onto that connection than he was. But, despite the patterns and the struggles, I still believe you don’t find your soulmate. You choose them.
You choose someone willing to unearth their deepest wounds alongside you. Someone willing to unpack insecurity and trauma, challenge old beliefs, and make room for difference, growth, and change. I think that’s where souls truly meet. In choosing someone you trust to catch you when you unknowingly step backward off a cliff.
I take comfort in knowing that the love I poured into that relationship wasn’t unique to him. It’s simply how I love. It’s how I move through the world and care for the people around me.
If you’re nearing or going through a breakup and fear you’ll never find someone like them again, I challenge you to reframe that thought: find someone different. Find someone who chooses you with every cell in their body. Find yourself, and realize you can find everything you’re looking for elsewhere in the world.
The truth about how it ends
I’ll leave you with advice that’s a bit direct. I work hard to see beauty in the world and goodness in the people around me—but sometimes you need a little armor, too.
How someone leaves you often reveals how they see you. The things my ex said in the wake of our breakup were unlike anything I had seen in him before. And I acknowledge we all process hurt and anger differently, but it was truly shocking. He became unrecognizable, truly volatile.
The heartbreak I endured was so excruciating, it gave me something I never thought I’d have: closure. No matter how deeply you love someone, there comes a point when the way they disrespect and discard you fundamentally changes how you see them. I couldn’t remember the version of him who loved me, even if I tried.
I look back now, and I’m grateful he showed me the worst of what he thought of me. If he hadn’t, I’d probably still be chasing him. Forgiveness is a beautiful thing—it can release so much resentment—but you can forgive someone and still know, deep in your heart, that you will never tolerate it again.
What comes next
I’ve spent the last nine months healing, grieving, and slowing down. I am feeling my feet find their way back to steady ground. Though that work, at times, felt endless, I’ve found myself the happiest, healthiest, and most excited I’ve ever been.
How human is it that our greatest joy often arrives in the wake of our deepest pain? Maybe happiness feels fuller after we’ve spent so long without it.
So let it hurt. And then, slowly, let it go.
Pay attention to the inner dynamics of your relationship, because that’s what you’re really choosing. Their fears, their patterns, the way they meet you in difficult moments. And if you decide to love someone, love them fully.
I wouldn’t take back the love I gave. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I wouldn’t take back the breakup either. It gave me the chance to rebuild a life that feels like mine for the first time in almost a decade.
When you’re in the thick of hell, they tell you to keep going—and it’s true. With every day, week, and month that passes, your heart will eventually stick itself back together, this time stronger with a deeper knowing of yourself. I can clearly see now where I wasn’t my best self in the relationship, where I was wrong. I’m sure he can, too.
Most of all, I remembered who I am, and I miss him differently now. Not as someone I can’t live without, but as someone I loved as truly and as deeply as you can love another person. As much as I was committed to making it work, I have shifted that commitment to pursuing a life just as passionately with myself, and, eventually, someone new.
No amount of love or connection will ever make up for the anxiety of being with someone who is unsure about you. When you stay in a relationship where you are not fully chosen, your body knows. It will scream. The alarms will sound. And trust me: you have to let them go.
From one woman to another: invest in yourself more than the man you think completes you. Choose yourself before it’s too late. And if he makes that choice for you, be grateful. Go find the woman you were before him—and protect her fiercely.
