The best advice I have ever gotten after a breakup was from my aunt. I was two weeks into my senior year of high school and my boyfriend of two years dumped me...hard. "How would I know I want something, if I've never had anything else?" ...oh. So for weeks I over dramatized the situation. I cried and cried about how he would rather meet other girls, how he thought there was something or someone better out there, and how I felt so betrayed. My aunt finally said to me one day, "You know what, Sweetie? There is no revenge better than happiness." Looking back, she was absolutely right. Why live your like letting other people define your happiness? At eighteen, I thought my heart was broken, and I wanted him to feel like losing me was a mistake. Since then, my friends and I have been broken up with by a countless number of ultimately unworthy suitors. Each time, I make it a point to remind myself and my friends of my aunt's advice.
But this time feels different. Revenge isn't what I'm looking for. My boyfriend didn't walk away from our relationship, he was basically never in it. And what makes this separation so difficult for me is that his contentedness with our break up validates my prior assumption that he didn't want to be in a relationship in the first place. At least not a legitimate one.
I remember last New Years Eve when he refused my offer to spend the night with my friends, and waited until December 30th to counteroffer an invitation for me to spend the night with him and his friends. I recall each time I asked him to meet me for dinner and before committing he first found out what his friends were doing - just in case they were going to have more fun without him. I remember each time he ended a phone call with me regardless of what point of the conversation we were in because he had arrived home from work, and why keep talking to me when there was the prospect of talking to someone else? And I recall each time I wished he would offer to come to Massachusetts, walk over to my dorm room instead of myself walking there, invite me to sleep over, wait for me to watch our favorite TV show instead of watching it with someone else, and so much more. It's like dating me was an addition to his day that he didn't want to do. Like a sixth class with too much homework, when he'd rather be watching Pokemon with his roommates or drinking on a Tuesday with his friends and their girlfriends. So, I walked away. I gave him what he wanted, he has all the time in the world do the things that really matter to him. He no longer has to think about what I might want, what I might feel, and what might be a compromise for the two of us. He wanted to think only about himself, what makes him happy, and what takes little to no forethought about me.
What does this have to do with my aunt's advice? I should be happy... and sometimes I am. But I don't feel like it's "the best revenge." In a way, happiness validates that he was right. That this is better for both of us. That we both have what we wanted. That cannot be any further than the truth. Rather than him loving me enough to give more to our relationship, he wants to do way less, and I am supposed to be happy now? Happy that I had to walk away from someone I loved because he did not want me anymore, but didn't have the decency to tell me that? He let me decide... As if to say, "if this isn't enough for you that's your problem, I shouldn't have to WANT to spend time with you." I feel like I was easily disposed of, and like he is relieved to be single, and it is entirely disheartning.
I know that my aunt's advice rings true here, but not in the way I had always thought it would. I am not looking for revenge, rather I am looking for something I deserve. I was a good girlfriend. I was understanding of his values, of his wants and desires, of his flaws, his shortcomings and his worth... but I could not be understanding of his lack of commitment and respect for what me - for my wants, my values, my shortcomings, and my worth. And that does not make me a bad person, it makes me deserving of happiness.
So, I am not trying to be happy as a form of revenge in hopes of making him miss me or think that this was a mistake. Honestly, if he wasn't willing to let me be happy with him, I sure as hell deserve happiness without him.
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