Book smart, still clueless
How the fuck do you learn to stop loving somebody you planned on spending the rest of your life with?
No, seriously.
Somebody please tell me.
Because I’ve been trying to figure that shit out, and apparently, there’s no textbook, no graduate-level course, no certification, and certainly no fucking clinical intervention that teaches you how to unlove somebody.
And trust me, I’ve looked.
I mean, for Christ’s sake, I’m a therapist.
I literally get paid to help people navigate their emotions, identify unhealthy patterns, establish boundaries, and recognize when something is no longer serving them.
Yet here I am.
Thirty-something.
Three degrees.
A whole career.
And still trying to figure out how to stop loving a man who never actually promised me forever.
Funny, right?
Except there’s nothing funny about it.
Because somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that Steven was going to be my forever.
Not because he promised me forever.
Not because he bought me a ring.
Not because he got down on one knee, made some grand declaration of love, or even gave me the security of knowing I was his girlfriend.
Hell, the man never even asked me to be his girlfriend.
Not once.
Well, unless you count that one time I completely lost my shit, and somewhere in the middle of me crying, arguing, and practically begging to understand what the fuck we were doing, he finally said,
“Fuck it, we’re together.”
Fuck it.
We’re together.
You know, looking back, you would’ve thought I would’ve caught the hint right then.
Because what kind of fucking love story starts with fuck it?
Not I want you.
Not I love you, and I want to build something with you.
Not even a simple Will you be my girlfriend?
Just…
Fuck it.
Like being with me was some inconvenience he was finally agreeing to.
Like committing to me was something he had to surrender to rather than something he actually wanted.
And my dumb ass?
I took it.
I took those four little words and tried to make a whole relationship out of them.
Because at least he said we were together.
Right?
At least I finally had something.
Something I could hold on to.
Something I could tell myself meant he wanted me, even if the words came out of his mouth like a man who’d just lost an argument.
Jesus Christ.
Three degrees.
A whole fucking therapist.
And I couldn’t recognize that I was accepting a relationship somebody had agreed to out of frustration rather than desire.
Or maybe I did recognize it.
Maybe that’s the part I don’t want to admit.
Maybe I knew exactly what it meant, and I just couldn’t bear the thought of walking away with nothing.
Because the truth is, Steven never really gave me a reason to believe I was going to be the one.
I gave myself those reasons.
Every time he came back.
Every time he said something sweet.
Every time he held me a little longer.
Every time we laughed until our stomachs hurt or spent a night together that felt like what I imagined love was supposed to feel like.
I collected those moments like evidence.
Like if I gathered enough of them, I could finally prove that he loved me the way I loved him.
Meanwhile, the biggest piece of evidence was sitting right in front of my face.
He didn’t choose me.
And he kept telling me he wasn’t ready to.
So what the fuck was I waiting for?
And what right do I even have to sit here feeling so unchosen?
So rejected?
So fucking broken?
When I knew.
I knew from the beginning.
Maybe not consciously. Maybe not in a way I was willing to say out loud.
But somewhere deep down, I knew.
I knew I was loving somebody who wasn’t loving me with the same certainty.
I knew I wanted more than he was willing to give.
I knew that every time I asked where we stood, I was asking a question he’d already answered.
And I stayed anyway.
That’s the part that makes me want to crawl out of my own skin.
Because how do you explain being devastated by something you saw coming?
How do you grieve being unchosen when you spent two years watching somebody not choose you?
How do you look yourself in the mirror and admit that the person you’re most disappointed in isn’t even him anymore?
It’s you.
For staying.
For hoping.
For believing.
For taking fuck it, we’re together and hearing I can’t imagine my life without you.
God.
I really wanted to be loved by that man.
So fucking badly.
And I think that’s what embarrasses me the most.
Not that he didn’t choose me.
But that I wanted him to choose me so badly that I started treating the bare minimum like it was a declaration of love.
And now I’m supposed to pick myself up.
Move on.
Be this strong, independent, accomplished woman with three degrees and a career.
As if any of those things make it easier to accept that I wasn’t the woman he wanted.
And maybe I don’t have the right to be surprised.
Maybe I don’t get to act like I didn’t see the signs.
But I think I still have the right to be hurt.
Because even if he never promised me forever, I wanted forever with him.
Even if he never asked me to be his girlfriend, I spent two years wishing he would.
And even if I knew, somewhere deep down, that it would never be me…
I still wanted it to be.
God, I wanted it to be me.
And I think that’s what breaks my heart more than anything.
Not that I didn’t know the truth.
But that I loved him enough to keep hoping it would change.
And you know what’s even more fucked up?
I became that girl.
The girl who was dating somebody who wasn’t actually dating her.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Do you know how embarrassing that is?
To spend two years emotionally committed to somebody who never even gave you the title of girlfriend?
To move through life considering somebody your person while they were apparently just considering you an option?
I was in a whole relationship by my goddamn self.
Faithful to a commitment that didn’t exist.
Loyal to a man who never asked for my loyalty.
Planning a future with somebody who couldn’t even commit to the present.
And the worst part?
He told me.
That’s what makes this shit so hard to swallow.
Steven told me he wasn’t ready.
He told me he didn’t know what he wanted.
He told me, in more ways than one, that he couldn’t give me what I was asking for.
And somehow, my delusional ass heard, Not yet.
Not no.
Not never.
Just not yet.
Because surely, if I loved him enough, he’d eventually change his mind.
Surely, if I showed him what unconditional love looked like, he’d realize he didn’t want to lose it.
Surely, two years of my life had to mean something.
Right?
So tell me.
What’s more embarrassing?
Realizing just how fucking delusional I was?
Or realizing I spent two years feeling rejected by a man who had already told me no a thousand different ways, and I just refused to believe him?
Because that’s a special kind of humiliation.
Being heartbroken over a relationship that, technically, never existed.
How do you even explain that to people?
How do you tell somebody you’re grieving the end of something you were never officially in?
How do you explain that you were in love, committed, emotionally invested, and imagining marriage while the other person was simply living their life?
And how do you admit that the person who kept breaking your heart wasn’t necessarily lying to you?
That maybe, just maybe, you kept breaking your own heart by believing there was more to the story than what he was actually telling you?
Fuck.
That one hurts.
Because it’s easier to be angry when somebody deceives you.
It’s easier to walk away when you can point to some grand betrayal and say, See? This is what he did to me.
But what happens when the betrayal is realizing you kept abandoning yourself?
When you kept negotiating with reality because accepting it meant letting go of the one thing you wanted more than anything?
I wasn’t stupid.
I wasn’t incapable of understanding the words coming out of his mouth.
I understood them perfectly.
I just kept hoping his feelings would eventually become stronger than his reasons for not choosing me.
And somewhere along the way, hope became the thing that humiliated me.
Because I wasn’t waiting for Steven to tell me how he felt anymore.
I was waiting for him to tell me something different.
Something I could finally live with.
Something that sounded like love.
Something that sounded like us.
And he never did.
So now I’m left with the uncomfortable realization that I wasn’t just waiting for a man.
I was waiting for a man to change his mind about me.
And I don’t think I’ve ever felt smaller than I do admitting that.
Not because loving somebody makes me weak.
But because I loved him so much that I kept treating his rejection like a challenge instead of an answer.
And maybe that’s the most embarrassing part of all.
He didn’t have to keep rejecting me.
I just kept showing up to hear the same answer.
I used to think the hardest part of loving Steven was waiting.
Waiting for him to call.
Waiting for him to make plans.
Waiting for him to decide what he wanted.
Waiting for the day he’d finally look at me and realize that everything he’d been searching for was standing right in front of him.
But I was wrong.
The hardest part wasn’t waiting.
It was finally understanding that I could wait forever and still never become the woman he chose.
And what the fuck do you do with that?
What do you do with all the love that has nowhere to go?
Because nobody talks about that part.
Everybody tells you to move on.
Choose yourself.
Know your worth.
Block him.
Delete the pictures.
Go outside.
Find somebody else.
Girl, stand the fuck up.
As if love is some light switch you can turn off because your brain finally caught up with reality.
As if I haven’t already rehearsed every reason I should leave him alone.
As if I don’t know better.
I know.
God, I fucking know.
But knowing somebody isn’t right for you doesn’t automatically make you stop wanting them.
Sometimes you can understand every single reason a relationship wouldn’t work and still wish, with everything inside you, that it had.
And I did.
I wished so fucking hard.
I prayed.
I cried.
I tried to be patient.
I tried to be understanding.
I tried to love him in ways that wouldn’t make him feel pressured.
I made myself smaller in conversations where I should’ve demanded more.
I pretended I was okay with things that were slowly tearing me apart.
And somewhere between all that patience and understanding, I stopped asking myself a very important question.
Who the fuck was being patient with me?
Who was making room for my feelings?
Who was worrying about whether I felt secure?
Who was lying awake at night wondering if they were enough for me?
Because I was doing all that shit for Steven.
And I don’t know if he ever understood just how much of me it cost.
Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time alone.
Not the cute, aesthetically pleasing kind of alone where you light a candle, pour a glass of wine, put on some SZA, and pretend you’re having a self-care night.
I mean the real kind.
The kind where you come home, take your bra off before you even make it to the bedroom, and realize nobody’s expecting you.
Nobody’s asking what you’re doing.
Nobody’s asking if you made it home.
Nobody’s making plans for the weekend.
And your phone?
Quiet as a motherfucker.
Sometimes I sit on the edge of my bed and stare at it.
Not because I have anything to say.
But because there’s still a part of me hoping his name will appear.
Steven.
Just those six letters could change my entire mood.
A text from him could make an otherwise shitty day feel bearable.
And isn’t that some dangerous shit?
Giving somebody that much power over your happiness when they haven’t even committed to protecting it?
I hate admitting that.
I hate that I still miss him.
I hate that sometimes something funny happens and he’s the first person I want to tell.
I hate that I can be having a perfectly good day, minding my business, and suddenly remember the way he smelled.
Or laughed.
Or looked at me when things were good.
Because things weren’t always bad.
And I think that’s what makes leaving so fucking complicated.
There were moments when I felt loved.
Maybe not consistently.
Maybe not in the way I needed.
But enough to make me believe that if I just held on a little longer, those moments would eventually become our everyday reality.
They never did.
And now I’m left trying to figure out who I am without the possibility of us.
Not without Steven, exactly.
Because the truth is, I spent a lot of our time without him anyway.
Without his presence.
Without his consistency.
Without the reassurance I desperately wanted.
I was already doing life alone.
I just had somebody to love while I did it.
And now?
Now I have to learn how to do it without loving him out loud.
So I’ve been working.
A lot.
Actually, that’s an understatement.
I’ve been throwing myself into work like my entire fucking existence depends on it.
Clients.
Assessments.
Treatment plans.
Progress notes.
Meetings.
Emails.
More fucking meetings.
Professional development.
Certifications.
Career goals.
Anything that gives me something to focus on besides the fact that the man I wanted to marry isn’t going to be my husband.
And somewhere in the middle of all that shit, I started thinking.
Maybe this is who I’m supposed to be.
The girl with the degrees.
The accomplished one.
The independent one.
The woman who can walk into a room, introduce herself with a string of credentials behind her name, and know she worked her ass off for every single one of them.
Maybe I’m not going to be somebody’s wife.
Maybe I won’t get the little family I imagined.
Maybe I won’t have the love story I kept convincing myself was right around the corner.
Maybe I’ll just be successful.
And I know how that sounds.
Like I’m giving up.
Like I’m bitter.
Like I’ve allowed one man to convince me that love isn’t in the cards for me.
But that’s not entirely it.
I’m just tired.
I’m tired of hoping.
Tired of being disappointed.
Tired of getting dressed for dates that don’t happen.
Tired of meeting men who swear they’re interested until interest requires actual effort.
Tired of being understanding about somebody else’s emotional unavailability while my own emotional needs go unmet.
I’m tired of being the woman who sees potential.
Because potential has never held me at night.
Potential has never introduced me as somebody’s girlfriend.
Potential has never made a fucking commitment.
And potential damn sure hasn’t loved me the way I’ve loved it.
So maybe it’s time I stop investing in what somebody could become and start investing in who I already am.
Because I know her.
I know the girl who worked her way through school.
The girl who sat through classes exhausted, overwhelmed, and wondering if she was smart enough to finish.
The girl who kept going anyway.
The girl who earned three degrees even when life was beating her ass.
The girl who built a career out of helping people survive things she was still learning how to survive herself.
That girl?
She’s done some incredible shit.
And maybe I’ve spent so much time wondering why Steven couldn’t see my value that I forgot how much of it existed before he ever entered my life.
But there’s something else I haven’t wanted to admit.
Work isn’t always safe either.
I’ve failed exams.
I’ve questioned whether I’m good enough.
I’ve sat in my car after difficult days wondering whether I chose the right profession.
I’ve cried over things I thought I should’ve been able to handle.
I’ve watched other people reach milestones while I felt like I was standing still.
So when I tell myself that at least my career can’t break my heart, I know that’s not entirely true.
Because it can.
In a different way.
A failed exam can make you question your intelligence.
A rejection can make you question your qualifications.
A setback can make you wonder whether everything you’ve worked for is slipping through your fingers.
And I know that feeling a little too fucking well.
But there’s a difference.
When I fail at something professionally, I can study harder.
I can ask questions.
I can seek supervision.
I can take another course.
I can regroup.
I can try again.
There’s something I can actually do.
But with Steven?
There was nothing left for me to do.
I couldn’t love him into readiness.
Couldn’t communicate him into commitment.
Couldn’t be patient enough to make him choose me.
Couldn’t become prettier, smarter, softer, sexier, or more successful and somehow unlock the version of him I’d spent two years waiting to meet.
And maybe that’s what made it so unbearable.
For the first time in my life, working harder wasn’t going to change the outcome.
I could give a hundred percent and still walk away with nothing.
No certificate.
No promotion.
No acknowledgment of completion.
Just a broken heart and the realization that I had spent two years trying to earn something that should’ve been freely given.
Love.
Jesus Christ.
I was trying to earn love.
And I don’t know when I started believing that was necessary.
The other night, I caught myself imagining what I’d say if Steven called.
Not texted.
Called.
Because apparently my delusional ass still likes to create hypothetical situations where men suddenly develop emotional intelligence.
In my head, he told me he missed me.
That he’d been thinking about us.
That he finally understood what he’d lost.
And in my head, I was calm.
Collected.
Unbothered.
I told him I’d moved on.
That I wished him well.
That I wasn’t interested in revisiting the past.
Very mature.
Very healed.
Very look at me using my clinical skills outside of work.
But then I thought about what would actually happen if my phone rang.
And the truth?
I’d probably cry.
Not because I’d necessarily take him back.
But because I still love him.
And I wish I didn’t.
God, I wish I didn’t.
I wish I could hate him.
I wish he’d done something so unforgivable that my heart would finally get the fucking memo.
But instead, I have memories.
Good ones.
Bad ones.
And a whole lot of unfinished conversations.
I have love that didn’t disappear just because the relationship never became what I wanted.
And I have to figure out what to do with it.
Maybe I don’t have to stop loving him today.
Maybe I just have to stop making decisions based on that love.
Maybe I can miss him and not call.
Love him and not reach out.
Think about him and still go about my day.
Maybe healing isn’t waking up one morning and feeling absolutely nothing.
Maybe it’s waking up, feeling everything, and choosing not to abandon myself because of it.
I don’t fucking know.
I’m still figuring it out.
I used to imagine spending the rest of my life with Steven.
Now I’m trying to imagine spending the rest of my life with myself.
And I don’t mean that in some depressing, spinster, surrounded-by-cats kind of way.
Although, let’s be clear, the cat is staying.
I mean actually getting to know the woman I am when I’m not waiting for somebody to love me.
What does she like?
Where does she want to travel?
What kind of home does she want to live in?
What does she want to accomplish?
What makes her happy when there’s no man involved?
Because somewhere along the way, my vision for my life started including Steven in places he had never asked to occupy.
And now I have to redraw the whole fucking picture.
Maybe I buy the house myself.
Maybe I take the trips alone.
Maybe I get another degree.
Maybe I build a practice.
Maybe I become the kind of woman younger me would’ve looked at and thought, Damn, we really made it.
Maybe I learn how to enjoy a Saturday night without wondering why nobody asked to see me.
Maybe I stop treating being single like a waiting room.
Like my actual life won’t begin until somebody finally decides I’m worth building one with.
Because I’ve already built a life.
A whole fucking life.
One that existed before Steven.
One that continued while I was loving him.
And one that, whether I like it or not, is going to continue without him.
I just wish I could’ve shared it with him.
That’s the part I can’t dress up in some beautiful healing quote.
I wanted him there.
At the graduations.
At the celebrations.
At the kitchen counter while I complained about work.
At the hospital if something happened.
In the audience when I accomplished something I’d worked years for.
Beside me when life got ugly.
I didn’t want to become successful so I could prove to Steven what he lost.
I wanted to become successful and come home to tell him about it.
I wanted him to be proud of me.
I wanted to be proud of us.
And now I’m trying to figure out how to celebrate a future that looks nothing like the one I prayed for.
Maybe that’s why I’ve been so obsessed with accomplishing something lately.
Because I need a win.
A real fucking win.
Not another almost.
Not another situation that looks promising until it doesn’t.
Not another person telling me how amazing I am while simultaneously explaining why they can’t give me what I need.
I want something I can hold.
Something with my name on it.
Something that reminds me I’m capable of finishing what I started.
And maybe that’s unfair pressure to put on my career.
Maybe I’m asking professional success to compensate for emotional disappointment.
Therapist me knows that.
Therapist me would probably ask a client, What happens if your career doesn’t go according to plan either?
And I’d hate that fucking question.
Because the answer is, I don’t know.
I really don’t.
But maybe I need to learn that failure doesn’t automatically mean I’m a failure.
That a man not choosing me doesn’t mean I’m unlovable.
That an exam score doesn’t determine my intelligence.
That a career setback doesn’t erase my accomplishments.
That I can be disappointed in my life without being disappointed in who I am.
And that maybe, just maybe, I don’t have to spend the rest of my life proving I’m worthy of something.
Not love.
Not success.
Not happiness.
Not peace.
Maybe I already am.
Even on the days I don’t feel like it.
I still think about Steven.
More than I want to admit.
Sometimes I wonder if he misses me.
If he ever reaches for his phone to tell me something.
If he ever thinks about the future I wanted with him.
If he realizes how much I loved him.
And then I wonder if any of that actually matters.
Because even if he does miss me, what changes?
Even if he loves me, what does that mean if he still can’t choose me?
I spent so much time trying to understand how he felt that I barely made room for how his actions made me feel.
And I can’t keep doing that.
I can’t keep living my life in the possibility of somebody else’s realization.
I have things to do.
A career to build.
Goals to accomplish.
Bills to pay.
A home to create.
A woman to become.
And I don’t want to wake up five years from now realizing I spent another five years waiting for somebody to decide whether I was worth loving.
So, Steven, if there’s one thing I wish I could tell you, it’s this.
I don’t know how to stop loving you.
I really fucking don’t.
I don’t know how to erase the future I imagined.
I don’t know how to make my heart understand something my mind accepted a long time ago.
I don’t know how to stop wishing you were the person I could share all of this with.
But I do know that I can’t keep putting my life on hold while I figure it out.
I can’t keep waiting for you to become ready for a love I’ve been ready to give.
And I can’t keep measuring my worth against your willingness to choose me.
I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you.
I really did.
And maybe a part of me always will wish things had turned out differently.
But I have to spend the rest of my life with me.
That’s the one relationship I don’t get to walk away from.
So I guess it’s time I started showing up for her the way I kept showing up for you.
Maybe I’ll always be the girl who loved you.
But I refuse to let that be the only thing worth remembering about me.
Because before I was the girl who stayed too long, I was the girl who had dreams.
Big fucking dreams.
And somewhere between loving you and losing myself, I almost forgot about them.
Almost.
So if love isn’t going to work out for me right now, then maybe I’ll pour some of that energy into building the life I’ve always wanted.
Not because my career can’t disappoint me.
Not because another degree will make the loneliness disappear.
And not because success is somehow going to make up for the fact that I wanted to be loved by you.
But because I deserve to have something in my life that isn’t centered around waiting.
And for once, I want that something to be me.
I don’t know what comes next.
I don’t know if I’ll fall in love again.
I don’t know if I’ll ever completely stop loving you.
But I know I have to keep living.
And maybe one day, I’ll look around at the life I’ve built and realize that even though you weren’t there to share it, it was still beautiful.
Maybe I’ll finally be able to say that losing you didn’t mean losing everything.
Because I still have myself.
The girl with the three degrees.
The girl with the big dreams.
The girl who kept going even when her heart was broken.
And maybe, for now, that’s enough.
I wanted you to be my forever, Steven.
But I think it’s time I stopped forgetting that I have a forever of my own.
