Letting Go
Letting go is one of those concepts that's so much easier said than done. Whether it's a job, a relationship, an outdated belief, or something from our past, letting go of what no longer serves us can be a slow and painful process. Our resistance to change and reluctance to follow our intuition may slow the inevitable but rarely affect the outcome.
Think about a situation in your life where you knew you needed to let go. Did you resist at first? If so, how long did your resistance last? What stories or strategies, if any, did you concoct to try and influence the outcome to be something different? What was that outcome? How much time and energy would you have saved if you had surrendered and not resisted the change?
When I think about how much I resisted letting go of my previous partner, that answer is at least a year. A year!!! I've opened up a little in other blogs about some dynamics within that relationship, but now I'm going to open up more to share how I let go while both in the connection and after it ended. There's no other way to do that than to be vulnerable and open about what I experienced, so this will be a deeply personal post.
My relationship with E was equally the most blissful and extremely painful connection I've yet to experience. When our relationship was good, it was full of peace, harmony, and deep love. But when things went south, our connection was toxic and the source of the deepest pain I've experienced. The relationship was a complete paradox and presented many opportunities to heal deep wounds I was unaware of. Within this connection, I found my voice, strength, trust, resilience, courage, and independence. I worked through my trigger responses, heightened my intuition, gained much wisdom, deepened my self-love, and became the most authentic version of myself. There was so much healing within the relationship, not because the connection was healthy for me, but because I refused to do the one thing I needed to do - let go.
Looking back on my relationship with E, even from the beginning, all of the red flags and warning signs were there of a toxic connection. The love-bombing, trauma bonding, obsession, possessiveness, manipulation, inconsistencies, and overall fast nature of the relationship were all signs warning me to leave this person alone. I recall feeling uneasy and unsure of him from our first meeting. That unease and uncertainty continued throughout our relationship because it felt like he was playing a part versus being genuine so much of the time. When we met, he was a life coach, claimed to be highly spiritual, and had 12 years of sobriety. I thought I was reading him wrong or that my fear was being triggered, so I ignored my intuition. I let what I saw on the outside and what he shared about himself cloud my intuition. I chose to f*ck around. And when you f*ck around - you find out. And I sure found out - big time.
Fast forward exactly one year into our relationship, and that was the day I discovered why I could never fully trust him and why my intuition was warning me about this man from the beginning - he wasn't sober and never was the entirety of our relationship. About three months before our 1st anniversary, E sat me down and disclosed that he was struggling with his porn use and to "not worry" because he already had it all under control and wanted to be open and honest with me.
Cute - E being honest. That would've been amazing had it been the whole truth, but it wasn't, and it never was with E. The more likely motivation for his sudden bout of honesty was a combination of wanting to release himself from guilt and the fact that I was 11 weeks pregnant, which made him feel safe that I was less likely to leave or choose to end the pregnancy. I would later learn throughout the next year how dishonest E was in all areas of his life. He would only be honest to the point he felt he could have a favorable outcome for himself, telling more half-baked bullsh*t than Chris Tucker and Ice Cube. If you know, you know. And if you don't, "Bye, Felicia!"
I honestly had no clue what porn addiction meant or why I should even care. I thought it had nothing to do with me or didn't affect me in any way, but man, was I wrong! Sex addiction is the biggest block to true intimacy in relationships. Not just sexually, but mainly emotional intimacy and availability - which is non-existent with an active sex addict. Since I was blissfully unaware of the impact or severity of what he disclosed and my intuition felt validated, I continued to live my life and easily detached from his journey. At that time, letting go of his addiction was simple because I knew his struggles had nothing to do with me or my value. Give it another three months, and letting go would prove much more difficult.
The morning of our 1st Anniversary, I caught E acting out. For the first time in our relationship, I took the rose-colored glasses off and saw him for who he truly was and not the version he wanted me to believe. At first, the issue wasn't so much the nature of his addiction but rather that he was continuously lying to me. I realized that E had no problem living a double life and lying to me to keep the severity and details of his addiction hidden. I also learned he had no problem taking advantage of my naivety regarding addiction and recovery work in general, something he would continuously use to his advantage to control the situation until I was further along in my recovery work. Since I have a hard boundary of no addictions within my partnership, the choice was either recovery or ending our relationship. We chose recovery and it was honestly the best thing that could've happened to me. I've done a lot of inner work, but working a 12-step program has provided the deepest healing.
It didn't take long for me to figure out that E was not actively engaged in his recovery program. About 6-weeks before D-Day (a.k.a. Discovery Day), I discovered that I had a missed miscarriage and required three surgeries to remove all the fetal tissue because I was well into my 2nd trimester. The experience was painfully isolating and was physically, mentally, and emotionally draining. The fact that E was in active addiction only added more to my pain because he was fundamentally incapable of caring for me in the way I needed. In general, an addict is focused on one thing - maintaining their addiction at all costs and with no regard for anyone else, not even the addict.
Healing and letting go of losing a child this way was an excruciatingly slow and painful process, but I eventually began to see the experience as a blessing. Today, I believe this loss to be a divine intervention from God. I'm grateful I'm not connected to this man forever through a child. Time and perspective shifts allowed me to release the pain from this experience. Time really does heal all wounds, or at least helps to make the pain not feel so close.
Once I could hold myself and partner with compassion and empathy, I softened. In that softening, I realized that I was expecting my partner to show up for me in an unreasonable way because it was unfair to expect my partner to offer me something he couldn't provide himself - in this example, emotional availability. This realization allowed me to find forgiveness for us both in this situation and through that, I was able to let go.
Unfortunately, E continued being dishonest, and I hit the pause button on our relationship due to my boundaries. I took space and time to decide if the relationship was still something I wanted. During that separation, I discovered that E's acting out extended beyond porn use and manifested in many ways, one of which included being physically unfaithful. Another hard boundary was crossed, yet my desire to be with this person completely overrode my self-respect. He was dishonest, disloyal, inconsiderate, in active addiction, manipulative, emotionally unavailable, and betrayed me in many different ways, so why was I so unwilling to leave the relationship? I began doing the internal work to understand what within ME was holding onto this person when he clearly didn't deserve me. Through my recovery work, I discovered it was many things, but mostly it was betrayal trauma, my unchecked codependency, and my pattern of being attracted to emotionally unavailable men. Awesome.
The next year was filled with a lot of recovery work and therapy focused on identifying my triggers, internal wounds, and patterns to either heal my relationship with E or move on completely. Betrayal trauma isn't something you heal from on your own, you need qualified support and community. It rocks your sense of security and self-worth in the most intimate of ways due to the nature of the wounding. It's also very humbling to learn I was attracted to my partner due to sexual wounding I've experienced throughout my life. More awesomeness.
Through doing my internal work I discovered the many ways in which my enmeshed and dysfunctional family created a lack of boundaries, diminished and discouraged my voice, and many other gifts that made me a perfect match for E. I discovered how I avoided conflict, didn't know how to self-advocate, and rarely asserted what I wanted. All my resentments, hidden expectations, and unexpressed emotions emerged. My patterns of security seeking, hidden coercion, need for control and power, lack of trust and faith, self-abandonment, dishonesty, and suppression were all realized as blocks for me to connect authentically and lovingly with my partner. So much of my shadow self emerged throughout this self-discovery and partner work, and I feel like I finally saw my part in creating conflict. Most importantly, I connected the dots between how my relationship with my father influenced the partners I was attracted to. I finally let go of a lot of internal baggage I held onto for many years, most of which had nothing to do with E.
As I continued to grow and change, so did my relationship with E. During the period when he actively engaged in his recovery, our relationship flourished and was better than before the betrayal. We communicated well, had compassion for each other, and were so loving and understanding of one another. Alas, as anyone who's ever loved someone with an addiction will tell you, the honeymoon period only lasts as long as their sobriety. Well, E decided to back off his recovery work, never moved past his 4th Step (personal inventory work), and consciously chose to stop pursuing sobriety. At this point we were engaged, but thankfully I had enough recovery work behind me to trust my intuition that something was off. He pushed for a quick marriage, moving to his hometown, and mandating that we have a child together within 2-years. There was zero consideration of me or my children and what we wanted or needed. It felt more like I was signing up to fill a role vs. having a true partnership. He also voiced he would leave me, even if married if I failed to fulfill his mandates. I felt like E didn't see me or want me for the value I brought to our partnership, but rather wanted me to fit into the life he wanted without having to compromise or consider me at all.
We were again at a crossroads in our relationship. This time, I was ready to stand firm in my boundaries, clearly communicate my needs and desires for our partnership, and speak to what I wanted. I remained firm in my boundaries but open to co-creating an outcome that worked for us both. E didn't like that so much and chose to exit the relationship. I let him go without resisting. Why would I want someone who doesn't want to be with me or see my value anyway? For the first time, it was easy to choose me, not self-abandon, and to walk away from the person I loved the most because the relationship was no longer aligned.
Healing from the ending of my relationship with E proved difficult at first, but I dove into my healing work shortly after feeling all my feelings and felt much more solid within a couple of months. I worked on letting go of our potential future, the pain of rejection and abandonment, and anything else that needed to go. Just as I was in a good space and moving forward, E came back saying he'd had enough space and time to see his part and wanted to reconcile. We entertained the idea for a couple of weeks, but I quickly saw that E wasn't as recovered or changed as he claimed to be when, yet again, what I wanted and needed wasn't considered. Shocker, I know. While this felt like a reopening of a wound, it was just the closure I needed to fully move on from E and never desire a relationship or connection of any form with him again.
Letting go this final time was very cathartic for me. I chose to send E a voice note thanking him for our time together and informing him that I was closing the door on our connection forever. When I'm done, I'm done. In my final message to E, I expressed my gratitude for our connection, voiced the lessons I learned, and thanked him for preparing me for someone else.
Letting go is about releasing the pain but holding onto the lessons and expansion. This person completely expanded my reality, life, and personal embodiment, and for that, I'm eternally grateful. I know that I've truly healed and moved on from this connection because I literally have no emotion for this person. I'm not angry, bitter, triggered, or resentful towards him. Nor am I in love with this person or have loving thoughts about him. E doesn't even cross my mind unless it's in a purposeful way such as this post.
At this point in my journey, E is just the final chapter in my book of relationship lessons. I'm thankful to close that book forever and look toward my future, whatever that may be. I'm a hopeless romantic and believe that one day I'll meet my life partner and finally experience that Holy Grail of love - agape love. And yet, if that's not my journey for this lifetime, I'm okay with that too! There's so much love to be found all around, especially within myself, and that's enough to sustain me in this lifetime.
