Listen - I'm 26 years old.
When I was growing up, I constantly heard 2 old sayings:
1) "Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter, don't mind."
Translation - If your man loves you for who you are, then his friends' opinions don't have any place in your relationship.
2) "With friends like these, who needs enemies?".
I'm speaking from experience.
I dated my ex-fiancé from 2016 to 2019.
Someone posted a thread called "He doesn't love me anymore", and their relationship closely mirrored the 2 relationships I'm mentioning in this post.
About 80% of the poster's relationship (as they described the early days down to his contemplating dumping the ex) closely mirrored my relationship; the only differences were I was addicted to pills (I'm 3 years sober, and grateful for my sobriety); I was in an interracial relationship (and slowly discovered my fiancé was racist - which made me resent him); and after I dumped him, I had trust issues.
It took me 3 years to heal the trauma & trust issues I had from my breakup from ex-fiancé.
I felt myself becoming my toxic family and like the ex - it was just time for me to stop acting like them and remember the things that made me an amazing person.
I wish I had remembered those qualities I loved about myself, before I became filled with trust issues.......
Thankfully, I healed and moved on to a loving, supportive partner of 1 1/2 years.
We build each other up, and we don't resort to a*use like my exes did to me.
We communicate, we help each other when one or both of us are not doing well, we encourage each other's dreams and aspirations.
My exes only wanted me to love and support them without having any respect for me, and bashing anything I said.
It was their way or the highway.
I know that mentality because my family was like that - if I didn't conform to my family's old school ways (I grew up in a 'Stay in your place' type of family - the way old school husbands disrespected their wives is the same language my family used to talk down to me).
My escape?
Shows like "I Love Lucy" were my education; it's the reason Lucille Ball is my idol.
When Lucy was Lucy Ricardo, I saw myself in her.
I refused to be bossed around and told what to do - I had autonomy and wanted encouragement.
I was sheltered and saw a life that was so much larger than my small hometown, way back in 2005.
18 years later, I'm independent, still free spirited and a survivor.
I overcame the odds.
When I met my exes (who you will hear about), all those goals of independence and being Progressive somehow went to the wayside - in order for me to keep my seemingly Conservative exes, who - like my family treated me - instructed me (subconsciously) to "stay in your place".
This spelled disaster for me.
Anytime I was challenged for my beliefs and for expressing emotions, it made me rebel - which I called "disaster".
I never knew at the time, but disaster quickly set in a year or two into each relationship.
One relationship lasted 6 years; the other lasted for 3.
The ex I dated from 2016 to 2019 constantly cheated on me (and he openly admitted it to me several times, and I still stayed while getting angry about it privately, while publicly putting on a united front).
I bit my tongue constantly - that's how I was raised - but I never admitted that to either of my exes.
I saw it as a tool they would use to abuse me further.
They laughed when I cried, cheated on me constantly (and bragged about it to my face), told me several lies (and admitted to others that they manipulated me into dating them) - and I did not understand why I was falling for all their behaviors.
Back to the ex from 2016:
He threatened to physically a*use me after his very first confession of cheating - because I cursed him out, screamed at him for 15 minutes straight and basically became a tyrant (and I am not proud of that; it's one of my biggest regrets), saying things such as, "You don't f***ing love me! You betrayed me!" while I held back tears, and I still refused to break up with him.
As an act of showing him "Look at the amazing man you lost out on", I literally pulled my pants down - in front of 4 of our friends - and mooned him.
Some people use the term "I was emotionally naked" - except I was physically naked.
I wasn't seeing, "You idiot! You just pulled your pants down and embarassed yourself! All you had to do was breakup with your boyfriend because he's turning you into the people you used to laugh at in films while saying, "That won't ever be me." Well, you are them now! So how are you going to deal with it moving forward?"
All I saw at that time was, revenge, revenge, revenge.
Get him back.
Which was so immature and stupid of me.
I hate thinking about the person I became back then.
I later felt guilty for staying - but I realize had I not dated him, I would not be able to help others like I am now.
Even after he blamed me & deflected for the way I behaved (Keep in mind, to this day I only remember very little of what I said while I went off on him in front of all our friends that night - the mooning & admission of cheating happened on May 30, 2016).
He admits to cheating on me while threatening to punch me in the face and all he thinks about is deflecting because of the way I reacted?
All those times I said I wanted to take the high road - and here I was, behaving like the crazy ex-girlfriend - and we're two men who loved each other, who now hate each other and haven't spoken in 3 years.
This was probably the thing that saved me from going down a dark path in my relationship:
I do remember at that time of my fiancé and I having relationship issues, the gospel singer Tina Campbell (from the group 'Mary Mary', which is she and her sister, Erica) was on she and her sister's reality show.
I watched her TV show every week - I ate, breathed and slept it because Tina and I were going through the exact same issue, at the exact same time.
Tina openly showed her abusive behavior toward her husband on camera - and every time I watched an episode of the show (the show was still airing new episodes at the same time as my boyfriend and I were having our issues), it was like Tina was doing and saying the things I wanted to do to my fiancé, but I just could not be that destructive.
I revered her - she was (and still is) such a huge role model for me.
Looking back, Tina and I went through those same emotions, but we reacted differently.
I went the nonviolent route; Tina reacted verbally and by (literally) breaking the windshield of her husband's car - and she allowed the damage to be aired on her reality show.
When I think about Tina now, I have so much respect and admiration for her; she was extremely courageous to allow the world to see her marital issues broadcast on national television.
It's been 2 years since another breakup with a guy I dated for a year after my ex-fiancé, and whenever I get betrayed, the first thing I do is look up the "Mary Mary" reality show footage on YouTube.
And I just sit and watch that whole season where Tina talked about her husband's cheating scandal and how it played out on her reality show.
Even when I was in that relationship and watching the show, I always told myself, "If Tina can heal, so can you. You overcame your abusive family. So if your boyfriend betrays you again, find someone new."
And that's exactly what happened - except he left me because he refused to stop cheating and lying about it (and ignoring how broken it made me).
By the way, Tina and her husband (who is a touring drummer and helps with Tina's band) did repair their marriage.
Tina (at least at the time of the show) did a tour of speaking engagements to promote her memoir (which was about her marriage and how they overcame everything).
Then, a year or two later, Tina's sister revealed in a televised interview with Oprah that her husband (Tina's brother-in-law) cheated & had a second apartment in New York State - and I live 2 hours south of NY.
It was like life imitating art.
Once again, I soaked it all up.
It was like seeing my life on a TV screen for the second time ever.
Back to Tina and then my healing process:
I went through the same thing twice, whereas Tina was married with children (I've been engaged 3 times and never married; I'm 26 and childless).
It was rough at the time.
I'm just grateful that I was able to heal and pick myself up after my 2 abusive relationships ended and after all the lashing out and retaliations my exes tried to do to destroy me (one posted revenge p**n and that was how I was forced out the closet - all during the whole blowup with my ex fiancé, so that was also what angered me).
It was a lot - but I overcame.
I put all my emotions into my songs and raps.
It's much better than the path I picked myself up from, 7 years ago.
Part of what helped me heal was learning that my exes that treated me like that were abusive toward me, and a friend encouraged me to research the term "narcissistic abuse" because she saw that my exes were narcs (I had no idea at that time).
The more I learned about it, the more I became inspired to help other people who went through similar situations to mine.
Part of my healing was those relationships ending, but the best gift of all, was I became my own best friend again - because in those relationships, I had lost myself.
My aunt even had to tell me, "Find what makes you happy."
And I immediately started crying; I told her (while doing the ugly cry), "I don't know what makes me happy."
I kept those relationships a secret for several years, even after I was forced out the closet and the "cat's out the bag", so to speak - because the abuse was too painful to speak about.
It doesn't make me emotional speaking about it anymore - that's how much healing I've felt because of the end of those relationships.
But I'm grateful that I lived to tell the story.
And I'm now in an amazing 1 1/2 year relationship with a man who loves me and doesn't hesitate to communicate with me.
I open up to him, and he opens up to me - which is the one thing those exes were too scared to do (they'd always tell me vulnerability 'is what makes me run', and that was a dealbreaker for me)
Those 2 relationships (one of which I forgot to extensively discuss here) had to crumble, in order for me to find the love of my life.
If those breakups never happened, I would have still been suffering and probably would have never gotten sober.
I've come so far, so in case anyone is reading this and needs support from someone who's been there - I see you, I understand what you're going through.
You don't have to lose yourself to become your partner; don't do what I did!
It's taken me the last 7 years (until recently) to turn my life around.
I'm happy, healthy, found myself and found the love of my life.
If I was able to heal, then so can you
