The Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Walked Away From

Have you ever been in love with someone? And not that fake love, where you say you “love each other” but you both know (maybe not at the time) it’s just infatuation, and once the honeymoon period fades, so does the “love” that came with it.

No, but I’m talking about real love, whatever that means. It’s the love that runs so deep, that no matter what happens, through thick and thin, poverty, homelessness, tragedy, whatever it may be, you guys went through it all, and maybe even overcame every single obstacle life threw at you guys.

You both sacrificed so much for each other. Maybe you worked overtime for 3 months straight, just so you could buy him or her that watch they always wanted, or take the vacation you guys always talked about. You both showed acts of extreme selflessness at times.

And over the course of months, years, and even decades, both of you have invested so much time into each other, you couldn’t imagine leaving this person.

Is that love? Is that what love is? To be furiously loyal to one’s partner? To be able to forgive your partner, no matter what he or she did to you?

Is unconditional love and forgiveness true love?

I’m gonna be bold and say no it’s not.

Should we forgive our partner for everything they did, even it hurt us? Maybe they said something; something so inappropriate and hurtful, if you found out your friends or family had been with someone like that, you’d not even hesitate to tell them to leave.

Maybe they did something hurtful instead. Infidelity, that’s a big one, though it’s not always the only one. Maybe it was verbal abuse, physical abuse, or worse, sexual abuse.

Maybe they got themselves into something that, to be quite honest, you shouldn’t have to deal with. Did they get arrested? Go to jail? Did they do something so unredeemable, you have a hard time even believing that THEY did that.

Whatever it is, when we’re in “love” we often forgive our partner for things that, to a normal person, we’d never give them a second chance. The sad thing is, we give these people not only 2nd chances, but 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th chances.

We fight, we yell, and we tell them “I’ll forgive you this time, but if it happens again, I’m out”. Then it happens again, but guess what? You’re not going anywhere, and they know it too.

And I found myself in this exact situation that many before me, as well as many after me will face:

Should I stay or should I go?

“Look at this ‘broken’ person”, I tell myself. “She was with me through the bad times, the times when we wanted to give up….but we didn’t. We made it. So, maybe we can just work this out, It’ll all be okay! I still love her, if I just stay a little more patient, and a LITTLE more strong for her, she’ll change. Because that’s what love is, 2 people growing stronger together, right?”

The thing is, sometimes people just grow apart.There was a time when we thought this person were meant only for us. We were inseparable, and we’ve shown it too.

But there’s a part of you as well, deep in the back of your mind telling you: What we had before, we’ll never have again. It’s not to say it wasn’t real, because you know the love and the feelings you had WERE REAL. But you end up living in the past, wishing things were “just like they used to be”, when in reality, they never will.

If only they could change this One Thing, it would be perfect. But years pass, and they never do. You still hope for it, but you begin to realize, day by day, as time goes on, it’s never going to happen.

The only thing that keeps you hopeful were the memories you used to have. It’s these memories we hold onto that end up holding us back.

And this was the hardest thing I ever I had to walk away from. When I realized she was never going to change, at least, not with me. How I wanted to stay, how I wanted to be there for her, because I know she could do better; she could BE better. I just had to be there for her.

But I walked away, and it hurt. Every ounce of me wanted to turn around and say, “I’m here, and I love you”, but I didn’t.

I realized that I have my own life to live, and sometimes people come into our lives and we think, he’s the one; the missing character in our own book of life. But instead, they were merely there to teach us a valuable lesson, and one we desperately needed to learn.

And the truth is, our stories are far from over, so turn the page, it’s time for the next chapter.

 

thanks for reading,

 

cory