Fall back in love with yourself and attract the life, work, and love you truly want.

He Doesn’t Have to Be an Ass to Act Like One

Forgiveness happens inside the person doing the forgiving. The first person who benefits from forgiveness is the one who does it. It heals our pain and resentment before it does anything for the person we forgive; they might not ever know about it. – Lewis Smedes

One year ago today, I was still boasting about how I had been ignorantly blissful as an independent, single woman in her thirties absolutely enjoying being fabulous without a man. That was a big deal for me because I had always been a “relationship girl” as my friends would put it.

Around this time last year, I had set off to go into seclusion, leaving behind my beautiful home of Milwaukee to go live on a farm in Minnesota and write my first book for the majority of 2011.

At least, that was the plan.

Everything just became a whirlwind after my departure. Nothing seemed to go as planned. Months into my hiatus, I was heavily pursued by a man, who didn’t initially catch my eye at first, but eventually won my heart.

I was not expecting this, especially during a very critical time in my life where I had very ambitious professional goals to achieve. However, I entertained the idea of getting to know this man because it just “felt” right.

As we started talking and getting to know each other, I thought I had done everything right. I had paced myself to get to know him over the long distance and time away.

I shared thoughts, feelings, goals and dreams with him when I would normally be afraid to be vulnerable with a man during that point in my life.

I let him know how important it was for me that we only took things to the next level if we were on pace to be serious with and committed to each other.

He told me he wanted that with me and that made me smile from ear to ear because I felt the same about him when I least expected it.

A question that often came up from others, and even him, was why after almost four years of being happily single and on this ambitious journey did I let him in?

It was because he was so vulnerable with me and shared personal things that made me feel meaningful and purposeful to him. He had solace in my heart and that fueled me to want to be more and give more to him from an emotional standpoint.

It was a strong beginning, our relationship, and it felt magical to be able to just look into each other’s eyes and feel such a deep connection that all the words in the dictionary could not even express.

After almost four years of convincing myself I didn’t need or want a man, I fell in love with this one.

HE JUST WASN’T THAT INTO ME ANYMORE

But the unexpected would happen. Or maybe not if you’ve been in my shoes before when everything always seems to go wrong when everything seems so right.

In only a matter of a few months, he was exhibiting signs that he just wasn’t that into me anymore. Only, I didn’t get the memo.

As time elapsed, he just seemed to fall out of love as quickly as he fell in it with me.

It felt like a knife in the heart; or, back rather. I didn’t see it coming at first. Then over time, it became more and more apparent to me that I was losing him.

Rather than going with my gut after seeing how often his actions had not matched his words, I chose to believe his empty promises because I was desperately holding on to any hope that we could sustain our relationship.

Little did I know that I was reverting to old behavior. I had the egotistical need to be the catalyst of change for my partner. That is something a super woman often does to be meaningful in all of her relationships. As ambitious and well-intentioned as that is, it is a big mistake to enable the emotionally needy.

A good friend of mine recently said to me, “You can’t be with someone for their potential. If they are not already what you are looking for, you will be disappointed when they do not become who you believe they have the potential to be.”

It made perfect sense to me when I was ready and willing to take heed. And when I was, I let go of him and the toxic relationship that had evolved over the months.

The more and more he sunk into his depression dealing with his personal issues and fear of commitment, the more and more I felt rejected and sunk into my own depression as well because I felt as though I had failed.

JUST, BE HAPPY

I rarely pray out loud, but found myself doing so during those times of desperation as our relationship was dwindling in the Fall of 2011.

At first, I was praying out loud and asking for God to help me salvage the relationship because I truly loved this man and wanted to be with him as I had committed to earlier in the year.

After further self-reflection, applying what I have learned over the years as a life coach, what I know as a woman with self-worth, and talking to the great support system that surrounded me, I decided to relinquish my control and let the relationship evolve as it would.

It was the week of Thanksgiving, I was feeling so lonely, so depressed, and at my wits end. I had just completed my move back to Milwaukee. I was working tirelessly to rebuild the business after returning from my hiatus. And behind all of this high energy I exerted into my work, I was crumbling inside holding on for my dear life to keep my relationship afloat.

Simply hopeless. I remember waking up feeling so defeated and not wanting to get up from by bed except to lay on the couch. I had even missed one week of school because I couldn’t focus on anything else or get out of my head.

It was then that I embraced that moment and allowed myself to just feel the emotions I was feeling. Listening to every thought and expressing every feeling. It was in that moment that I prayed one more time and this time asked simply for clarity about what to do next. I remember saying out loud that all I wanted was to be happy.

And in that moment, my mind and body was immediately enlightened by the response, “Berni, you have had the power and responsibility to choose happiness all along! It’s in you. Just, be happy.”

And with that, I became happy from that moment on. Just like that. Like a light switch turned on in my head and heart.

Days later, I broke up with the man who had my heart for nearly nine months.

I’ve found myself saying this in the past, and I know others can agree, that it would have been so much easier to break up with someone who was overtly an ass. It would be so much easier to hate him and be done with that horrible treatment.

It’s difficult when you are in a relationship with someone who does a lot of ass-like things in a good guy disposition. Because you wouldn’t expect him to do hurtful things since most of the things he says are not explicitly hurtful.

And even after feeling rejected and hurt over and over again by an ass-like good guy who made a lot of empty promises and omitted the truth quite a bit, you’re gonna kill me for saying this, but I still can’t take it personally.

His issues are deep and he will have to continue to deal with the pattern of his behavior with every new relationship until he decides to make some major changes to make things right. That’s if he even wants to. He is not only hurting others along the way, he is mostly hurting himself for not choosing to take control and accept responsibility.

FOUR LESSONS LEARNED

Hindsight is 20/20, right?

What I take away from the relationship is that we must fail in order to succeed. Just like the nature of business, this is the nature of relationships as well.

There are four lessons I have learned here:

INTEGRITY – I recognized that I needed to walk away when my integrity was being compromised. This is something I’ve always been very good at in past relationships too. The length of time in which I have held on to a toxic relationship has shortened over time. This is consistent and definitely progress for me.

SELF-RESPECT – I did not allow myself to create drama or feed into the drama he had created for himself and our relationship. I definitely exercised great patience and poise in this arena, which differs tremendously from past relationships where I was a needy mess. I did a 180 here. Wow.

DEFINITION – I went into the relationship with ambivalent feelings and a lot of ambiguity. I wanted to be single, yet I grew to want a relationship. I didn’t want to be needy, yet I grew to want to be needed. Well, you get what you ask for, right? That’s why being definitive is so important when you are looking for a right match. I am good at attracting that which I am, at the time; however, I am still working on being more definitive from the get-go so that I’m committing to a man that already is what I want and not potentially the man I want him to be.

FORGIVENESS – I learned that the best way to let go of the pain that could hold me back was to forgive this man even though he may have not known what he was truly sorry for when he did apologize at the end. And even though I may never know whether he was genuinely sorry or the reason he was sorry, it is a moot point. With each break up, I have gotten really good at choosing to forgive.

Don’t get me wrong. There is no way I’m going to sit here and tell you everything has been peachy keen without some feelings of ambivalence or anger over being rejected after pouring my heart out for a man when I could have stayed ignorantly and blissfully single for another year or more.

I’ve been mad. I’ve been sad. I’ve cried. I’ve been bitter. I’ve allowed myself to feel all the feelings that come with grieving. I mean it’s only been two months since the break up occurred.

However, once I allowed myself to be human and go through the motions, I have been more at peace and happy than I have felt in months.

To all of you beautiful, smart, and amazing women and men who have been rejected and hurt by someone who behaved like night and day with you during your relationship, I want you to remember that you deserve better so you must let go.

I mean that.

For whatever reason your relationship failed, realize that it’s an opportunity to get right back up, work on YOU, and try your hand at it again when you’re ready.

But that’s just it, you have to be ready. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself stuck in another relationship repeating old behavioral patterns and hurting others while hindering your own self-growth.

And even if we don’t get it right again the next time around, I say that these things are meant to happen for a reason to teach us something. But it is our job to learn and make necessary changes if it is not serving ourselves or others we care about.

FALLING BACK IN LOVE WITH YOURSELF

There’s nonsense in thinking we won’t fail more times. We’re not immune to bad things happening to us. It’s how we react that matters. Over time we get better and learn to nip it in the bud more quickly.

I changed my business tagline last year when one of my mentors and friend, Joe Sorge, a very successful entrepreneur in Milwaukee challenged me to share my passion statement in our small business advisory board forum at Kitchen Table Companies.

And like I have promised since day one when I became a professional and personal coach, I am committed to living out the values and principles I espouse to teach: I am passionate about helping you fall back in love with yourself to attract the life, work and love that makes you excited to wake up every morning without an alarm clock.

That, my friend, sustains me every single day. And if it took another break up for me to be reminded of the reason I dedicate my life and work to do this, so be it.

BATTLE OF THE SEXES

This is a perfect segue into this week’s happenings!

Join me as I go head-to-head with Straight Male Friend’s very own Marcus Osborne from the comfort of your own computer and couch on Thursday, February 2^nd at 8pm EST/7pm CST as Hipolitix hosts “Battle of the Sexes” on Blog Talk Radio.

Hope to see you there!

And as always, I would love to see you comment here.

Have you recently experienced a break up where everything just dissolved when things were going well?

What did you take away from your experience?

What would you do differently?

What would you do the same?

What words of advice would you offer others experiencing this kind of toxic relationship?

Photo credit: woodleywonderworks

Tags: battle of the sexes, being a rebound relationship, Berni Xiong, dealing with break ups, everything meant for a reason, fall back in love with yourself, four lessons learned, he's just not that into me, joe sorge, kitchen table companies, life coach milwaukee, life coach wisconsin, marcus osborne, milwaukee life coach, straight male friend, when things are good everything goes wrong, wisconsin life coach