Never Stop Choosing Yourself

Heartbreaks suck. We often do everything we can to avoid them, including stay in relationships that have run their course or, worse, that hurt us. When a friend of mine recently put an end to a relationship that had sadly turned toxic, we got to talking and comparing experiences. As she ebbed and flowed between being sure of her choice and wondering if there was something more she could have done to fix thing (she had already done so much), I found myself wanting to grab her by the shoulders and shout: “Choose yourself! Always choose yourself!”

This is a pattern I’ve noticed not only in my relationships, but in the experiences of many people in my life. We meet someone, we form a bond, move in together, and at some point down the road, without knowing how we got there exactly, we either feel stuck, miserable, or in a rut of anger and anxiety with our partners. And then we fight. We fight with each other and with ourselves.

How did we get here? Where are all the beautiful moments that made us fall in love? How do we get them back? What went wrong? And most importantly: how do we fix it?

But I’ve come to realize that the right question to ask ourselves in those moments isn’t about fixing things. It’s about knowing when to let go and get out.

The question we really should ask ourselves is: Did I stop choosing myself?

Yes, romantic love can be a beautiful thing. But it can also swallow you whole if you leave your heart in the wrong hands.

Have you ever heard the saying: you need to be happy on your own before you can be happy with someone else? It doesn’t mean you have to be unconditionally happy at all times without ever going through hard times to be in a relationship. It means you need to know your worth, your boundaries, and what makes you happy as an individual before you can share your life someone in a healthy way. When you struggle to find yourself or find happiness on your own, you’ll struggle to remember who you are and what you need when your relationship drags you down.

As someone who used to always put others — especially boyfriends — before myself, I know it can be really scary to choose yourself, especially above someone you love. I remember being terrified that choosing me would mean being alone forever. Who would want me if I didn’t make unconditional room for all their wants and needs? Who would stick by me if I dared ask for what I needed, what I desired? How could I live with myself if I didn’t devote every last bit of me to help a partner in need?

Today, I say: fuck burying yourself for anyone. Fuck ignoring your needs out of fear of being alone. Fuck mind games. Fuck anyone who asks you to make them a priority above yourself.

Everyone on this planet has issues, traumas, insecurities... Everyone. And it’s everyone’s personal responsibility to deal with their own issues.

Does it sometimes get messy? Sure. Can it affect the people around them? Of course. But is it ever okay for someone to let their personal issues hurt others? No. It is never okay to expect others to have to change or to suffer the consequences of your trauma, no matter how much we love you. It’s only a clumsy, destructive way to avoid dealing with issues that inevitably perpetuates pain by projecting it onto others. And it’s extremely selfish.

I once dated someone who, like my friend’s recent ex, was highly insecure in many ways. Because I later found out he often lied to me about his past out of embarrassment, I guess I still don’t really know the whole story of what happened to him. What I do know with a decent level of certainty: some bullying, some brutal breakups, and definitely a father who had an outdated idea of masculinity that didn’t really encompass my ex’s personality. As a result, he was extremely self-conscious about all things “masculine,” like manual labor, for example. And I was expected to cover for it.

Though I am quite skilled with tools, I was never allowed to take on projects on my own when we were together. In fact, he expected me to give up anything manual around our house. He insisted on building all the shelves and furniture we bought together. He did it poorly, raging the whole time, unloading his anxiety on me. So, I would wait until he wasn’t home to fix the things he had “built” without hurting him — and without getting scolded for it. Whenever he felt threatened or triggered, he would yell and blame me. He would claim that because I knew he had insecurities, it was my fault for triggering him. He constantly expected me to change my behaviour so that he would never have to confront his demons. I was the one who should have known better than to provoke him by simply being myself. This led to many kinds of emotional abuse that made me small and broken.

After much therapy and introspection coming out of that relationship, I finally understood something crucial:

It’s never your fault if someone has experienced trauma in the past. It’s also never okay for them to use their trauma as an excuse to physically or emotionally abuse you. Their pain does not give them the right to inflict more pain upon others.

Yes, it is important to be compassionate and to show empathy. It is also important to talk about past and current wounds, especially in a relationship. You can learn someone’s triggers and help them cope with them in healthy ways while also avoiding causing unnecessary stress for them. You can also take care of them, knowing where their fragilities lie. But this should never mean making yourself smaller. It shouldn’t mean quitting something you love. And it most certainly should never mean taking the blame for their pain or the responsibility of healing they have not yet taken on themselves.

More recent romantic experiences have shown me that through proper respectful communication, it is possible to work through past traumas and work on healing together. When people in a healthy relationship know each other’s pasts, mutual understanding can be born. When you say/do X, it brings me back to Y, which makes me feel/act a certain way. Go from there. Learn how to recognize triggers and vocalize that just because someone treated your partner poorly in the past, it doesn’t mean this new relationship is the same. You can’t be held accountable for other people’s actions.

But remember that support should go both ways. There is no need to place blame on either partner when the common goal is to care for one another. When two people love and respect each other, they can work together to be better to themselves and to each other. And that needs to stay true even when one person has more growing or healing to work on.

Work. That’s the keyword here. Because if your partner isn’t doing the work themselves, then things will never change for the better. In the relationship I mentioned earlier, my partner released himself of any responsibility to heal or grow; I was always the one who had to change to accommodate him, the one responsible for protecting his potentially hurt feelings. I was the only one working so hard in the hopes that I could one day be good enough for us to be happy together.

But one day, I realized I was suffocating. I couldn’t do it anymore. There was simply no room for me in our home or in our relationship. How could there be? When I left, I remember telling him I thought he had some things he needed to work on. “Really?” he asked. “You think so?” He was sincerely oblivious. I said yes, and that I couldn’t be there while he did it, because I knew he wasn’t even ready to see it. It was time I chose myself, and by then I had a lot of healing to do myself.

Yes, it’s okay to ask someone to work on themselves.

That does not make you an asshole. Sometimes, we need help seeing our patterns and understanding our destructive behaviours. When constructive criticism and observations come from a place of love, it helps to make room for growth. And yes, someone can refuse to work on themselves (or disagree that there is anything to work on in the first place). But in any case, you always have the right to reach your limit, to chose to leave.

Other people’s healing is never your responsibility.

And the truth is that it isn’t within your power anyway — even if you’d really like it to be. You can kill yourself trying to “fix” someone, or to get them to heal, but if it doesn’t fundamentally come from them, it will never work. You can be there for them, you can support them in all kinds of ways, but you can’t do it for them.

I know this can be hard to accept. It can make you feel guilty for reaching your limit and for choosing yourself over someone who is in distress, someone who needs help. Unconditional love is a beautiful concept. But it is also a harmful one; staying with someone who becomes toxic to you is not romantic, it’s self-destructive. Offering unconditional support and help to someone who does not have the profound intention to change is like driving down a one-way street while going the wrong way; the only thing you can get back from it is a head-on collision.

So, never stop asking: what about me?

You deserve love.

You deserve to heal.

You deserve to thrive.

You deserve happiness, freedom to pursue your dreams, to have room to grow into your favourite self.

And you deserve a partner who wants those things for you. You deserve support, even when it means your partner has to ride in the back seat for a while. Even if your success has nothing to do with their own.

Choose yourself. And find a love that never asks you not to. The people who are right for you will love you all the more for it. They’ll see it as clarity, confidence, not as a threat. Because they won’t be competing with you; they’ll be happy to see you bloom. They’ll be proud of you. And they will be glad to have a supportive partner who wants the same for them.