How to Get Over Him and Move On (2)

 

Shush! Keep your voice down. 

I am about to let you in on a very private experience which I'd rather not share with the world. That will be our little secret. 

I am learning that God allows us, His children, to experience certain things so that we can grow and be examples to others. (I am not saying that God makes us have those experiences, especially when some are a natural consequence of our poor or good choices. He merely looks on for it to happen). And that is why I can share this experience.

I am a hopeless romantic. I tear up at romantic comedies. Especially the ones where the guy conquers hurdles just to be with the woman he loves. I love to see people who are in love, express themselves to each other in many breath-taking ways. Stay with me, dear. Let’s keep it holy here.

In real life however, I never wanted to fall in love or get married. I will explain shortly.

The Old Me

Like many girls, I did not see a beautiful example of marriage growing up. I grew up in the custody of my paternal aunt and her husband. The problem was that he was away at Bible School in America for so many years. He returned home about once a year for very short periods. The most I saw was my aunt laying a table to serve him breakfast or dinner. Outside of that, I did not see how she related with him as a wife. So, zero knowledge there. 

I lived with my parents till I was six years old and was sent over to my aunt. However, I used to visit my parents on weekends. It was more to assist my mother in taking care of my younger siblings. I am their first child. 

During these visits, I was abused by family members. Sexually. And then I witnessed my parents quarrelling most of the time. I began to believe that I was the cause of their quarrelling. I think my dad sent me to my aunt because he did not want me to grow up in that environment. I had “daddy issues” too at the time. Tons of it. (I will share later how God helped me deal with that.)

There is a lot of very sensitive detail I am deliberately leaving out because sharing it might amount to dishonouring some important people in my life. (Dear Christian girl, honouring people is a very important lesson you must learn. I will write on that in the future, by God’s grace.)

I don't think my parents are terrible people. They both love me dearly. I have seen them bend over backwards for me in many ways. I don't know if I would be able to do some of what they have done for me, for my own kids when I have any.

You understand now why I never wanted to get married. I disliked men in a way I could not understand myself. I wanted to have a baby at 19 years by artificial insemination. My aim in life was to become a wealthy, powerful criminal defence attorney, buy myself a luxury house in the countryside with huge, clear glass windows facing my horse ranch. To live alone, with my young adult children who wouldn't know their father. Such silly ambitions. 

I could not beat nature, however. I find men interesting. I enjoy the company of great men. Some intrigue me. Others challenge me. Most merely entertain me. I grew up with about seven boys (cousins). I was the only girl. I am surprised I did not become a tomboy.

With time, I begun to let go of my inhibitions. Not every man was out to hurt me. Besides, I realised that people could hurt me only to the extent that I allowed them. And if you have been a victim of multiple abuse, you'd know that you end up giving people 100% permission to hurt you until one day you snap out of the victim mentality and take charge of your life. Sadly, some people never get there. I am grateful to God that He brought people and books my way that helped me jump out of that sinking ship to solid ground. 

Fast forward to my young adult years, I made a lot of terrible dating choices. My self-esteem was low. To avoid being exposed, I kept choosing men who were incapable of bringing out my insecurities. We all know that a relationship is the one tool for digging out anyone's self-esteem and insecurity issues. By the way, if you are not being vulnerable in your relationship, then it is not an authentic relationship. Be vulnerable or get out!

I sort of dated someone who I discovered did not know my value. That was my fault, not his. Why? Because nobody who knows the value of diamond, even in its raw, uncut state, will give it to someone who cannot appreciate the real value. I did not value myself and this meant that I kept self-sabotaging by allowing people who could not appreciate my value have access to me. Access to my time, soul, happiness, pain, and secrets.

The problem with handing over diamond to an ignoramus is that you stand the chance of losing the diamond entirely. Either they carelessly misplace it or transfer it to the next random person. Or in their attempt to be nice, they just hurl it into the nearest flower garden, to join the many common stones. Because that is what raw, uncut diamond means to an ignoramus. A common thing. 

By the time I dated about two people (officially) and a few others unofficially, my heart was a mess. I had lowered my standards, allowed many things to happen which should not have. My self-confidence was at -12,567,899,003,322 (read as: minus twelve trillion, five hundred and sixty-seven billion, eight hundred and ninety-nine million, and three thousand three hundred and twenty-two.... whew!). 

I was now convinced that relationships and marriage were not for me. I had gotten to my wits end. I was distraught and had become a shadow of myself. I felt useless. I felt I would end up failing in the department of love, marriage and parenting. 

Then one day, I went on my knees in my room. I confessed my pride and stubbornness to God. With my hands lifted, and hot tears streaming down my cheeks, I surrendered to Him. I told Him I was letting go in abandonment, to Him. I desperately needed Him to take over my life.

My cry came from a deep place within me that I never knew existed. It was from a little girl with years and years of wounds that she let fester and never got help for. I was tired of choosing for myself. I wanted only what He wanted for me now. I was not at this stage because of my age, mind you. I was simply tired of trying it on my own and deceiving myself that I had been looking for God's will.

There is a place you get to where you must stop feeding yourself with lies. You get there when you realise there is literally nobody else but God, to save you from yourself. At that place, you fall on your knees. Your cry is guttural. You don't care who can hear you. You see yourself for what you truly are. The mask is taken off from your face. 

It is the presence of God. It does not feel spooky neither does it feel like a spiritual high. It happens on a normal random day when God chooses to open your eyes to who you truly are. Wretched, naked, helpless as vapour and in need of Him for your survival every minute. Grace finds you that day. I thank Jesus for His sweet grace.

This is the place I arrived at. Then I made a deal with God. That if He brings me to the person whom he knows is best for me, I will uphold my purity until marriage and through marriage as it should be. Not many days after this discussion with God, something very strange happened!

Friend A suggested that Friend B and I start talking. I know you’re wondering why we would listen to Friend A. Let’s say Friend A was someone Friend B and I looked up to. So, Friend A encouraged us to talk. It was weird from the start because Friend B and I had always been friends and thought nothing of each other, romantically. I was surprised to discover that we were growing fond of each other as we begun to talk more.

Once we started talking a lot more than friends, I realised he seemed to be almost everything I ever discussed with God. I naturally thought that it must have come from God.

I will try to make this part short. This talking stage was fun and sweet. I was happy most of the time. There are some mistakes I made that us girls make when we meet someone we truly like. You know it, stop looking at me that way.

While some of these mistakes are very common, I think that girls like my old self, with the self-esteem issues I had, are the worst culprits. We don’t know how to sit pretty and allow a man to chase us. We forget that we are God’s precious girls and that we are supposed to be minding our own business being happy, while a worthy man finds us and pursues us.

You may have done this a couple of times in your life. Getting ahead of the guy. You choose fuchsia and shades of lilac as your wedding colours, in your head, when all he ever said was “Baby, I like you”. You stand in front of the mirror and practise how you will smile on your wedding day. Darling, what  you need is to get yourself a job.

I digress.

Remember I said it was the talking stage, meaning he had not even asked me out. He was supposed to be pursuing me. Yet, we had grown close. We talked morning and evening and in between sometimes. We will talk about our days. We shared our fears, pain, joy, successes. Things that people do when they are dating. Therefore, I was in a situationship with a close friend. Sigh.

Let’s say I may have made some of those mistakes that women make. Maybe I came across as needy or stifling. One thing I am certain I did was not even attempting to put my best foot forward as people do.

This article is not about him so I will refrain from saying much about him. I assumed we were both on the same page. Well, to be fair he had said “I love you” at a point. But I came to learn that love is best seen in actions. So, I decided to observe actions. I soon discovered a mismatch between his words and actions, and eventually started a conversation on the topic. The relationship ended before it even had a chance to begin.

 

K I N D L Y   O B S E R V E     A    M I N U T E ‘S   SI L E N C E     F O R   T H I S    D E A R       

  S I S T E R’ S                B  L E E D I N G         H E A R T.

We had been talking for 3 months. I was aware that we were not exclusive. I think what hurt me most was how he went about the situation. I expected that because we were good friends, he would be able to talk to me about how he could not see us getting together.

Instead, he began to withdraw. I’d panic, thinking he was in danger since it was not normal for him to go many hours without communicating. After I attempted on three separate occasions to find out if he was okay and realised that he was fine, and not in any physical danger, I got the memo.

I suggested we have a chat. I knew how it was going to end and I wanted it done quickly.

Eventually, when we had the conversation, he said he did not want a relationship but wanted to be friends. I asked if there were any reasons. He said NO. And added that he could not share them.  I think that is what made the experience painful. Nobody enjoys being rejected. And you know rejection hurts most when you have no clue why you were rejected.

I asked myself so many questions that day. I realised there was no way I would figure out what went wrong. So I decided that the best I could do was to quickly get over the experience. And that is when my life begun to change positively!

Of course, I cried. Twice. I don’t want you to think this was not a painful experience for me. I was deeply hurt. I was devastated. I wasn’t so sad about the loss of a possible relationship. I was sad for the friendship I thought we had and how he had disrespected it. But, apparently, we had nothing. And that is exactly why I was mad when he asked that we could be friends if that was okay with me.

I thought to myself that if this friend of mine could behave the way he did, whatever good reason he may have had, then there was no point me moping and shedding tears. That would be a waste of my time.

Here ends today’s piece. 

I have shared all of this background story so that you will appreciate the journey better. 

In my next post, I will share what I did, step-by-step, on my journey to getting over the heartbreak and how I discovered my passion for life.

Read Part 3 for practical ways to deal with heartbreak as a Christian girl, here How to get over him and move on (3)