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I was truly my own worst enemy.
For as long as I've dated, I've always been the relationship type. I was never interested in one-night stands, friends with benefits, or anything casual.
My older sister met her now husband of over 10 years
during her sophomore year of college. When I started college, I was also
on a mission to find my husband. I desperately wanted to find my
soulmate.
My friends dated and began coupling off, but I
didn't. I stressed about it so much that getting into a relationship
became less about having a special connection with someone, and more
about proving to myself and others that I was worthy of being with
someone.
My desperation and lack of confidence must have shown. Because every single guy I dated through my junior year of college may as well been the same person:
- Emotionally unavailable
- Didn't respect me
- Probably just wanted to get laid
I couldn't figure out why this was happening. I was
dating the same person over and over again, just in a different body.
How was it that I had friends who seemed to always have boyfriends and I
couldn't even manage one?
Finally, in my senior year, I got into the most amazing relationship.
We had been best friends
since our first semester of freshman year in college. He was smart,
sweet, Jewish, and could make me laugh like nobody else could. He'd been
my go-to person who comforted me after every heartache of my failed attempts at relationships over the years.
Then at the end of our junior year, he confessed his
love for me. That is a long story in itself, but let's just say after
some back and forth, we started a very happy relationship. It was a
beautiful love story.
We dated for about a year and were having an
amazing relationship, but then I broke up with him. I broke up with him
because he was skinnier than me. I thought I was too fat and he too
skinny.
You see, the part of my story that I've left out so
far is that since I was 12 years old, I thought I had five pounds to
lose. I was never fat, but I thought if I just lost those last five
pounds, then all my problems would be solved. I believed that without
those pounds, I'd have no problem attracting guys and I'd be able to get
into any relationship I wanted.
So in my dream relationship,
I tried and tried and tried. But I couldn't get comfortable with him
potentially seeing a roll in my belly or grabbing a love handle when he
went to put his arm around me. I believed that intimacy was about being
comfortable with another person, which required me to be skinny enough,
or at least not care if he saw an imperfection in my body.
I actually remember gazing at him longingly,
believing that if only he were a bit bigger, he truly would be my
soulmate. So after a year of dating, I made up a bullsh*t excuse and
broke up with him, even though what I had with him was exactly what I
had been desperate for.
Fast forward five years.
I'm at a bar in Washington, DC and I noticed my
friend's cute friend. At this point, I had gone through a huge
transformation. I had stopped counting calories and stopped going to the
gym (the gym had always been another way for me to control my weight).
After a couple of hours of flirting, Stevie put his
hand on my knee and he asked me how my skin was so soft. Without
skipping a beat, I looked at him and said, "Kale."
We look back and laugh at that. Stevie thought I was
crazy, but it was the first time in my life I was eating and moving my
body to take care of myself. I was off the diet hamster wheel for good.
I wish I had known dating wasn't about
playing games or being perfect. I would've saved myself so much
heartache. Attracting the right person for you is about treating
yourself the way you want to be treated.
For years, I didn't treat myself well,
so I attracted all the wrong men for me, most of them jerks. During the
years I didn't treat myself well, I was lucky to find someone who did.
But because I wasn't treating myself well, I was never able to let him
in, in any real way.
Intimacy is just "In To Me I See." And since I
couldn't bear to look at myself in the mirror, I certainly would've
never been comfortable with any other man seeing me, too. It wasn't
until I truly started to treat myself the way I wanted to be treated
that I not only attracted the right man for me, but was able to let him
in.
Almost three years later, Stevie and I are still
together. I continue treat myself in ways that make me feel loved and
happy. I take care of my body rather than torture myself with counting
calories. I give myself rest and white space if that's what I need. And
I've taken responsibility for my own happiness.
The funny thing is, once I stopped seeking those things from men, and
instead brought them to the relationship, I received more love and
happiness than I ever thought possible. I've never told Stevie what to
do or how to behave to make me feel loved or happy. He knows how I want
to be treated because he sees how I treat myself.
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