The End of My Secret Girlfriend Era

I got a message I really needed to hear.

A few months ago, I texted my support circle of girlfriends with a desperate plea. I was a few weeks into processing what I’d learned about my recent ex, his new girlfriend, the significant overlap in our timelines, the fact that he’d told everyone and their dog that he was not with me throughout our six-year relationship while he slept with other women. It was a lot! I feel nuts, I wrote to my Signal chat group. I feel worse now than I did when I was in the relationship. What can I do? 

With help, I’ve been calling in all my resources for a month now — talk therapy, EMDR, conscious grief yoga, friendship, moving my body, loving my dog, and writing about a bunch of shit as I process everything. And I know now that this heartsickness is not what ends me.

Sitting with what is, rather than what I wish was, is uncomfortable. But I’ve learned about the paradoxical theory of change, which is that change occurs only when you become fully aware and accepting of what you are in the present moment, instead of striving to become something you are not.

I’m committed to shifting into a new era through embracing what was, and is: that I was a secret girlfriend for years because I didn’t feel good about myself. That I was willing to accept crazy lies because I was lying to myself, too. That I tolerated the person I loved telling me terrible things about myself because I believed them, to some degree (although I don’t think I’m a manatee, that one was really out of pocket). That all of it connects to a chain of grief that links back, and back, and back, to all the sadnesses I’ve never dealt with, to all the things I’ve stowed away in various moldy compartments where they sit, poisonous and rotting. I’m hauling everything out and looking at it, now. And I’m thinking about something my sister told me.