Published
5 years agoon
By
FrimpongNot everyone can love you in the ways you need to feel loved, but how do you forgive them for not knowing how to love you?
Not everyone can rest their fears and insecurities long enough to open to another. Not everyone can love the way they wish to experience love either. Meeting someone is like rainbows and butterflies. We always think we will do better.
“I’ve learned. I’ve grown. I’m ready for our true love! “We’ve taken responsibility for where we’ve gone wrong in our past and honest about what we want for our future.
Perhaps after all this time we’ve finally learned how to not only put ourselves out there, but also have a healthy relationship. Things might flow smoothly for a period of time.
They may even be blissful or euphoric as new love tends to be. We will feel our hearts grow and once again begin to feel hope blossom that maybe this person, looking at us with stars in their eyes, is the meant to hold our hand for the rest of our life.
So, we let our guard down, we trust, we go all in, and we assume they are doing the same. We believe that not only do they mean everything they’ve said, but they also will be able to put the real work in.
But after some time, we begin to start feeling those first pangs of distrust and let down creep in. We begin to wonder if they actually mean what they say, and we start to fall asleep crying instead of smiling.
We’re not sure where we went wrong. How we went from, “this time I’m going to do it differently,” to, “why do I always get hurt? “While in every situation, it takes two.
Sometimes we blame ourselves for the things we did or didn’t do that led to the other person to hurt us.
But none of the specifics really matter. The only thing that matters is the ability to forgive them for not loving us how we needed to be loved and for not making an effort to show up in the ways that they first said they wanted to.
We must forgive them for being a temporary relationship and for being one more lesson that we were meant to experience.
People make their own choices, our job is not to take it personally when they do. Even if they lacked the knowledge and follow through because they were intimidated or triggered by you or the relationship, ultimately, it’s still their wound to own.
It’s their choice whether unconsciously or not to walk away or work through their feelings. Just because one person couldn’t love you in the ways you needed, doesn’t mean that there isn’t someone out there who can.
People work for what they value. It won’t matter if you haven’t spoken in months or even if you’re dating someone new.
The minute a man decides that you’re the one he wants to invest in, nothing will be able to stop him, including his own past failures and insecurities.
But if we haven’t forgiven the ones who weren’t able to love us, we might not be open to the ones who can. We have to let our hearts heal to forgive them and ourselves. Just because the love experienced didn’t last forever doesn’t mean it wasn’t meant to happen.
It’s getting to the place of acceptance where we can truly acknowledge that the person we had such high hopes for wasn’t able to love us in the ways that we needed.
Perhaps it was an issue of presence. Being decisive or even in letting go of their past, regardless, they left holes where we should have been assured. They neglected the love that they said they valued so highly. But don’t worry, it wasn’t a waste of time! It wasn’t a mistake because through every heartbreak we learn.
We learned the value of actions versus words. Follow through versus intent — excuses over decisiveness. We discovered we are worthy of being loved. As we love and grow, we begin to understand that while we have to forgive them for not knowing how to love us, we also have to forgive ourselves for thinking they could.
We are so committed to not starting over that it prevents us from seeing what is supposed to be in our lives. Maybe they were the step to your forever love; the final lesson in learning that while they couldn’t love you in the ways that you needed, they did teach you about the love you do want to cultivate.
The only last thing to do is forgive them and walk towards your future with an open-heart trusting that just because it didn’t work out this time doesn’t mean next time it won’t.
By Emmanuel Osei Akoto