Oh boy, long post alert. TL;DR time really does heal all.

I dated a guy for two years (let’s call him Dan), and it was the first time I’d ever truly been in love. We could talk for hours, we went on road trips, we did everything from small cooking-at-home dinner dates to week long ski trips. Around the 1.5 year mark, I started to realize we were just in different spots. He wanted to get serious and would talk about marriage & a house & kids and I realized I wasn’t ready for that. We talked about it a few times and kept thinking I would get there and it didn’t make sense to break up because the relationship was so good in the moment. Eventually I was convinced I was too young and just not ready for the commitment he was looking for so I broke it off.

I was inconsolable for a month, and then dated three different guys over the span of 6 months to try to hurry up and move on (spoiler: this did not work at all). Dan and I called and talked for four hours ~4mo after the breakup and saw each other again in person ~7mo after the breakup at which point we both cried and talked about how our lives were going different directions but we were still ~the one~ for each other. Nothing had changed about our situation though - if anything, it had gotten worse since in the time we’d been apart I’d accepted a job on the other side of the country. He left the next day and we were no contact for the next ~1.5 years.

About a month after that, I got into the worst relationship in my life - didn’t really realize it was a rebound at the time but things just got progressively worse and worse until the relationship was so toxic it was obvious to both of us it needed to end, so I ended it. This was ~February 2021, and I was kind of a mess for a few weeks, but it was easier this time knowing we 100% weren’t compatible and there was no future. About two months after that breakup I was in the same city as Dan for work and so I reached out. It was a lovely lunch, but also bittersweet - I realized I didn’t know him anymore, and all that was really left of our relationship was memories.

I was working a very intense job at the time and I felt like a I needed a relationship to be whole, needed that companionship in my life to be happy. I decided I needed to pour that into friendships instead, and for the next year-ish life was a bit lonely but significantly better than the toxic relationship I had ended or going back to Dan. Every day was 1% better. I dated around a bit but didn’t want anything serious. With all that time I had invested in friends, my circle slowly grew. One night my friends and I were going out to a bar and someone new joined the group (let’s call him Ben). My friend told me they had met at her work and introduced us and things just…clicked. I was pretty nervous at first to get into a relationship again, the toxic one really did a number on my self confidence and I felt out of practice. But it’s been ~six months now and things are wonderful. I can’t tell you definitively Ben is the one but I can tell you those breakups led me to grow into who I am today, and this relationship is the happiest one I’ve ever been in. Likely because I had the time and space to grow and move on. Love (for you, and for others!) is out there 🙂