Letting Go

I recently had a fellow Doe girl open up to me, sharing her story about having trouble letting go of an ex. I have decided to copy pieces of her story below:

"I was at the guy that I am dating's house on Saturday night. We hung out and watched a movie and well we have been out on a bunch of dates now so we decided to take it a little further and we had sex. So we had this great night and I told him that I have major trust issues with guys. Well when we went to sleep I had a dream about my ex-fiance. The dream was about him and I and we were madly in love again and we ran off with each other and he left his wife for me (my ex fiance is now married) after that dream I woke up happy and looked over and saw the guy that I am now dating and got sad it wasn't my ex fiance. I haven't been with my ex for about 5 years now. What can you make of this? -Janet Doe"

Well, I would first like to tell you that you are not alone. Many people have trouble getting over past relationships. Especially when they were emotionally scarred by the person. A few Does (both Johns and Janes that I know) have had issues with such things or still are. The thing you must realize is that you cannot let your past that left you feeling broken determine whether you find future happiness or not. By allowing your ex(es) to have this power over you, it shows that you are hesitant to give someone else a fair chance to know you and know all of you. By doing this, you are not allowing yourself to move on or giving yourself the opportunity to ever really be happy.

Letting go is hard but it is essential to finding a new love. Otherwise you will always be waiting for the one person who broke your heart in the past... and what is to stop them from doing it  again? As hard as it is, we must all try not to bring our emotional baggage from past relationships to our new or future ones because if we do, we are not giving the new people in our life a fair opportunity and are in a way self-sabotaging our whole mission at finding love. I had an ex-boyfriend who was very sweet but had so much emotional baggage at the young age of twenty-six that it was exhausting to try and console him and assure him I wasn't like the other women he had dated. It got to the point that the relationship felt like a chore and not an enjoyment and soon after that, we broke up.

Exes are funny in the sense that they have a way of popping back up into your life as soon as you are happy. This is usually because their ego needs a pick-me-up and they want to see if they still have their power over you. It usually involves some line like this: "I realize what we had and how it was so special. I want to give us another try." Blah, blah, blah.... bullsh*t. Being happy and moving on is the best revenge, because as soon as you don't want said person they begin to crave that attention and crave you. After all, you are happy and they aren't. So they have to pursue what made them happy to begin with and that was having the power of manipulation.

Let go of the one who let you down.

So give yourself an emotional pep talk and see whether you are truly ready to let go of the past and allow yourself to refresh and find what genuinely makes you happy.  This means usually severing all ties so the person doesn't continue to tease or torment you, which they will do. Whether it is intentional or not is hard to say, but it will still hurt because they stand as a reminder.

Don't let your monster consume you.

As I have said before, make sure you are content with your life... it is important never to depend on someone to create happiness for you. You must create your own happiness and then find the person that adds to it. Life and love are all about choices, and once we close the door on our past, new doors open for our future. But you will always have an emotional and mental road block to finding your future happiness if you don't give yourself closure.

If you are dating in the hopes that you will find someone to replace the person from your past then you are not ready to get back into the game of dating. Everyone is different, and so everyone deserves a equal opportunity to prove they are worth your time and your love. Leave your emotional baggage at the door until you are really beginning to know the person fully. If you dump too much on them too soon it scares them away. Give them a chance to really get to know you, show your good points and charms before exposing your battle scars. This allows them to know that you have been wounded but are strong and worth fighting for!

Stay strong fellow soldiers, love is a battlefield so wear your protective armor and look toward the horizon. Your bright future is ahead of you, if you just leave the past behind you.

-Jane Doe over and out.