I have a few girlfriends who are going through rough hell in their relationships. I see myself in them, the active analysis of their relationships, of what it all means, what it all COULD mean, and it makes me concerned because I see this line of thinking as the smart girl’s attempts to rationalize herself into staying in something that is hurting her every day.

When I say I see myself in that behavior, I mean to refer to my old self. I’ve been there, where the other half, by simply existing in my life and being himself with all his hurtful behaviors, killed a little of my spirit every day and every morning when I woke up, as soon as I remembered who/where I was, I was sad again. There was always that lump in my throat, the consternation on my forehead, the painful rock in my stomach. I lost so much weight despite not having the energy to do anything, not even work out. When I finally freed myself of that, EVERYTHING was wonderful. The colors were more vibrant, the birds sang just to me, I noticed every beautiful detail around me (like the sparrows’ fuzzy chests as they twirled on their tummies in the dirt), and they all delighted me, made me want to laugh out loud.

I want to tell these beautiful women, make them see, that they’re working so hard to make excuses to justify a selfish guy’s behavior, and you know how much the guy cares? He doesn’t even bother to justify his OWN behavior, much less modify it despite how he sees it’s killing his girlfriend, and the WOMEN are doing all the work in saying, “Oh, it’s my fault, I shouldn’t have ticked him off, I know how he likes his slippers warmed up and fetched as soon as he comes in the door, and I took too long.” “It’s just me being unfair. I knew when I got in that he liked his women and booze. As long as I make myself okay with it, we’ll be fine.” WTF?! And the guy is happily doing his own thing, prancing out the door to do whatever he wants with whomever he wants, too easily ignoring the crying woman on the floor he leaves behind.

Girls, not every man is like that. And you are about to be so happy, you just need to take the first difficult steps on your own and it’ll be so much easier the farther you walk. Stop injecting the false hope and nonexistent kudos with “I think he’s getting it, he didn’t hit me as hard yesterday as he normally does, so it’s getting better, right?” I’m not being literal on the quotes, but you know what I’m getting at, because you women are smart. Now be smart on your OWN behalves.

One thing that screwed me when I considered getting out before, was that I’d think about being “alone” and how “alone” might be worse than staying with crap. To that I now say, “An empty house is better than a house with bad tenants.” Besides, you have to be “alone” first to move on and be whole again, figure out what makes you happy, do it as much as you damn well please. Then when you heal and come out of this emotional mud, your future boyfriend waiting at the other side of the muck will be very happy you left something that wasn’t right for you because now the future boyfriend gets his turn to be with you.

1.) It’s not you, it’s HIM.
2.) Stop making excuses for him.
3.) Yes, it’s hard, and yes, it gets easier.
4.) Walking away from him is walking toward reclaiming your life, your happiness and your future.
5.) It’s about to get SO GOOD.

Unless, of course, it IS you, but my girls who are going thru this and have gone thru this (and you know who you are cuz all of the above are things I’ve already told you), if it IS you I’ll tell you so. Haha.