“She was the kind of girlfriend God gives you young, so you’ll know loss the rest of your life.”
–Junot Díaz
I swear it was a lengthy exercise of self-introspection. We had been together for years, and between the routine and the fear of the future, an insidious thought took over: what was I missing out in life by being with her? This question swirled around in my head, and maybe it was the reason why the relationship weakened to the point she was the one who decided to end it.
This is one of the most cowardly things you could do in a relationship, wait for the other person to end it so you can be the victim. Well, that’s what I did.
I know, I don’t deserve a pat on the back, and I swore that once it ended there would be no regrets from my part because freedom was at my fingertips. It was only a few days later that I realized the disaster I had left in my wake. One of her friends (who despite it all never stopped talking to me) told me my ex was unconsolable, and she couldn’t understand why I had changed so quickly in such a short timespan. She felt guilty for breaking up, and she thought I surely felt worse. So, this is the context, my cowardly escape that later on I would bitterly come to regret.
The first few days I tried to adapt as best I could to my new life of singledom. I started talking to a friend who I’d known for years and who I knew–thanks to the powers of Facebook– was also single. As the texts progressed, the trust began to grow, and when I finally asked her out, I was excited for what was to come. I felt I was at the top of the world, but it would be later on that, as I started going out that I realized my mistake.
Summary of a bad decision:
Yes, she was good looking, but I didn’t feel attracted to her.
We’d both changed, and we had nothing in common anymore.
When we spoke of the past it became awkward for some reason.
We didn’t laugh at all.
I was thinking about my ex constantly.
I compared her to my ex all the time.
I realized I’d made a mistake, breaking up had been the worst decision I’d made in my life so far.
I must admit this relationship with this long lost friend never truly had a chance to start, because I got back together with my ex-girlfriend.
I don’t want to fall under the stereotype that says men suffer the relationship some time after breaking up, but for some reason this is what happened to me.
After days of emotional calm, my mind suddenly exploded. I didn’t want to get out of bed, I only spoke to my friends, and all I wanted to do was get drunk and forget it all. In my drunken stupor I would send illegible texts and my cyber-stalking reached such levels that, if it had been known, it would’ve been labelled as a crime.
Showing sincere regret is not simple because the trust that had taken years to build disappeared overnight. Fixing past mistakes can take time, but between the small talk and messages, we slowly began to rekindle the relationship.
I knew it would take time to get back together, and the first conversations were tough; she thought I didn’t want to be with her or that there’d been someone else who’d gotten in the way of the relationship. Even if the latter was untrue, it took time to heal the wounds. We overcame the obstacles because we were both invested in making things work, and this was a sign that eventually we would be back together.
Love is a complicated and messy business, which is why sometimes it is better to summarize this convoluted “back together” in 10 chronological steps. These stages helped us realize that our relationship deserved another chance.
10. We went out again and none of us ended up crying.
9. I went to see her after a hard day, and she did the same in another occasion.
8. She let me pay for dinner again.
7. The kisses were back. They weren’t intense or passionate, but rather small kisses that steal the moment and your breath away. They are meaningful in the sense they encapsulate intimate thoughts like “here is where I want to be,” without having to voice them out loud.
6. We went back to our old haunts and weren’t gripped by melancholy.
5. I went out with her and her friends.
4. We had sex again.
3. We adapted to the changes that came during the separation.
2. We discovered we were in love just like at the beginning.
1. We left the past behind us and we focused on building a future together.
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Many believe going back with an ex can be a big mistake, but sometimes we need to lose something so you can fully understand how important it is to have it in your life.
