Become Ruthless in Your Boundaries — Or Be Forced

I knew what to do as soon as I had heard it.

The man I had loved. The man I called home. The man that I went out of my way for, gave everything to, and had shown up for had done the unimaginable.

He trapped me in a game of uncertainty.

The hot and cold. The mixed emotions. The inability for him to feel or understand his emotions. And as I sat by my phone for two months, watching him like my posts on social media only to disappear once I re-engaged, I made an executive decision.

One that wrecked my heart.

I decided enough was enough. And I cut it off. But I didn’t stop there.

Every ex of years past. Every situationship. Every flirtationship. Every whatever the hell that was. I muted all of them.

Muted their posts. Muted their Instagram stories. Stopped responding to hearts or flirty words that would once again amount to nothing. I refuse to any longer be part of a revolving door of people they consider an option.

I’m out. I’m gone.

You’ve been cut off.

I’m becoming accustomed to cut-offs.

Cut-offs have always seemed cruel. They’ve always seemed final in a way that I was never comfortable with. I want to cling. I want to hope. I want to talk it through.

Turns out, most people don’t want to talk about it.

They want to run.

And this doesn’t mean I block them. It doesn’t mean I never speak to them again. It doesn’t mean that I consider them forever dead to me and will ignore their calls.

But it does mean that if they do approach me, there must be growth, change, and accountability.

They have to be healing.

They have to be consistent. They have to be engaged. They have to have done the work and approach me with intention and clarity.

I declared no more ghosts in my life. The dead is better off left where they are buried.

You see, you have to be ruthless.

Ghosts and exes and situationships and avoidants will continue to haunt you if you let them. A man I dated over a decade ago is still flirting and sending me memes on social media. He accidentally put me and everyone else he was doing this to in a group chat.

I was one of nearly 20.

20.

We don’t have a choice. We can choose to be ruthless with our time, love, attention and boundaries or we can give it away to the person who keeps us in a revolving cycle. A person who never gives us what we want, because they never know what they want.

And as we experience their dysfunction, we become dysfunctional too.

I’m choosing instead to function.

Not as a muse for them when they’re bored. Or a prize for when they have finally stopped numbing themselves and decide they actually love you again. Ruthless is the only way to happiness, it seems.

So I choose ruthless. I choose boundaries.

But most of all?

I choose peace.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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