Being Single Won’t Fix You.

When I turned around, I knew exactly what was happening.

We left the bathroom and made our way to the dance door when I realized he was gone. I turned around, looked up, and there they were.

They had the hand gestures. The smiles. The movements of their hands and the body language.

They knew each other.

My stomach dropped. My stomach felt like it would fall out from under me and I registered that same trigger that came up just two years ago.

I’d find out they had a history. And as my heart sank my brain started rushing with the anxiety of their rekindling, I realized I had fallen back into a place I hadn’t been in a while.

The jealousy. The worry. The panic about losing the man I love to someone he previously had liked, slept with, or possibly loved.

But something also occurred to me.

I had spent so much time assuming I had “healed”— That maybe my last relationship wasn’t for me — That maybe I just needed to walk away and heal from the jealousy it had brought out of me.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

For two years, I stayed away from dating.

I kept to myself. My head down. I focused on hookups. Uncommitted encounters.

I did whatever I wanted.

And then he happened.

Simultaneously the best thing that’s ever happened to me, but also the bullet to a loaded gun.

The jealousy. Anxiety. The lack of trust that comes from years of continuous ghosting, breakups, and pain.

And despite this man giving me every reason to trust him, the wound remains.

Being single being doesn’t fix you.

Isolation is sold as the “cure all” of love advice. But isolation doesn’t fix triggers.

It just hides them.

Instead of healing, you’re left vulnerable for the next time you have a relationship. Those similar wounds open. And suddenly you fall back into a similar place.

Different guy. Girl. Whoever.

Same thing.

You have to be open. You have to communicate. You can’t hide in your room and do enough yoga hoping that the next relationship brings you a sense of inner peace and balance.

You cannot heal alone.

Relationships are work, people say.

What we forget is the inner work. The work we have to do inside our own minds with our own fears, triggers, anxieties, and meltdowns that inevitably will eat us alive if we don’t work through them.

We have to do the work with the person we love.

We have to learn how to love better. We have to dig our heels in. Grapple with the pain and date anyway. Work through it and come out on the other side a better person, lover, and partner.

That’s the person our partner (or future partner) deserves.

But also, the person we owe it to ourselves to be.

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.

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From The Good Men Project on Medium

What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean?

My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me

The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex

The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence

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