I’ve been single for over two years now.
Before that, I was in a committed, monogamous relationship with a man I thought I would be with for the rest of my life. We discussed marriage and children.
Something was wrong and had been wrong in the relationship for a long time. It crept up on me, invisible at first and then screaming in my face.
I had my fingers in my ears, ignoring the voice for so long, but eventually, I had to listen to it.
We were miserable together. The entire relationship was like a rollercoaster, with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.
My happiness became dependent on how we were doing, which depended on my partner’s mood that day. He could twist and turn the littlest things I said around to put me in the wrong.
The worst part was I’d find myself crying and actually apologizing for it, even though I had no idea what I’d actually done to upset him.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize I couldn’t keep living like that. It was stealing my youth and killing me slowly from the inside out.
Leaving was one of the hardest things I did. It felt like I’d severed a limb at first.
But hour by hour and then day by day, I began to regain a sense of my life again. And with that came happiness, first slowly and then all at once.
Now, I’m happily single, and I can’t imagine a reality in which I’m not. After two years, I’m completely good with who I am and what I do.
You can be truly, blissfully happy being single. It just might take some time.
Here’s how I found my happiness being single, and how you can find yours.
The most important thing to learn about yourself
If you’ve been in a relationship for a while, it can easily feel like part of your identity. When you spend so much time with one person, your lives inevitably intertwine to some degree.
When I was with my ex, all my spare time was spent with him. We’d cook together, or watch TV or go on bike rides.
These were lovely memories, but it meant that without him, I didn’t really know what to do by myself.
If you’ve just become single, the most important thing to do is learn about who you are and what you like. Discover the activities that light you up with satisfaction, and put your time into them.
How to do this:
It might seem like the last thing you want to do, but now is the best time to try that hobby you secretly always wanted to but never had time for.
Take up a sport like running, and set yourself weekly goals. Join a local club, or find an accountability partner if you struggle with motivation.
Pick up an online class for a cool skill, and immerse yourself in it because now you have the time to.
Being single is a blessing because you can try all these things privately and discover your passions and talents.
Once you find a few things you like, keep working on them. The sense of satisfaction you get from watching yourself grow and improve will lead to true happiness being single.
The most important people to fill your heart with
If you were in a long term relationship, I bet you wanted to spend as much time with your significant other as possible. Probably most of your weekends and nights after work were spent together.
I have no idea how many parties or invites to fun nights out I missed because I wanted to stay home with my ex. For a long time, I was afraid to be single because I thought I’d be alone. Once I left my relationship, I realized that I had never been less alone in my life.
If you find yourself newly single, you need to get back in touch with those old friends you blew off when you were in a relationship.
They might not have heard from you for a while, but if they’re true friends, they’ll welcome you back and be glad to hear from you.
How to do this:
Call or text a close friend, and explain the situation you’re in. Don’t expect them to be a sympathetic ear and listen to you talk about your ex for hours, but tell them you need a bit of distraction and fun.
Getting back into a social scene after leaving a relationship can be scary, but the best thing to do is just to throw yourself out there.
You can meet new people through your existing friends or make completely new friends by joining a club or hobby group.
Finding people that genuinely enjoy your company and appreciate you for who you are will let you see that love is all around you, even if it isn’t the romantic kind.
Start doing this and watch everything fall into place.
When you’re single, sometimes it’s hard to know where to start with navigating your new lifestyle and what to fill your time with.
For the first few weeks after my break-up, I felt lost. I wondered if I’d made the right decision since I felt this miserable.
Everything changed once I changed my perspective on things.
I started saying ‘yes’ more. If a friend asked me to come to a random event with some band I’d never heard of, I said yes.
If someone I vaguely knew invited me to a party I didn’t really know many people at, I said yes anyway, because why not?
Once I started opening myself up to opportunities and invitations, everything fell into place. I met new people and had new experiences, which made me truly love life again.
How to do this:
Start saying yes and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, even if you don’t feel like it at first.
Once you open your mind to new opportunities, you’ll see them materializing everywhere in front of you.
You might need to be proactive at first, by finding events through websites like Meetup.com or even by being bold and going somewhere alone.
Treat it like a big, spontaneous experiment for 6 months. I guarantee you won’t be thinking about your ex by the end of it.
You get to have fantasies now.
Perhaps the best part of single life is the endless possibility it presents.
Before you became single, you probably had a clear trajectory of how your life would go.
You’d date for a few more years, get married and have some children. Move to a house with a white picket fence, then grow old and die together.
If you’re single now, I bet that all feels like it’s been flipped on its head. It’s important to embrace this massive change, even if it might not feel like what you want right now.
How to do this:
Get back in touch with the idea of having fantasies again.
That hot stranger at a coffee shop? You get to go and talk to them if you want to. Nothing is stopping you, and there’s nothing to lose anymore.
Or perhaps you’ve got a dream you always wanted to pursue but felt like it never fit in with the plans you had with your partner for your life together. Now is the time to pursue that path on your own.
Start your own business, change your career, begin a side-hustle. You’ve got time, and you’ve got endless possibilities. You don’t need to share your dreams with anyone else. You get to have something just for you.
By allowing ourselves to fantasize, we remind ourselves of all the beautiful possibilities life has to offer us, leading to more happiness and fulfillment being single.
What you need to remind yourself every day
If you’re single and lost, happiness might feel out of reach right now. It can be tempting to think that running back to your ex will fix all the pain and heartache you are suffering with.
You have to remind yourself that this is temporary and that things ultimately ended for a reason.
I spent over a year trapped in an on and off relationship with my ex. The thought of leaving him was so painful that I thought we were meant to be together even though we were miserable.
It was only when I realized that we were caught in this cycle because we weren’t compatible that I was able to move on and find true happiness in being single.
You need to remind yourself of this too. Things ended for a reason, and the universe has opened doors for you to better opportunities for laughter, fulfillment, and new experiences.
Once you accept this, moving on and finding true happiness becomes easier. You’ve got this. You deserve joy, and you deserve happiness.
Everything will be okay in the end, and if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.
-John Lennon
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Previously published on medium
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Photo credit: by Joshua Rawson-Harris on Unsplash