People who have been my friend long enough know that I have a bad history of choosing relationship partners who are bad for me in almost every way. Only after moving halfway around the world and, for the first time in a long time, confronting my actual self and experiencing some much needed introspection, did I realise that the problem with all of those relationships was me. I was the problem; but not how you think. Obviously relationships are a two-way street and, rarely, is the breakdown of a relationship, or an unhealthy relationship, ever one person's fault...it was just that my fault was a little less obvious from any perspective.
One of the worst people I dated cheated on me, lied to me all the time, insulted me, and gaslighted the hell out of me to the point where I genuinely believed he was right...that I was crazy. To him, my feelings were invalid. I would get gut feelings about him lying or being out with other girls, would confront him, and would go to bed crying, believing that my feelings were completely unfounded and wrong. It was a nightmare that I am insanely glad to be out of, but was apparently needed in my life to teach me all of this.
My feelings are valid.
That's right. All of those feelings I had, the things that made me feel insecure, that made me worry, that made me feel uncomfortable, that I brought up to him, were all completely valid. Why? Because I was feeling them. That's it. Just because he didn't agree with them, didn't feel the same way, didn't understand them, or didn't want to, did not matter because my feelings were just that, mine, and they were affecting me. That was something I never understood for the longest time. It's something everyone should understand, regardless of what anyone says.
Everyone deserves to be heard and understood and work through those emotions in any relationship, whether it's romantic, familial or just a platonic friendship. The feelings that you have about anything should, at the very least, be listened to and acknowledged because that's how healthy relationships work.
I'm still working on my self esteem, but now I'm at a point where I feel comfortable saying to my partner what I'm feeling, and, instead of being dismissed, I am acknowledged, listened to, and the feelings are dealt with.
I'll leave you with an example.
I recently moved out of the place I had been staying since moving to Finland from the States, and while packing up I admitted that I was having a really hard time accepting that I needed to throw away some of the boxes because I was emotionally attached to them, just some empty boxes, and was really sad about it. Obviously this sounds a little weird, and I'm sure it sounded just like this to my boyfriend. So, he asked why I was feeling like this. He didn't say "They're empty boxes, just put them in the trash, who cares?" or say that me being attached to boxes was "ridiculous" or "stupid". He didn't judge my emotions. So I explained that I was having a hard time throwing them away because they were the boxes I had gotten presents from my family and friends back home in and were some of the only physical parts of them, and home, I still had with me. It felt like I was throwing part of them away with those empty boxes. I knew, and still know, that what I was saying didn't make much sense. I knew I wasn't throwing my family or friends away, I knew they would still be with me through the phone, internet, and just in my heart, but at some point I had put this emotional significance on these boxes without realising it, and I just couldn't help the way I was feeling. But it didn't matter, and he understood. In the end, we talked about it, and he reassured me that everything would be okay. That the emotional importance of the gifts I recieved and the thoughtfulness they put into those boxes was still with me, with or without the physical boxes.
Never forget that your feelings are valid and deserve to be heard because you are important.
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