The Disgusting Truth About On-Again, Off-Again Relationships

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Your friends are never sorry for you when you come crying to them about your most recent breakup, because you put yourself in a bad situation. You knew what you were getting yourself into and you did it anyway.

Besides, you will probably get back together eventually. You always do. You are never apart for long. The separation is only temporary.

They don’t want to spend too much time bashing your ex in case you get together again soon. They don’t want you to end up hating them in the future because they look down on your relationship. Because they think this person is a horrible match for you — and they are entirely right.

When you’re in an on-and-off relationship, you fool yourself into believing this is the person for you. You tell yourself that you must belong together because no matter how many fights you have, no matter how long you are separated, no matter how many times you break up, you always get back together again.

You trick yourself into seeing that as a good thing when it’s really a horrible thing. You can never stay together for long. You hurt each other constantly. You threaten to leave and sometimes you actually do. You are in a toxic relationship and mistaking it for love. You are living out a horror story and calling it a romance. You are lying to yourself.

You keep returning to each other because it feels comfortable. Because it’s scary to start a relationship with someone new when you have unresolved feelings for someone from your past, someone you know will never really leave you.

You keep breaking up with each other because the split is not meaningful. You never consider the possibility that the relationship could really be over this time. You assume they will never find someone better than you, even though you are encouraging them be single again. You are giving them the chance to explore other options. You are assuming they will keep settling for you because you keep settling for them.

That is the problem. You shouldn’t feel like this person belongs to you even when you decide to stop dating them. You shouldn’t assume they are always going to come back, no matter how horribly you treat them.

Your forever person is someone you are terrified of losing, not someone you break up with whenever there is a slight inconvenience. It’s someone you are willing to fight to keep, not someone you are willing to release into the dating world because you don’t want to put in the effort of fixing things.

When you break up with someone, you are saying you would be happier without them. You are saying you want to see other people. You are saying you don’t think it’s possible to make things work between you ever again.

Instead of getting back together with someone you have abandoned a dozen times before, maybe you should hold out for someone who you never want to leave in the first place. Someone who you are terrified of losing.