When You Finally Get It Right You Realize How Wrong Your Almost Relationship Was

Almos Bechtold

When it’s the real thing you aren’t looking at your phone for bits and pieces of potential validation or interest. You put your phone down because the only person whose attention matters is the one in front of you.

Where you once believed every excuse someone told you, every lie, every reason plans had to change or something couldn’t work out, now you look at someone who tells you every reason it can.

When it’s the real thing you aren’t paranoid or thinking too much about saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing. Almost relationships tend to thrive on your self doubt. They make you think it’s you that’s done something wrong. It’s you who messed up. But when it’s the right relationship all the person cares about is making you feel sure of them.

Where you once thought it was your job to convince someone to fall for you as you overcompensated and tried every which way to get their attention this person teaches you it’s about who meets you halfway.

Almost relationships are all about the chase and making sure you get close but never close enough. Meanwhile this new person pulls you in and holds you tight saying something so simple like, ‘I’m happy here.’

While these two relationships are almost completely opposite and you can’t even compare them but you still manage to.

When almost relationships are all you know, what you’ve grown familiar with isn’t this healthy relationship but the opposite. Good relationships are the ones that feel like it doesn’t fit but in actuality it’s everything you deserve.

You deserve someone who is sure of you.

You deserve someone who answers.

You deserve someone who shows the fuck up.

You deserve someone who wants you as much as you wanted someone else.

And I know what it’s like to doubt them. I know what it’s like to be afraid. I know what it’s like to be comfortable alone you fear letting anyone in.

When you choose an almost relationship you aren’t just choosing someone you are pinning after, you’re choosing an ending you know. And ending you’re comfortable with. Wishful thinking and mixed signals make you want something to be there that isn’t. In your heart you know regardless of how much you try you can’t convince someone to care and be what you need.

There’s something weird and fun about that challenge. And girls who are used to choosing the wrong people at least have control in knowing they’ll get hurt so it won’t surprise them. They grow amune to disappointment and getting let down.

But pain and disappointment and let downs aren’t something you should get used to.

So when you stumble into the right relationship after so many that were wrong it’s like a breath of fresh air but it’s unfamiliar.

It’s suddenly having confidence in someone.

It’s suddenly including someone in your life.

It’s suddenly waking up next to someone and you remember how much it hurt waking up alone to a text wishing that person could have been something more.

It’s the kisses you used to think about just hoping.

The relationship you envisioned in your mind.

Suddenly someone is making it a reality.

Every first kiss. Every good morning. Every date. Every time they reach for your hand. Every time they include you in future plans and you get thrown off for a moment. Every time they bring you somewhere introducing you as their girlfriend or their date not as their friend.

You think back to a time when a friend was all you were to someone you cared deeply for.

Every time they touch you and tremble in a way you didn’t even realize you could.

When this person so easily becomes a part of your daily routine and life.

When they want to meet your family and friends.

When they want you in their big moments.

You think back to a time where you used to wishful think about an almost love being all of those things and doing all those things.

But after a while you stopped asking because all it led to was another reason pointing at regardless of how you feel this will never be what you need.

And I’d be lying if I said that almost love doesn’t just disappear because you found someone you deserve. Feelings linger. And that’s okay. Maybe they couldn’t be what you needed but emotionally they were everything you wanted.

Even when you’re going to bed with someone else you think of them.

Maybe their name appears on your phone. And he asks who is it. You tell him no one important. Maybe they blow up your newsfeed and you still get that feeling sometimes just seeing their name. Maybe you meet up and you realize despite this new person in your life you still feel a lot of old things for someone you can’t even define or put in some box of understanding what this relationship actually was because all you know is what it wasn’t.

It’s okay to think about them.

But you have to understand the difference between that person and this real relationship where you are feeling things you forget you could.

Showing up for you the way you showed up for him.

Loving you the way you loved him.

Trying the way you tried for him.

It’s okay to feel guilty sometimes for feelings you can’t control. But I truly believe that after a limbo relationship of giving them your all and they couldn’t reciprocate it, something good will come your way if you learn to let them go.

The greatest form of heartbreak isn’t pining after an almost love but wasting your time on someone when in your heart you know it will never be what you need and deserve. There is not amount of time or effort that can change that. Because when it’s the right person they will walk into your life very quickly and you’ll know this is different. This is right. This is what I deserve.

Understanding your worth and your value isn’t a reflection of the love someone couldn’t give but rather their inability to see what you had to offer.

Suddenly you cross paths with someone who does. And you’re fearful to fall but you let yourself. And the difference is this time someone is going to catch you. Because this time someone is falling with you.

I wish I could say that almost person is going to realize when you walk away what they lost. I wish I could tell you, he’s going to show up at your doorstep saying sorry. That would be nice.

But you deserve someone who doesn’t have to lose you to realize what they could have had.


You deserve someone who walks into your life and the only thing they are unsure of is how do I get this girl to fall for me? And that’s the difference right there in black and white.
Thought Catalog Logo Mark

Writer living in Hoboken, NJ with my 2 dogs.

Keep up with Kirsten on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and kirstencorley.com

More From Thought Catalog