Just Because Your Relationship Failed, Doesn’t Mean That You Did

Naomi August

Good things can end. Beautiful things can fall apart. Love; the true and big kind can fail. And disappear. But it doesn’t mean that you did anything wrong. It doesn’t mean you failed.

Many great loves have ended. Love that should’ve lasted a lifetime. And even so, it doesn’t mean that the love wasn’t there. It doesn’t mean that he or she didn’t love you as much as you loved them.

It doesn’t mean that the love wasn’t wonderful.

Sometimes love is not enough to save a relationship. And no matter how much two people could adore each other, circumstances can turn the bond sour. Time change can cause stress. Work and children and money have the power to turn any real life fairytale into dust.

But you know what? It doesn’t mean that you were the cause. It doesn’t mean that you were the reason the rope broke. It had nothing to do with you. 

Love can be as strong as a hurricane. But it also can be timid and fragile, like a melting candle or a tiny matchbox flame. Love shifts and tumbles, and can be sucked up dry by this world that has no pity for you. Love can come in waves and can turn into a raging thunderstorm. You can’t expect it to stay the same. It’s always going to be changing and evolving.

Broken love doesn’t mean you failed. It doesn’t make that relationship less of a beautiful masterpiece It doesn’t make you dumb or weak. It doesn’t make you pathetic.

It takes so much work for love to stay mended. And often, people forget just how hard it is to keep love alive in the dead of winter when they are so used to it feeling like summer.

Even if it ended, that doesn’t dissolve the impact that love had on your heart. Even though it ended, it doesn’t mean that you and your partner didn’t have the strength to make it to the top. It doesn’t mean that that love wasn’t real.

You aren’t a failure at keeping a relationship in tact. You aren’t a failure at keeping love alive. You see, you loved. And he or she loved you. You felt that magic for a little bit. You felt the butterflies, the hurricane and the beauty of it.

You had love for a while.

That makes you brave. That makes you resilient. That makes you powerful and courageous. That makes you strong. You put your heart and soul into someone else and into building a home that had two eyes and one heart. You put everything you had into love. And you believe in it with your whole entire being.

That makes you a success. That makes you fucking badass. Even if it ended. And even if it died. You didn’t ‘fail’. Because any kind of love, is the type of love that is worth it. It’s so, so worth it. No matter how the story ends.  Thought Catalog Logo Mark

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