Yesterday I got a message from a friend that said he had been cheated on by his girlfriend while he was away on a trip and while I am not very good at being empathetic with people because I believe everyone feels completely different even if the circumstances are similar or the same, I could not help but start thinking how I felt every time a relationship that I have had failed.
In the past I have been cheated on, lied to, and well men have had the tendencies to be disloyal in more ways than one, and by disloyal I don't mean just cheating I mean them talking behind my back, not communicating with me and plotting to leave me without me knowing while everyone else did.
Every time a relationship failed, I could not help but to think that somehow it was all my fault, that I must have done something extremely wrong to deserve the fact that they lied, cheated, or plotted to just leave and it did not come to my attention until yesterday when I caught myself telling my friend that I would not say that things happen for a reason because when things we don't want to happen end up happening well the last thing we want to hear usually is "things happen for a reason" you always want to say well I want that reason, and is reasonable to want to know the reason for bad stuff happening to us, so instead of just accepting that sometimes things just don't work out and that the person we were with was not the right one we decide we will just take the fault for it.
I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have blamed myself for everything bad that has happened, and while I know that my decisions have probably put me in situations where I would not have otherwise been put in had I not decided to go against my very own intuition, in a relationship is the job of both people involved to communicate with each other about how they are feeling and for both to be open minded to the fact that sometimes the other might say things that they think to be true in their mind but that were just taken out of context when the other person said it and there is no better way to clear up any misunderstandings than by talking with the other person about it, if you don't then all you are ever going to do is wonder and wondering is never good in a relationship, I think things should always be as clear as you can possibly get them to be.
While I was continuing my journey through the day and wondering why I always tried to take credit for the bad other people did, I also wondered how many people out there, women and men, take the fault for what the other person did, how many say: well, if I was good enough my husband would not have done drugs and would have stayed with me; or if I loved my husband enough and the way I was supposed to love him he would have not gone to do drugs. My favorite one is: maybe if I would have been more out there and more available, or more free and more happy then he/she would not have cheated on me. I figured a lot of us probably do this, just by talking to friends that have had relationships failed and listening to people talk about their failed relationships I always sense that deep inside they take the blame, maybe if they would not have pushed too far, maybe if they would not have gotten pregnant, maybe if they did not go on trips too often then the other person would still love them. Truth is, no matter what you would have done differently there is no possible way to stop the other person from doing things that you wouldn't appreciate them doing, you just can't, that person you are with or were with is free to make their own decisions, they are the consequence of their own choices. No matter how hard one tries to be what the other person wants them to be, or how hard you try and do the right thing, the choices and actions of the other person all fall on them not on you.
If someone cheated on you, is not your fault, it was their choice, in a perfect relationship the other person would have come and talked to you about how they were feeling and why and things would have come out in the open before any cheating happened. If your partner, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, decides to go do drugs, to go and get in trouble with the law, then that is their choice, you did not make it for them you did not forced them to do it so it is not your fault, so we should just stop taking the entire blame for it, and stop trying to figure out why it happened, the reason will come to you when you are not as hurt, because there will come one day that you will not feel as hurt and you will see things in a completely different perspective.
A real relationship is based on communication, trust and respect; if any of those are lost then the whole relationship fails, in order for communication to work both parties need to be able to listen to the other without getting upset. Communication cannot happen when two people are angry, is usually best not to talk when you are angry at someone because you might end up saying something that the other person will not like or that you will regret later and words that have been spoken cannot be taken back.
So next time you try to figure out why things did not work out with the person you thought you could trust, and learn to love more than anything in the world or thought that loved you more than anything in the world, just know that you will not know the reason right when things happen, in fact you might never learn the real reason and sometimes the reason just is that you have learned and experienced everything there is to learn and experience from that particular person and is time to move on. Don't get stuck trying to figure out why, because if you do you might never know the why and definitely will end up closing the doors for the next person you are supposed to learn from and sometimes that next person is the one who you can constantly learn from and teach to, the one person you can truly speak to without fear of making them angry or upset, the one person you can totally be yourself with and vice versa. Don't let one failed relationship keep you from the one true and real relationship that the universe has been preparing you for.
