When I first started dating Sean, I felt like a mess.
I had called off my engagement six months prior, graduated college in a blur (a year ahead of my friends — talk about feeling isolated), and then jet-setted off to the mountains of Thailand to spend two months interning at a remote elephant sanctuary.
A lot of this was great. My previous relationship was supremely unhealthy, and ending it was the most liberating thing I’ve ever done. Getting a head start into the “real world” wasn’t bad. And traveling across the world was the first thing I’d ever accomplished truly all on my own.
2018 was a year of amazing growth — but when I realized how stable Sean was, I felt like a little kid again.
A long history of unhealthy relationship habits
Turns out I have a taste for codependence. I can trace it back far into childhood — I remember getting overly jealous in the 5th grade when my best friend decided she wanted to be someone else’s best friend, too. Talk about a grade school apocalypse.
After that, my middle-school-into-high-school best friend and I were pretty much the definition of “package deal”. It worked well for a while, both of us being extremely attached to the other… but I struggled to function without her approval. I remember crying on spring break with her junior year, fretting over whether or not we’d stay friends into college.
And then, with my ex in the picture, things really went to shit. Pardon my eloquence.
It takes two to tango
I’d like to believe that my ex was the worst human alive and that I’m a saint. That’s a nice story, and there are a lot of loving people in my life who would encourage me to tell it. But it’s not exactly true.
Sure, he did a lot of things that were awful — I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I experienced outright emotional abuse (and that emotional attacks can be just as real and painful as physical ones). But I wasn’t exactly perfect either.
Here are some of the unhealthy traits that were second nature to me:
- Feeling overly possessive
- Being preoccupied with external opinions and wanting everything to look “perfect”
- Avoiding conflict at the expense of honesty
- Altering my own narratives to make me feel better about myself while dismissing reality (and therefore missing countless opportunities to catch things upfront, learn, and improve)
- Sacrificing potentially great friendships to preserve a romantic relationship that was littered with red flags
- Playing the victim and always trying to appear in a positive light
And plenty more, too — but you get the gist.
I started dating my ex when I was 15 and he was 18. By the time I called it off, I was 20, we were planning a wedding, and I had built my entire life around the idea of us spending it together.
I thought the hardest thing would be working up the courage to give him back his ring and disappoint a whole slew of people who loved us (and yeah, that was pretty damn hard). But what really pushed me was everything that came after.
You don’t “fix” yourself overnight
If I’m honest with myself, I sort of thought I could go to Thailand and come back a completely changed, self-assured, badass person. Ha.
The elephant sanctuary internship was already planned — I had set it up over a year in advance after panicking over the fact that I was going to graduate college before I even turned 21. I felt like I needed to do something to escape the working world before “settling down”, and heading to another country to write about my favorite animal seemed like a pretty great idea.
So, I didn’t exactly run away — I was going to go to Thailand whether I was with my ex or not. (Probably a good thing I broke up with him beforehand, since he was distinctly not supportive of my ambition there). But by all counts, the timing was certainly convenient.
And Thailand was great. To this day I look at it as one of my most pivotal experiences. But as Mark Manson says, breakthroughs don’t happen all at once. That little Karen hill tribe helped put me on the right path… but the real work had only just begun when I arrived back in the states.
How tough it is for a girl who loves self-improvement movie montages to realize that a few months of journaling and having to navigate airports on her own isn’t actually enough to iron out all her flaws. Shocking.
In the beginning of our relationship, my confidence dwindled
Here’s what starting to date Sean looked a bit like: 1) Feeling great about myself after my world-traveling adventure, 2) falling for a really cute, kind guy who made me feel heard, 3) realizing that said cute, kind guy was supremely good at life and relationships despite never having a girlfriend, 4) starting to completely doubt myself and whether I was worthy of him.
Fun stuff.
Sean didn’t do anything to make me feel this way. In fact, he’s been overwhelmingly encouraging since day one. But seeing how self-assured and measured he was helped me realize the gaps I still needed to fill — and let me tell you, they were some pretty big chasms.
Turns out I didn’t have much self-worth
Ever since sometime in early adolescence, I’d felt a searing need to justify myself. It was like I wasn’t enough, or I was too much, or I simply didn’t know what I was doing when everyone else did. These were pretty classic insecurities that most teenagers are familiar with — but they colored my every move for years.
I thought I had gotten through a lot of this by the time I started dating Sean, but underneath a more polished exterior I still struggled to feel valuable. This manifested itself in a lot of ways:
- Overcompensating and expressing too much appreciation for the things Sean did for me (I would literally say “thank you” for normal things — like “thanks for not being mad I talked to a guy at work today”)
- Failing to set boundaries or take time for myself (I felt like I was lucky Sean wanted to spend time with me, and I’d better never say “no” when he asked regardless of how tired or busy I was)
- Requiring entirely too much affirmation from him
- Wanting to move too quickly to draw a sense of security and stability from our relationship
- And so on and so on and so on
In the simplest terms, I smothered Sean. I was looking for him to give me things — support, encouragement, validation — that I needed to give myself.
It was easy to disguise these deeply rooted insecurities as just being “full of love” for my boyfriend. I mean, acting appreciative and attentive is good, right? But thankfully, Sean didn’t let me get away with that narrative.
We had some really tough conversations, and he pushed me to get to the root of what I needed. He encouraged me to develop my own independence. Don’t get me wrong, he was there when I needed him, and he would never explicitly turn me away — but all the while he urged me to do better for myself.
Not because of him. Not because of our relationship. But because I needed to continue growing for me.
It’s still a struggle — so I keep building
Even with Sean’s support and accountability, developing my self-worth didn’t happen overnight. It’s an ongoing process all these months later — and truthfully, I think it will always be part of my life. I mean, my mother has been trying to instill more confidence in me for years.
Honestly evaluating and accepting myself just isn’t something I was very good at.
But I’m getting better.
Every day, I try to take steps to grow my independence. I take time for myself. Sean and I do our own things and support each other’s endeavors from a place of honesty and enjoyment, not obligation. I pursue a passion of dog training that’s pretty much entirely separate from him — and I work on not feeling guilty when I prioritize my relationship with my blue heeler alongside my relationship with Sean.I used to think there was some romantic beauty in needing the person you loved to function… but now I realize that the more capable I am of handling my life on my own, the better partner I am.