What Happened Once I Decentered Men
At 23 I broke up with my boyfriend of two years and a friend of several. I was quite heartbroken and spent the time after that searching for something or someone to fill that gap in my life. I’d do things like compete against my ex. I’d date multiple men at a time. I’d spend endless hours reading because I thought high achieving would somehow soothe that melancholy feeling. Searching for the answer to happiness made me relentlessly unhappy. No matter how much I achieved, men I dated, and leaps I leaped beyond my ex, I still yearned to be around him.
One day, my mind was going in circles. I kept analyzing every aspect of my past relationship, myself, and my ex-partner, and the words “aren’t you tired?” came over me. I was tired. I was extremely annoyed. I was also embarrassed and finally, I allowed myself to surrender to these emotions. The emotions I felt overwhelmed me and finally once I grieved my body provided me with clarity.
I had to admit that my feelings had nothing to do with my ex. Our love wasn’t that powerful, so much so it controlled me. I didn’t even like him. I complained incessantly about his lack of ambition, and his emotions were too overwhelming for me. What I was attached to was a version of him that healed the parts of me that were damaged by my parents. I wanted him because I desperately wanted to feel normal. I wanted him because I wanted to think without the noise that clouded my mind. I wanted him to repair something that had nothing to do with him. So, I sought out answers and developed a philosophy that has made me feel more powerful than I ever felt.
I decentered men. The world tells people who attracted to men to seek them as our answer and not self-esteem or self-worth. So often we forgo feeling great about ourselves, to feel great because we have a great partner. We are taught to feel great by proximity, but not great because we are alive and capable.
Romance is a lovely concept and feeling, but romance will never be the solution to self-worth, your internal longing, and your self-loathing. If anything, it can delay you from taking responsibility for yourself and your happiness. So, do the work now and spare yourself the disappointment.
To search for that greatness in me I went to therapy and went through my childhood issues. I stopped relying on men to make me feel good. I stopped advertising myself to men and started being myself. Finally, I listened to myself intensely and made decisions based on me. Everything was based on me, my health, my happiness, and not based on whether or not this will make me a viable partner.
After I made myself the center of my world, the main character in my show, and the god in my universe, I felt a freedom in my skin that I had never felt before. The pressure to hurry and marry was gone. I started having a better relationship with myself and as a result could confront my critical inner voice, which stopped me from going after things. I was able to develop my professional skills. I dedicated more time to my health. Love, romantic and non-romantic, came to me. I started gardening. I picked up the guitar. I started a business. I improved because I started loving myself. I improved because I didn’t expect someone to love me out of my self-loathing. I improved because I admitted that my childhood had a much greater effect then I lead myself to believe.
Decentering Men
Lessons from an Unhealed Dater
