We’ve all been there. At some point of our lives, we’ve given into love, or what felt like love at the time. Be that skipping a work meeting because your partner had that one day off, creating a fiasco at home to stay out late with them, or simply putting your entire life on hold and waiting for them to catch up. All this feels worth it at the moment – what’s a little drama in your life, a little unemployment, and a little sitting around for someone who makes you happy and could one day be your life partner. Yes, it’s like a fairy tale romance. It feels like that because that’s all it probably is – a fairy tale romance.
When you start dating, the first three months is commonly known as the ‘honeymoon phase’. You see them almost everyday, spending hours together, staying up late chatting with them, and it feels like you can’t spend a waking second without them. Life feels put together and you’ve never been happier. However, slowly but soon enough things get real. You see their bad sides, you get to know more about them and their families, you tap into a sphere of their identity that only their dearest ones see. After a while, you find yourself with labels and officially in a relationship. All that takes time, and yet, putting your life on hold for them is something you’d imagine yourself doing or be ready to do at any point of this journey.
I was telling a friend of mine a couple weeks back about how I was getting cold feet about going to America for my masters in June. Why? Of course, because of a guy I had just started seeing in January. While we had one too many break ups in the span of the first five months, and this man was very unsure of me for the first four, I was ready. All he’d had to say to me was, “Puja, don’t leave,” and I’d stay back another year in a heartbeat. After all, in his words and in true fairy tale romance fashion, he kept implying that we could go together next year, in some teenage-romance-cringe fashion, and for me to help him with his admission process. He may have graduated a year after myself and I might have already skipped a year, but anything for love, right?
Wrong.
I kept asking myself the question, “What if I’m ruining something good, something that has a future, all for a degree?”
But that’s just it. It’s not just a degree. It’s the first step towards something bigger, something I’ve wanted since my high school days – a life for myself, a lifestyle where I decided when I came back home.
A life where I was in a job I enjoyed, didn’t have to worry about curfews, answer a million questions about my whereabouts, and above all, this is an escape from the toxicity and limitations I grew up with.
My friend, to my surprise, said that she went through the same thing last year. Difference is, her decision to stay back for a guy was solid and she had no backup. Upon getting accepted into her dream school in America, she asked her then boyfriend what she should do. She asked for his opinion as one should ask their partner while making such decisions. Well, instead of saying, “Do what’s best for you”, her then boyfriend said, “Stay.” Ah! The magical word. So, my friend stayed and then underwent a painfully messy breakup within the next two months.
The guy she chose to stay for is now the guy whose radius she actively avoids. She has changed her hangout spots and her tutoring locations all to avoid seeing his face. A turn of events and emotions she didn’t imagine when she heard him say, “Stay”.
There are many stories similar to these.
While I’ve managed to keep myself steady in my goal of leaving this June, I won’t lie and tell you that it’s been easy. Occasionally, I find myself self-sabotaging.
A part of me hopes my visa won’t come through so I’ll have a logical reason to stay because an emotional reason is never a good one. Before I started thinking with my brain and was set-in-stone that I’d defer another year, my guy was giving me the princess treatment. He said things like, “I want you to stay, but I’ll never ask you to.” Makes the heart skip a beat.
The reality check I needed was when he publicly expressed his anger towards me all because he didn’t like what I had to say when I answered a question he asked me. To think, I was all ready to put my life on hold and bear with my toxic household for another year for someone who could hurt me, emotionally and maybe even physically. Yet, I still find myself hoping for something to go wrong, making me stay back so that I’d have more time with him. I know I shouldn’t, I know I can’t, but I still want to.
Unless you’ve been with someone longer than just a few months or sometimes even years, you really don’t know who they are. Matches aren’t made in heaven, they’re made with compromise and compatibility, understanding and empathy, confidence and commitment.
What helped keep me steady in my path was reminding myself constantly that my desire to pursue my masters in America is something I’ve been working towards long before I met this guy. While both this degree and this guy are a (potential) part of my future (am I being emotional again?), getting this degree would set me on a trajectory that I cannot be on in Bangladesh, doing more damage to my individual growth and mental well-being.
Another thing that gives me comfort when my abandonment issues decide to take over, is reminding myself that those who are meant to stay in my life, will stay regardless of my geographical location. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. I can’t force a person to stay with me nor can I change my entire life’s wavelength for them, that isn’t what you call love but rather a kind of selflessness that translates into self-harm.
I believe that non-platonic love is necessary to have a whole life, to be happy. Being happy and stable is my ultimate dream. However, achieving that dream was never going to be easy and this, unfortunately, is another oxytocin and serotonin induced challenge. I also have to keep reminding myself of these questions –
- If I have to remain in close physical distance for someone to be with me, and want a future with me, does this person truly love and care about me?
- If we decide to go long distance, won’t the time apart only make us stronger because surviving long distance is no easy endeavor? Won’t this be another test of compatibility and how willing we are to be with each other?
- If I can set myself up in America, and (fingers crossed) we’re still together by then, won’t it be easier for him to come to America as well, something which he wants to do for himself as well?
Maybe the way I’m approaching this is still with emotion, but the emotional damage of leaving everything behind – everyone I’ve known for 25 years, the places I’ve started to call my second home, the connections I’ve made – is emotional. I’m taking things at a snail’s pace in getting myself set for my flight. It’s difficult keeping emotions aside when you have a romantic partner to think about while trying to retain your own individuality and life.
Regardless, I hope these situations and the questions I keep pondering help someone in similar situations. Putting love first is a romantic and undoubtedly, a courageous thing to do, but not always. Sometimes, you need to do what’s right for yourself even if it feels wrong, even if it breaks your heart in the process. If something good can’t survive turbulent times, it was never good to begin with, but rather just another infatuation waiting to burn out.