17 notes

“So, Britney Spears is no longer engaged to that dude she was engaged to, and obviously the only logical response is the one People chose, which is to lament the end of Britney’s “fairy tale.” Because all weddings are fairy tales, and literally any man a woman can be engaged to has got to be Prince Charming?

I bet Britney Spears is really sad that she’s not getting married, but I’m also not going to assume that she might not also be a little bit relieved. It sounds like that guy was not a particularly good match for her. Sounds like they made the right decision here. What’s sadder than a broken engagement? A divorce. What’s sadder than a divorce? Staying in a bad marriage until you die.”

6 notes

People are neither good nor bad, neither fundamentally kind nor fundamentally self-centered. They’re a combination of both and spectacularly terrible at being the right thing at the right time. It may not sound like assuming other people are “basically stupid” is a compassionate way to go through the world. Maybe it isn’t. But I know it’s enabled me to be more forgiving of others in my life, from those who are close to me to those who are veritable strangers. I’m no longer ripping my own hair out with these heavy questions about whether people are “good” or not. I’m not giving people the benefit of the doubt that they’re all as concerned with other people’s feelings as I might be; instead, I’m giving people the benefit of the doubt that their bad behavior is just the result of ignorance.

10 notes

“About six months ago, the man I thought I was going to marry left me unceremoniously for another woman. During the aftermath – the moving out and settling of affairs — he acted cruelly and horribly, cementing the split and making damn sure I didn’t come back. I spent much of the next few months depressed, having constant nightmares about him, unable to get out of bed and constantly self-medicating, because the reality of my situation was too much to face. I work freelance, and have been accepting just enough work to scrape by, wishing the end of every gig to come so I could get back into bed.Slowly, I have been scraping out of this. I saw a therapist for a bit. I started dating a nice man who makes me feel loved and is kind enough to both give me my space and be there to help me heal. I was working more, dedicating myself to my jobs and beginning to hustle for new clients. I found the inspiration I had been missing to move forward with my pet project. I had been making new friends, reconnecting with old ones and looking ahead. Seemingly, I had forgotten all about him.

And then I received an email from my ex nonchalantly asking if we could be friends again. The grapevine quickly informed me that him and his new love had split. At first I felt palpable outrage — how dare he contact me so casually. I felt like I was owed an apology, or at the very least an acknowledgment of how badly he’d behaved. I did not respond; instead, I blocked him from contacting me and searched my psyche for the schadenfreude that was sure to come. Instead, I’ve fallen very quickly back into depression. My thoughts are consumed with him and I am once again flattened by the sadness and miss him desperately. I’ve asked the man I’m seeing to give me space, because I don’t want to lay this on him. I’m lost and I don’t know how to pull out of this again.

Although I know with every fiber of my rational mind that I should not contact him and that no good can come of having him in my life, my brain is trying to find ways to rationalize the following statement: If he is no longer with her, it stands to reason that he should be with me again. I feel hurt that he hasn’t tried to get back together with me and sad that he destroyed what we had to pursue something that turned out to be so fleeting. I want to shake him and ask him, “Was it worth it?” I want to remind him how wonderful we were together, before the hurt and the betrayal.

What do I do? How do I heal and get back, at least to where I was before the email came in? Reaching out to my ex for closure is not an option; I feel that any contact with him right now would push me deeper down the hole. I also live in constant fear of running into him, or worse – ending up on a job together (we are in the same industry). I can’t regress every time I am reminded of his existence. I know that time is always the answer to these things, but I’ve never been fragile or delicate, and this feeling of being a walking house of cards is only making me feel worse. Please advise.”

— Pulled Back In