Episode 2: Rolling with the Punches Part 1

Hello everyone, welcome to the second episode of The Life Rough Draft Podcast. Thank you so much for joining and for listening. I am so excited that you're here.

For this episode and the next two or three, we'll be talking about some of the experiences that I've had in the last year and a half that have really forced me to take a step back and reevaluate my life.

This episode is part one of a two part series, so make sure you tune in next week to check out part two. So if you haven't listened to the first episode, please go and check it out. It'll have a lot of really good information that will give you context for stuff I'm going to talk about in this episode.

In the decade of our 20s, our dating life can really take center stage. We experience different relationship types ranging from situationships to committed long -term relationships, often for the first time. And these relationships can be so formative for our life. They are like the trial and error where we learn oftentimes the hard way, who we are as a partner, what we like and dislike, and how to set boundaries in relationships as adults. And all the while we are learning how to be adult ourselves and how to interact in the world as adults. And it is so hard. Learning all these lessons is hard. Being in a relationship is hard. And getting out of a relationship can be really hard sometimes. Doesn't matter if this is a relationship you've had for five years or a situationship you had for six months. And sadly, oftentimes we really do have to learn the hard way, falling on our asses. This is exactly what happened to me.

Today I will be talking about a breakup I had at the beginning of 2023 with my ex long -term boyfriend, which was a super pivotal point in my life. I truly would not be the person that I am today without having that relationship and that experience. And I'm going to be honest, this is a very personal story.

I am going to talk about a lot of things that make me feel really vulnerable and it isn't easy. I am not proud of many of the things that I said or did and I am not proud of many of the ways in which I did or didn't show up for myself. But I am going to share this story because this might be you right now. Or this might be you in a few months or a few years. Or maybe this was you already and many of my experiences will resonate with you.

So hopefully this story will give you the courage to stand up for what you deserve and not have to fall on your ass like I did. Or at least not fall so hard.

I'll start by giving you some context of the relationship.

So this person and I started dating when I was in my senior year of college. And at this point we had been dating for over two years. He had bought a house and I moved in with him and we had been living together for the past 10 or so months.

I was convinced that we would get married. This is something that we talked about often. We talked about our future and the things that we had to do to make sure it happened. This guy from pretty much day one kept telling me how much he loved me, how I was the most amazing person, the love of his life, how he would marry me. And I was convinced that this was going to happen because of everything that he said, because of conversations that we had. And I think even the people who were closest to me at the time also thought that he would be my future husband.

So although we were working towards building a life and a future together, deep inside, I just wasn't happy. And I had a really hard time accepting this. I think a lot of factors were contributing to this feeling. First, I felt very isolated. And this is because I had created this belief that the friends that I had in my life at the moment in North Carolina just weren't close connections and they weren't going to show up for me in ways that I needed them to. I think that I had a lot of really good friends in my life at the time, but they were mostly living in Costa Rica or they were friends from college who had moved away to other places after graduation. And so although I had met some people who I consider to be friends after I graduated from college, I had this idea that these connections just weren't strong and meaningful like my other friendships. And that if I was ever in trouble, these weren't the types of friends who would just like drop anything and come help me out. So I was very intimidated by this idea. And that caused me to isolate myself a lot.

And I think that if you're someone who is living away from family, or maybe you have at some point, you understand the importance of having a support system or a chosen family. Like I said, I had this in college. I was very confident in my relationship with my college friends, but with this new friends, I just wasn't sure what the strength of the relationship was gonna be like, and I was honestly too scared to find out.

Additionally, my ex and I had very different schedules and so I think I was just trying to make myself available at any moment so we could spend time together, even if he wasn't putting in the same effort to do the same, or even if he wasn't making the best of the time that we had to spend together. So that means that if it was a Friday night, instead of going out with my friends and strengthening those friendships and relationships, I would stay home and wait for my ex to come back just so we could watch a movie together.

We were also just having a lot of issues. I deeply felt that he was not showing up for me how I needed to so I could feel fulfilled and safe in that relationship. I would give a lot of effort and time and support to help him out with his own projects and dreams and making sure I was spending enough time with his friends and family and that I could be there for him emotionally but whenever I had a crisis or whenever it was time to support me in those same ways, I just felt like he was not there for me. And that also contributed in me feeling very alone in this relationship.

I think he constantly crossed my boundaries and I wasn't good at enforcing that. You know, I think we would have conversations about it and I would give him a second and a third and a fourth and a fifth chance. Cause even though I felt very disrespected, I was really scared to be like, this is it. This is my limit. We're done.

And then whenever he would make promises for change, they just felt empty because no actions would follow those promises. Maybe he would be like, my God, I'm so sorry I did that. I promise I'll never do it again. You're right. This is terrible. And things would change for maybe a week or two. And then he would do the same thing all over again. So when I saw that the actions that he was doing weren't aligning with the promises and the words that he was saying, that really eroded my trust in the relationship and in this person to make me feel safe and seen in the relationship.

The biggest thing is that ultimately what we wanted out of life just did not align. I think we just wanted very different things. And no matter what happened, we were never going to see eye to eye. So for example, he wanted to live a very simple life. He was striving towards attaining financial security. He wanted to live close to his family, have a lot of children, and create his real estate portfolio. And that all meant that we would stay in North Carolina for a long time and at least for the foreseeable future. And I think I just wanted a more exciting life. I wanted to travel and live in a big city and just wake up excited for my life every single day. I was not ready for living a life that was so quiet and domestic.

I just never envisioned myself staying in North Carolina after college. And here I was two years post -graduation and I was still living in North Carolina. And not only that, but I was making plans to continue to live in North Carolina for the rest of my life. So that created this sort of disconnect between our dreams and the future that we wanted and what we always thought we wanted for ourselves, and I just could not find a way to bridge that without heavily compromising something.

I think life just sends you signals when it is time to move away from a certain situation, let go, take action and move on to the next thing. But it is so much easier to live in denial than to listen to this intuition and take action. And this is exactly what happened to me. I think life was clearly giving me all of these signs that it was time to move on, that I had overstayed my time in this relationship and it was the time to go and do new things.

But it was hard for me to listen because over these two years that I had been in this relationship, I had made up a story of how my life would go. And I was holding onto the story so hard because I was really scared of the alternative.

And this story had a lot to do with my career, and how I wanted to show up professionally, and where I worked, but it had mostly to do with my ex -boyfriend at the time. And I think that I just loved him so much and I wanted to be in this relationship so badly, even though it was clearly not good for me, that I thought it was okay to make myself smaller so I could fit into his life and the life you had envisioned for us, even if that meant compromising my values and my dreams.

And I wanted to want that life, you know? I was like, well, this seems like a good life. This is the kind of peace and simplicity and stability that people strive for their whole lives. You go to school, then you go to college, then you find someone, you get married, you have kids, you live in a house, like that's how it's supposed to go, right? But I had this idea, this dream for the longest time of how fun and exciting and adventurous my life would be after college. And the life that I was living at the time was very far away from this idea that I had of what my life would look like.

I kept telling myself that maybe I just had all these unrealistic and fantasy expectations of how life would go. And this is as good as it gets. Even though I clearly had friends who were off living their best lives, the kind of life that I wanted in Europe or in other parts of the United States, while I was still living in suburban North Carolina. I started gaslighting myself and I was like, look, you have great things. You live in a house, you pay really low rent, you have a boyfriend that loves you, you're building a life together, you've achieved everything you set out to accomplish since you were in high school. Like, you've got so many good things to be grateful for, so just fucking take it and be grateful.

But then there were also moments where out of desperation, I kept trying to convince myself that one day things would get better. One day I'm going to wake up and I'm going to be excited to live my life. It's going to take my breath away. I'm going to be so excited for this life. Something is going to change if I give it enough time. And instead of placing that responsibility on myself, and make the changes that I knew I had to make to make this a possibility, I kept putting that responsibility on my ex -boyfriend, because in my mind he was the one who had to change. I was like maybe with enough time he will suddenly become this exciting, spontaneous, adventurous person and we'll travel together and we will he will finally want to move to a new city and live a big life over there, instead of accepting the person that he was and that he showed me every day that he was.

As time went on, I just kept wanting to scream. I just could not shake this feeling that I was meant for something more and that I was in this relationship living somebody else's life. And not only that, but if I didn't take action soon, I would one day wake up and be the mother of four children and be living in North Carolina next to my brother -in -law and I would be so full of resentment and regret for a life left unlived.

But even though I had the certainty, I just did not do anything because I was so scared to be on my own. Like I said, I was living at his house. So that meant that if we went through a breakup, I was the one moving out. I was the one who would have to start over all over again. And since I had this belief that I had no support system, in North Carolina anymore, it was really scary for me to think about moving out by myself, starting all over, and dealing with a breakup without having anyone there to support me.

I was living at this tolerable level of permanent unhappiness and if you've never heard that before, you should totally look it up, it is a thing. And what it means is that you would rather live tolerably unhappy in a situation that is known to you, that you understand, that you have some control over versus breaking out of that situation into the unknown and be happy. So this fear of the unknown kept me strapped in place, completely unwilling to listen to any of the numerous signs I was getting from life that it was time to go.

So of course, after a while of not listening, I think life just took a more direct approach and punched me in the face.

And this punch was twofold. So first, like I mentioned in the previous episode, my puppy got really sick at the end of 2022. And to me, this was a huge blow because like I mentioned previously, I was dealing with a lot of loneliness and having her in my life made it a lot easier to cope with that loneliness. She was my companion, we did everything together, and it made me happy.

So when it came to the point where she was on the verge of death and I was facing the real possibility that she wouldn't be in my life anymore, I for real thought, if the worst happens, I'm just gonna have to quit my job, pack my bags, and move back to Costa Rica because the loneliness will consume me. Thankfully, my puppy recovered and ever since then she's doing just fine. She is super healthy and every single day I give God, the universe, whatever you want to call it, thanks for that.

Obviously though, financially, emotionally, mentally, this was a huge blow for me. And I think being in this state of hyper -anxiety and stress and everything just lowered my immune system to the point that towards the end of 2022, around Christmas and New Year's, it was my turn to get super sick.

I was really anxious for no reason and super tired. I could not get out of bed and doing the smallest thing just drained the life out of me. I was getting rashes out of nowhere and then they would just go away. My hands and feet would get super red and hot and then they would be fine. And it just felt like I was dying with no explanation.

During this whole time, which I spent in Costa Rica, my family just kept being like, "Lucy, you're fine. You just need some rest. You need to calm down". And I tried my best to calm down, guys. But it was hard when you feel like absolute shit.

I just felt like deep inside there was something that was really wrong with me.

So when I was finally back in the United States and I was able to see a doctor, I found out that I had mono and I had hypothyroidism, which if you don't know, that can be an autoimmune disease. This made absolutely no sense to me because I'm a super healthy and active person. But the fact is that for whatever reason, I was sick. And I was out of it for maybe about two months. I would go to work and I would be so dizzy that I would have to go back home and go to sleep.

So it was at this point in my life that I was dealing with a lot of the emotional and mental trauma that happened because of my puppy's sickness. I was dealing with a lot of stress from being sick myself and then I was feeling the most physically ill that I ever had. And it was at this point that my relationship finally fell apart.

So it is February of 2023 now and for a while things have been slowly going downhill.

My ex had spent Christmas and New Year's in Costa Rica with me back in 2022 while I was sick. And I just did not like how he behaved. I feel like he made minimal effort to connect with my friends and family to make sure I was enjoying being somewhere that I rarely got to go to. All the while I was super sick. And instead of him comforting me and making sure I was comfortable and feeling okay, I was the one who was constantly doing that for him to reassure him that he was fine.

And after we came back to the States, the weirdest thing started happening. It was like I could not stand being next to him. My body was completely rejecting him. I didn't like how he smelled. I did not want him to touch me or kiss me. And I attributed all this to me being sick. I kept blaming myself, obviously, and I kept blaming his behavior during Christmas and New Year's and my body rejecting him and everything to me being sick and to me not knowing how to handle those situations.

And I kept thinking that it's okay. Maybe this is just part of having mono. Maybe when I feel better, things are going to go back to normal. But then I started feeling marginally better and those feelings did not go away. So once I had a little bit more energy to address him, I told him about it. And the very first thing he told me was that he wanted to break up. So I was so shocked, just feeling like this came out of nowhere and suddenly completely overwhelmed by the fear of being alone. I went from standing up for myself and doing a total 180 and begging, begging this guy not to leave me. And I say this with a lot of embarrassment; I share this with a lot of embarrassment because I'm a person that does not beg. Like, if you know me, you know that, right? And I was here going from being all like, hey, you did this things like I didn't like that and blah, blah, blah, blah to being like, please, for the love of God, do not leave me alone, you cannot break up with me.

And this discussion went on for two days where I was just constantly convincing him to stay on coming up with all these reasons by saying in this relationship was a good idea, even though I knew that it wasn't. He just kept saying that he didn't know what he wanted, and that was so disheartening for me because this is a guy that kept telling me over the course of a relationship that he loved me every day and that he wanted to build a life with me. And all of a sudden, he didn't know if he wanted that anymore.

And the thing with relationships for me is that they're very black and white, you know? Many things in life are complex and it's a lot of shades of grey, but not this. In relationships, if it is not a yes, it is a no. And I knew that already. I had that at the forefront of my mind. There was this voice in my head that was like, Lucy, this guy doesn't know what he wants. But that also means that if he doesn't understand clearly that he wants to be with you, then it is time for you to have some dignity and walk away.

And instead of doing that, I was still convincing him to stay because I think my body and my mind were so shocked and so confused that I felt paralyzed and completely unable to process the situation and to understand that this is goodbye, that there's a new beginning waiting for me.

So after all this begging and convincing, he agreed for a little bit, thought it was a good idea to keep trying and to make this relationship work. And the weirdest thing is that I remember so clearly that the moment that he said those words and he left temporarily to go do something else, I felt this relief in my body, but it was not the relief of knowing that this relationship was going to keep going that we hadn't broken up. It was simply a relief where I thought, okay, now I have a couple more months to figure out how the fuck to get out of here, find myself a new place, and leave. I think in my mind after all this, it was just very clear to me that this was never going to work, but I just needed to buy myself some time to get out of there.

The thing is though, of course it didn't end up working that way. A few hours later, my ex came back and decided to end things once and for all. And this all happened in a way that made me feel very betrayed and angry and hurt because I truly believe that he made this decision based on the influence of people outside our relationship.

And I remember just standing there as my world was falling apart.

I didn't know how I would get the strength and the physical, the mental, the emotional strength to get up and get myself and all my things and my dog out of that house. I didn't even know where I would go. But I did know that I had to get out of there as fast as possible. And not because this guy kicked me out immediately. He was actually really gracious and was like, you can stay here as long as you need to while you find a new place. No, it was because I was so angry at the situation and at the people involved in the situation that I just knew that if I stayed there even for one more night, I would come to do something that I deeply regretted.

So I had to act really fast, all the while being consumed by all this sadness and grief and anger. I needed to get out of there as fast as possible, with or without someone to help me, and without anywhere to go, before this guy came back.

This was the second episode of The Life Rough Draft Podcast. If you enjoyed it, please leave me a five -star review on iTunes, Spotify, or the platform of your choice. You can also hit subscribe and share with your friends. Join The Life Rough Draft community by following me on Instagram @theliferoughdraft and check out my website at www.thelifereroughdraft.com. All this is linked in the show notes.

Wherever and whoever you are. Thank you so much for listening. It truly means the world. I hope you have a wonderful day.