Men waving big red flags
I’ll always remember a guy once browsing my candles when I did markets and say ‘gosh, you really hate men don’t you?’ I questioned myself and thought maybe I do, maybe this is where I’m going wrong.
That might very well be the case, but it’s so hard to keep positive when you’ve spent the last 15 years dating men who insist on being absolute shits. Constantly being let down, having to scoop yourself back up, paint on a smile and go again with the same open heart and vulnerability.
My love life is embarrassing, its because it’s repetitive. You’d think after 15 years I’d have more self respect and not stand for it... or at least be an expert at spotting the men waving massive red flags. It started in my late teens/ early twenties when I dated a guy on and off for 5 years. He finished it in the end, probably because he couldn’t take the guilt of knowing in the 5 years we’d been dating he’d moved in with another woman and he’d given her two children. Hence my embarrassment, how could I not know? The same thing happened recently, I’d been dating a guy for 18 months until one day I came across a photo on Instagram of him and his girlfriend celebrating their 1 year anniversary in Paris. It’s heart-wrenching-pit-of-your-stomach-sickness. It explained a whole array of things that didn’t quite add up. I’d always had a gut feeling but chose to ignore it, my gut feeling was so strong that I already knew the answer to my burning question that Id never asked...’is this going anywhere?’. Instead I just bury my head and hope that they’ll make that move first, but they don’t ....instead they move on.
Between those two guys there’s been a list of rats; married men that never leave their wives and a multitude of ‘ghosts’. The constant heartbreak just means those walls around me grow bigger, and the next guy that comes along has got a harder job to break them down. Finding the balance between protecting yourself and being open to new relationships is one of the hardest lessons I've learnt (still learning). For now I'm on emotional shut down and that's ok. Im regrouping, building myself back up and repairing the cracks before I fearlessly jump back into the harsh reality of the dating pool of your 30's. I just hope that next time there's less sharks.