I used to believe that love—real love meant bending until my back gave out. To win at relationships, I had to be the Cool Girlfriend™… endlessly understanding, low-maintenance, ready to forgive almost anything so long as he says “he loves me.” (Spoiler alert: he usually just loved the version of me that didn’t have needs.)

You too? Oh, sweetheart, pull up a chair. You’re in good company.

I had this friend—let’s call her Anna because she’d kill me if I used her real name—who was basically that girl growing up. You know, the type who graduated with the highest honors walked into a career like she was strutting down a runway, promotions raining on her like confetti. If life were a board game, Anna looked like she had rolled sixes all the way to the finish line.

And me? Not to brag (okay, maybe to brag a little LOL), but I wasn’t doing bad either. My life feels like there’s a little shortcut to success thing going. Life was good. We had jobs that paid the rent and left enough for wine nights and unnecessary online shopping. We were, in many ways, thriving.

Until, of course, we fell in love. Amen? Amen!!!

And suddenly, it was like every brain cell we used to dominate school, internships, jobs—GONE. POOF!

You’d think we were stranded in the desert, and these men were the last cups of water on Earth. We clung. We pined. We shrunk.

We stayed when we should have left. We gave it when we were already empty.

We treated “having a boyfriend” like it was a diploma, an achievement, a prize.

If you’re nodding along right now, laughing because it’s a little too real—stay with me.

It took Anna and me several rounds of “Why am I crying in the shower over someone who thinks pickles are a vegetable?” before it hits us: Choosing yourself isn’t selfish. It’s sacred. 

Read More: https://peonymagazine.com/love-family/choose-yourself-in-relationships/


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