Building A Case Without A Crime



When you are hurt and you look back on the situation, whatever it may be, you’ll cherry pick the red flags and start to beat yourself up for having not noticed them before. Looking in retrospect, it’s totally obvious that this given scenario would blow up in your face.

Let’s take my last relationship, for example. This was a guy who never followed through on anything that he promised, always borrowed money from me, mooched off of me, disappeared in the bathroom for hours at a time, and couldn’t make it to important outings because he was too “sick.”

Looking back on that relationship, knowing what I know now, it’s super easy to see the patterns of a heroin addict. But as someone who was in love, and a person who was codependent, it took a lot longer to get out than I’d like to admit. And without shaming myself, there were actually many good times that I enjoyed. It was far from all bad, because if it was, it wouldn’t have gone on for so long and hurt so much. When we’re trying to prove a point to ourselves we forget the big picture. But I digress.

So in taking my experience and using the tools I gained through the work I’ve done internally, I can rectify some of my past behaviors within a new relationship. However, there is this sneaky little monster in the back of my head that wants to collect nuggets of evidence that stack up in my ex’s case to use against someone new. Not only is that wildly unfair, but it’s self sabotaging.

It is easy for me to sit back and create a world in which every guy that I date is no good because he did something like my ex did years ago. But that has no basis in reality. What that is doing is isolating myself from ever getting to feel true vulnerability and happiness. While I would love to sit here and say that I’ll never be a sucker again because I can predict the future, I can’t. You are innocent until proven guilty. The only difference is, I have many resources and a solid team to help me decide when something isn’t working for me anymore. I can show up fully and honestly, but when crossed, I can also leave respectfully and swiftly.

Giving someone new a chance after being badly burned is scary. But staying locked in a lonely bubble because you want to protect yourself is even scarier. Allow yourself the chance at love and happiness and stay witchy ( *)

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