It Gets Better

[CurlyTraveller]

This is not a story of heartbreak. This is a story of recovery.

 

Back in early 2013 I met a girl. She was an American, 22 years old, and I a 25 year old Australian. We met while working as teachers at the same school in China, and soon fell into a romantic relationship.

 

She was my first love, although I didn’t know what that really meant at the time. As the months progressed we travelled together, shared adventures, and gradually grew closer. I started to wonder if this was the girl I was going to marry.

 

About a year in, she was offered a seemingly ideal position in nearby Taiwan. I was happy where I was in China and didn’t really want to move. But I decided this girl was worth the risk and agreed, for the sake of her career, to join her a few months later once the current school term had ended.

 

Exactly 8 weeks after arriving in Taiwan, it was all over. She told me that she wasn’t the man she knew when we first started dating. Another week later, I found out she was dating a coworker at her new school. I was crushed.

 

I don’t know whether it was the heartbreak, the shock to my ego, or both. But this single event sent me into a severe depression; the worst emotional pain I have ever experienced in my life. I cried virtually every day for 6 months, questioned everything I knew about myself, at times even felt that life was not worth living. I thought about suicide.

 

It took almost a year before I started to feel like myself again.

 

But that was then. Today, I am a completely different person. I went from being the guy who had never had a girlfriend (prior to my ex) to the guy who now dates multiple women at once. I used to be a people-pleaser who let people walk all over him and never stood up for himself. Now I am a confident man with strong boundaries that I am not afraid to enforce.

 

What’s more, I have come out of that experience with a new appreciation: I survived. I stood on the edge of the abyss, and pulled myself back from it.

 

But not only did I survive, I thrived. Now that the pain is gone, I have become a better man in every way than I was before my ex. And to a great extend, she and the breakup are directly to thank for that.

 

So to those of you might be going through what I went through, don’t lose hope. It may feel like the pain you are experiencing now will last forever. It won’t. And you will come out the other side a stronger and more capable person for having been through this.

 

Just keep looking to the future, and take things one day at a time.

 

It gets better, I promise.

[safir]

This is so true! I just got dumped and to be honest even though I want him to be back, I feel much better today to move on with my life. I realized that I want to be with him but I'm not fixated on him.

 

Thanks a lot for posting this!

[Mister Mr.]

This is not a story of heartbreak. This is a story of recovery.

 

Back in early 2013 I met a girl. She was an American, 22 years old, and I a 25 year old Australian. We met while working as teachers at the same school in China, and soon fell into a romantic relationship.

 

She was my first love, although I didn’t know what that really meant at the time. As the months progressed we travelled together, shared adventures, and gradually grew closer. I started to wonder if this was the girl I was going to marry.

 

About a year in, she was offered a seemingly ideal position in nearby Taiwan. I was happy where I was in China and didn’t really want to move. But I decided this girl was worth the risk and agreed, for the sake of her career, to join her a few months later once the current school term had ended.

 

Exactly 8 weeks after arriving in Taiwan, it was all over. She told me that she wasn’t the man she knew when we first started dating. Another week later, I found out she was dating a coworker at her new school. I was crushed.

 

I don’t know whether it was the heartbreak, the shock to my ego, or both. But this single event sent me into a severe depression; the worst emotional pain I have ever experienced in my life. I cried virtually every day for 6 months, questioned everything I knew about myself, at times even felt that life was not worth living. I thought about suicide.

 

It took almost a year before I started to feel like myself again.

 

But that was then. Today, I am a completely different person. I went from being the guy who had never had a girlfriend (prior to my ex) to the guy who now dates multiple women at once. I used to be a people-pleaser who let people walk all over him and never stood up for himself. Now I am a confident man with strong boundaries that I am not afraid to enforce.

 

What’s more, I have come out of that experience with a new appreciation: I survived. I stood on the edge of the abyss, and pulled myself back from it.

 

But not only did I survive, I thrived. Now that the pain is gone, I have become a better man in every way than I was before my ex. And to a great extend, she and the breakup are directly to thank for that.

 

So to those of you might be going through what I went through, don’t lose hope. It may feel like the pain you are experiencing now will last forever. It won’t. And you will come out the other side a stronger and more capable person for having been through this.

 

Just keep looking to the future, and take things one day at a time.

 

It gets better, I promise.

 

Great story. i could relate to what you've been through, im still tryna move on from my ex and i hope i can soon cause its almost 8 months since we broke up. i need to get back out there and i will. But like you said you become a stronger better person because of that.

 

You wont believe how much i understand you lol. You really need to feel the pain so that you can grow and be able to stand up for your self and become strong. thanks for posting.