Wise Words (Part 4) -- Revised

On second thought, I need to revise my last post (Wise Words (Part 4)) which was basically a bunch of things that my parents said to me over the last six months about my relationship which I thought were pretty wise but apparently came off as a little too negative. You see, I was contacted by a reader, one who knows me, who felt as if my last post was just a long list of negative things about my ex that I wrote to prove that he was a bad guy. Yikes. That was not my intent at all. He wasn't a bad guy. I don't harbor any resentments towards him. And in case you were wondering, he wasn't an evil genius who set out to make me unhappy.

He was in fact a genuinely loving person with the absolute best intentions who just so happened to participate in a relationship with me that went on far longer than it should have, and as a result we disintegrated into arguments and bad behaviors due to the fact that we were fundamentally not a good fit and should have ended things sooner than we did.

My intent with my last post was to explain that my family, and the people that loved me, were telling me some very wise things that although I heard I just didn't listen to. And that was the point really, and it's what I'm trying to figure out within myself these days. The real question is, why didn't I listen to them (and all their wisdom), and more importantly, why didn't I listen to myself (and all my wisdom) when things went awry?

When my mom said to me many times that it seemed like my ex and I were "trying to fit a square peg into a round hole." She was right. When I shared with her my confusion over my ex telling me that the result of our problems were due to me failing him in a number of ways, she was right to say, "Oh give me a fucking break." When my dad said my ex and I were nit-picking things we didn't have to deal with as a couple who hadn't even been married yet, he was right. When I told my mom that I would rather go on a string of bad dates or be alone then spend the rest of my life fighting with my ex, I was right. All of this was wise and good advice (even from me) but I just didn't believe it until the very end.

The image from my tumblr summed it up very nicely for me. If life is this simple, if all we have to do is find the person (and the thing) that makes us happy and then we're all set, then why didn't I leave when I clearly wasn't happy?

If I didn't listen to myself and I didn't listen to anyone else, then who did I listen to and why? Stay tuned, I think you may already know the answer, and as always, there is oh so much more to say.