My dear Jil, you can’t continue this way. You’re going to hurt yourself and hurt those who love you. You have pain and anger. The reality of life is that we all run the risk of being hurt in a relationship. It’s an inherent risk Even if you’re so demure, you’d still be exposed to the possibility of hurt for the simple fact that relationship is two people. And even if a couple is perfect in themselves, life still has the capacity to impose hurt through third parties. If you’ve ever watched an episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, you’ll know life can be bitchy.
But you can’t say because there’s a possibility of being hurt you will shut all men out. Why, you’ll be lonely! Neither should we say that because someone hurt you in the past therefore ALL men are hurtful and should be hated. That’s rather too generic and the sample size from which the conclusion was drawn suggests a hasty generalization. Statements like, “Men have hurt me!” with an exclamation mark are dangerous expressions of pain and emotion. If only two men hurt you, why hold the whole of the male gender responsible for the transgressions of two.
The truth is that sometimes in life, we’re looking for an excuse to exercise a vengeful spirit. And so we fight a proxy battle, punishing innocent others. That’s because we know those who hurt us are out of reach. The fact that those who hurt us are out of reach thus creates a sense of frustration. So we make others pay. Apart from breaching divine law by taking vengeance by yourself, you’ve practically foreclosed any possibility of happiness. When we fill our soul with bitterness, pain and anger, we foreclose the possibility of happiness. A vengeful spirit radicalizes anatomical configuration. We become mean and our face bears witness. We all go into new relationship after a hurtful one hoping the new will be better and turn out better. And sometimes the next relationship is magnificent, sometimes it’s not. And for so many reasons. But we must not foreclose the possibility of happiness. That’s not fair to our lives.
Concentrated unhappiness is depression. And there’s that danger we will split into two emotional streams in one personality. There’ll be the loving you, who responds to love and care. The one with the beatific smile and seraphic face… The one who goes soft and becomes utterly attractive… Who’s caring and wants to be loved… Then there will be this other person. The one that springs out of nowhere. The hurtful, mean one who lashes out… The one full of pain, anger, resentment, disappointment… Who’s suspicious of all men, believes no one values her… Believes all men want from her is sex and is so suspicious of any compliment or nicety from the male company.
The meanness of this other being (or how else shall we call her) is indiscriminate. It recognizes neither friend nor foe. It just lashes out at whoever is proximate, and since those who love you are the most proximate they suffer most. Those around you can’t reconcile the two personalities – the loving wonderful woman and the bitter vengeful woman. It becomes all so confusing. Trying to reconcile the two personalities will be psychologically disturbing. If there’s a man considering dating you at this point, he’ll be torn in two but vote for his health. Who does he know he’s dating? He begins to wonder whether your facade is only a pretext and cover. Or he begins to wonder if he’s looking at a psycho. All because you filled your heart with so much pain and anger. And when he takes off, he becomes validation of the impression you have about men in general. As it is now Jil, you’re a bitter angry black woman. You’ve become whom you can’t afford. You can’t afford this you. You’re destroying yourself from inside, chasing people from you, foreclosing possibilities of happiness.
When we’re hopeful in a relationship and give our all and it doesn’t work out, we sometimes feel used. Many times of course that’s not the case. But that’s what we hear, sometimes that’s what we choose to hear. We hear these whisperings, telling us we were used, and how ab initio the guy never planned to marry us. And yet we know that’s not true, that life just played its own card and things went kaboom. If you’re spiritually discerning, you’d know where those horrible whisperings are coming from, who’s responsible. But even if you’re not, you still know the truth in your heart. Things didn’t work out because life had its own ideas. Whatever the case, do we then destroy the rest of our lives just because someone hurt us? We complain people hurt us, but then hurt ourselves the more with bitterness and anger. How does that make sense?
The best vengeance against a painful disappointment in relationship is the pursuit of a loving and wholesome one. It is love that evens out the pain from the past, not resentment and anger. You don’t cure pain by incubating pain. Neither do we even out the hurt from our past by being hurtful to others. You need to learn to forgive. If you don’t, you hurt yourself more, way, way into your future. Learn to just drop it and move on. Move on with your life. The man who hurt you has moved on with his. If you’re not careful you’ll carry this hurt to your grave. And then you’ll be a wretched hurting and hurtful person. Why don’t you be you – the loving and giving one who wants love and affection?
Life is made up of islands of memories of experience. We often go on tourism on those islands. But there are memories we should not visit, islands of memories we must skip. Over time these bad memories are buried. But if we keep visiting and revisiting them, we give them capacity to hurt us. There are other islands of memory to visit. Why keep revisiting the one full of pain and trauma? There’s a whole world out there for you – whole new experiences. You’re young. That means your life is unexplored. There are too many stories of people hurt in love who found redemptive love. But no one arrives at redemptive love angry and bitter. Even if it happens, the bitterness will destroy the new love. So what do you want to be – an angry black woman, or a loving soul? It’s way beyond the issue of relationship Jil. It’s about you.
Your mentor, LA
© Leke Alder | talk2me@lekealder.com