I Lied To Myself About Who I Was For A Guy And I’ll Never Do It Again

By the time I was in my third year of college, I was so desperate to have a boyfriend. I’d only ever had one in my life at that point and I was tired of the single life. I would have done anything to get someone to stick around, and I did just that.

1. I was too desperate. I started dating my ex (let’s call him Jesse) at the end of my junior year of college. I was so excited to finally have a boyfriend after trying to make a relationship work with other guys over and over again. It left me feeling like I wasn’t good enough, so when I started dating Jesse, I wanted to do anything I could to make sure I kept him.
2. I let my relationship with friends suffer. Jesse was done with school so he didn’t come back the following year. In college, I was used to going out with my friends to parties every weekend, but since I had a boyfriend, that life wasn’t for me anymore… or so I told myself. I didn’t need to go out—I told myself that I didn’t miss it. I would watch all of my friends (yes, all of them) get ready every Friday and Saturday night. I sat in my dorm room while they went out and partied. I was left out and I told myself I was OK but I wasn’t. I missed it. Sure, we still kind of stayed friends throughout the year, but we definitely drifted apart.
3. I lost my friends because of him. The less time I spent with them, the further we drifted apart. Jesse had me believing that I didn’t need them as friends. I didn’t need to be friends with girls that got wasted every weekend. I agreed… at the time. Now, I’m without those friends in my life and I hate that I can’t share that bond anymore, all because I lied to myself about not needing them.
4. I drifted away from my family. We lived in upstate New York and my family lived in Connecticut. He had a weird obsession with his own family (seriously, it was creepy) so we spent more time with them. He rarely wanted to visit my family so I didn’t either. He would talk poorly about them to me and I believed what he said and judged them the way he did.
5. I feigned my interests. If Jesse didn’t like it, I decided that neither did I. If we watched a girly movie and he said it was silly, I would think, hmm, maybe it is. Then I would believe what he said. I pretended not to like shopping as much as I did (because he would judge me on how much money I spent), and that’s just one thing.
6. I acted like I didn’t care about romance. Jesse was affectionate, sure, but he was never really romantic. When I talked about how romantic my sister and her fiancé were, he said, “Yeah, but you wouldn’t want to date someone like that. You don’t like that stuff.” I agreed with him. I even believed that I wouldn’t like a guy like that. (Fun fact: I do, I have a guy like that and it’s exactly how a woman deserves to be treated).
7. I pretended not to care about getting married. He showed that he was scared of commitment (at least marriage) pretty early on. When I told him about a friend of his that had gotten engaged, he thought I was trying to hint around at some. I wasn’t. At all. I told him that marriage was the last thing on my mind and that I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to get married. What? Of course I wanted to get married, but I lied and pretended I didn’t care. Years later, when my sister and my best friend got engaged within weeks of each other despite the fact that Jesse and I had been together longer than either of them had been with their fiancés, I pretended not to care again. I did. It hurt.
8. I said I didn’t want to have children. Why did I ever believe this? Oh, that’s right—he said he never wanted to have kids. I told myself the same thing. I even told my family that at one point. I had spent my entire life before him thinking about having a family. Suddenly, because he didn’t want kids, neither did I.
9. It didn’t matter that we wouldn’t travel. I have always been fascinated by new places. Not just new countries, but even visiting the US. I’ve always wanted to travel. Jesse barely left the confines of the state of New York. He was perfectly content traveling to his parents’ country house every weekend. I was not, but I said I was. I dated Jesse for five years and we never even went to the beach together.
10. I hated the way I looked. I’m not a small girl. There were parts of my body that Jesse liked and didn’t like. He never said it with his words, he said it with his actions. I obsessed over how I looked and told myself I was dieting or working out for myself. In reality, I was doing it for him so that he would love me better.
11. I’ll never compromise myself again. I was so desperate to keep Jesse that I lied to myself. I felt like I was one person when I was alone and another when I was with him. I had to hide who I was. Why did I want to be with someone that I couldn’t be myself with? That I would compromise what I wanted in life? That’s no way to live. I couldn’t be happier that the relationship ended. Now, I can be completely who I am. I make no apologies for it.