I always thought that being the one before “The One” would suck. You invest so much time and energy into a relationship only for the guy to leave you and marry the next woman who comes along—ugh. Then it happened to me and I started seeing things differently.
- He asked me to marry him… and then dumped me. Yes, really. He’d given me a beautiful sapphire engagement ring and I was overjoyed and optimistic about our future. Then, shortly after proposing, he broke up with me. He was all over the place and had no idea what he wanted or how to treat the woman he claimed to love. I obviously dodged a bullet there.
- My hopes and dreams were crushed and I thought I’d never recover. Within the timespan of a few weeks, I went from almost having my dream of finding “The One” finally realized to feeling totally devastated because my fiancé didn’t want to spend his life with me after all. I gave the ring away to a charity shop along with all the other jewelry that bastard had given me during the three years of our relationship. Same went for his leather jacket he’d let me wear that I “forgot” to return. He deserved to lose these things. After all, I’d lost the entire future I’d planned with this guy.
- Turns out, he had a mistress for a large chunk of our relationship. One of our mutual friends got in touch with me to see how I was doing after the breakup and she slipped up about my ex’s other woman. Wait, what?! Apparently they were a serious couple and had been dating for the last year. That meant he hadn’t even been loyal to me for much of our relationship. To add insult to injury, mine wasn’t the only engagement ring he’d bought—he’d given her one too.
- I did what any heartbroken woman would do: I stalked them on Facebook. There they were, the loved-up couple all set to get married and have an amazing life together while I was left in the dust with nothing. She had kids from a previous marriage, and if the pictures were anything to go by, he really loved them. They were a perfect instant family. Why was he ever with me?
- After seeing them together, the depression hit me hard. No matter how hard I tried to assure myself that I was better off without him, I just couldn’t shake the feeling of devastation. I hated that my worst fear had happened—I was the one before “The One.” His new girlfriend was going to reap all benefits of the hard work I put in to help him get his life together and fix his issues and there I was, alone again.
- I finally had an epiphany: he was a POS. After crying on my best friend’s shoulder, she looked at me like I was crazy. “Why would you want to be with such a jerk?” she asked me. “Seriously, the guy’s not The One. He never was.” Of course he was! We’d been such a great match, right? Wrong. We obviously weren’t meant to be together, I just didn’t want to see it. Ouch. The reality check was like rubbing salt in my wounds at the time, but it was definitely needed.
- I felt stupid and pathetic for letting him get one over on me. The truth hurt but my friend was right: he didn’t love me and I was wasting my time pining for him. I was mourning the loss of him but I hadn’t lost him—he’d walked away from me willingly. He’d made the choice to be with someone else. I hadn’t lost “The One” because he was never it to begin with.
- I was finally free. The guy had given me a gift by letting me go. Imagine if he’d married me! I would’ve ended up in a marriage with a lying cheat. I would’ve been so unhappy and my heartbreak would’ve been so much worse. By freeing me from the lies, I could finally move on with my life.
- He wasn’t enough for me—I deserve so much better. He hurt me, but what hurt more than the breakup and cheating is that he hadn’t loved me. The thing is, he never loved me the way I needed to be loved, and that was what made me feel it was time to walk away with my head held high. He didn’t treat me with respect and he wasn’t loyal. He couldn’t give me what I wanted. He’s the one who fell short, not me.
