My besties and I were going on a women-only week away. We’d booked the trip months prior but I’d started seeing someone and secretly wished I could’ve stayed home with him instead. Little did I know that this time apart from him would come at the perfect time.
- I worried that he’d chase other women. When my friends and I boarded the plane that would take us across the country to our beach resort, I found myself stressing that my partner would be spending time with other women while I was away. It felt ridiculous, but I couldn’t shake that feeling. During the two-hour flight, I confided in one of my friends about how I was feeling and she said it was the perfect time to “get real” with me. Uh-oh, what did that mean?
- She told me they hated my boyfriend. I’d been dating the guy for the last month but apparently my friends all hated him. That’s something cool to hear when you’re in the middle of a flight and can’t run anywhere, right?! Anyway, she expressed that they found my boyfriend to be rude and that he didn’t really seem like he connected with me. Ouch.
- I knew there were issues in my relationship. I wasn’t stupid. I knew that I had a few trust issues, and it was because my BF wasn’t really being super-open with me. I sometimes worried that he wasn’t keen on having a long-term relationship with me. When we were together, though, it was easy to just go with the flow and not worry so much about the future.
- Now things were different. Now that I wasn’t around him for the whole week, things were completely different. I could still text and call him, but I wanted to stop and see if he’d initiate communication with me. Because when we were in the same city, I was usually the one who made more of an effort to stay in touch.
- It was really hard. I was missing the guy and I wanted to chat to him, but luckily I had my besties around and we had lots of fun so I forgot about the fact that my boyfriend didn’t contact me at all the entire weekend. He didn’t even send a text to find out if we’d settled into our resort okay!
- I explored my inner self. After a day or so, I started to spend more time focusing on myself than what I did when I was at home. This was amazing. Walking on the beach at sunrise, alone with my thoughts, really helped me to take stock of where I was in life and where I wanted to be.
- I stopped missing him. While I initially thought I wouldn’t be able to get through the week without talking to him, I started to see that I barely even noticed he wasn’t there.
- That’s when he got in touch. It’s weird how guys sometimes have psychic powers in relationships. It’s like they can sense when the person they’re with is losing interest and that’s when they’ll swoop back in and try to keep them around. On day four of my holiday, my boyfriend called to say hi and see how I was doing.
- I didn’t really want to talk to him. Back home, I’d usually be excited when he’d want to talk to or see me, but now it felt like I was a million miles away from him. It’s amazing how taking a holiday can help you see things differently.
- I was over him. I realized that I was over the guy. I didn’t even feel keen to see him when I got back home! Having time away from him gave me a chance to see what I really felt and made me see that I’d been settling for less than I deserved with this guy. I wanted someone who cared enough about me to stay in touch, not just when I was quiet. I wanted someone my friends were happy to see me date, and I wanted someone who I actually missed when he wasn’t around. He was none of those things.
