Bad Relationships Are Not Mistakes
Have you ever heard it being said that there is nothing called ‘Wrong’ in this world? Well, nothing that is an Absolute Wrong, anyway. There is your perception of Right and Wrong, and there is everybody else’s: what is your Right won’t necessarily be their Right, and it will definitely differ from my Right. The same goes for the Wrongs.
In my experience though, if you dwell on this thought, you might start questioning other things and mess up your life for a while (I was, for a certain period of time, obsessed with ‘whose Right is it that says I am real?’) — and we really don’t want that to happen. A good way to go about is by understanding that everything is neutral: neither Right nor Wrong. We only think it is.
It is all just a stage, an experience, an inescapable moment, with all the Black & White moments only inside your brain.
Honestly? I know these are only easy to follow on bright days but equally hard to even think about on a gloomy one, especially if you have just lost somebody to what you perceive was a bad relationship.
Anything that you’ve invested your time into becomes special and you believe in it. You believe that it could remain forever. Life, though, is ever-changing. Nothing is forever. Everything that is subjected to the tests of time — for it to keep existing, it requires passing those tests by constantly changing itself and adapting.
If they can’t: you can imagine every second to be something akin to a time bomb which can only be avoided by changing constantly — what doesn’t change gets taken down.
Constant adaptation comes naturally to some things: like nature, knowledge, ideas, and the universe. By constant, I only mean that these things have the ability to change efficiently for more number of times than most things. Not even these are forever — nothing is.
Relationships, however, are so fragile compared to these seemingly forever things. Sometimes, they escape the ticking-time-bomb by maintaining the people involved. Sometimes, they change by leaving them scattered apart.
These times, you’ll end up seeing it as the ‘Wrong Relationship’: something you wasted time in, wasted your emotions upon and sacrificed things that now feel like they would have done you better in the long run.
But, that is not right: the relationship was neutral.
It was one of those inescapable moments. You think you’d do better if you went back in time — you would, no doubt. But that is because you-of-then is different from you-of-now: you have changed. What you’d do as the you-from-now if you were to go back in time is what you have learned from going through all this amount of (ever-ticking) time.
The relationship was an experience that taught you how to be with someone, caring for them selflessly, how to be with different types of people, and how to be invested in somebody else’s happiness and well-being apart from your own.
It teaches you to open up, to speak up your thoughts and vulnerabilities, to communicate effectively, and to give and earn trust. You learn the power of care, affection, loyalty, and love. It taught you to be more than one person.
Showing your vulnerability is never easy, but when you do, it brings you closer to your partner and in a way strengthens your relationship. Read Finding Light In Darkness: How Vulnerability Strengthens Relationships
Every relationship has its good parts: you have learnt the importance of those good parts. There are bad parts too — and even they teach you something; about yourself or the situation — only if you seek.
A one seemingly wrong relationship should never be able to have the power to make you stop believing in relationships altogether. You have survived the ticking time, one unsuccessful relationship is nothing before that. How can it not be better to be living to your fullest? — being happy also couldn’t hurt. Why wallow in some bad parts of something that has ended already?
That being said.
I don’t want you to mistake a relationship to be any kind of necessity to live and achieve happiness.
A broken relationship might be a good way for you to enter into a relationship with yourself. It is never a bad idea to fall for yourself and learn facts about the new you-of-now. Likewise, you could choose to invest all your emotions in something else altogether — like friendship, perhaps. Or really, anything at all.
Time is always going to be ticking and you are always going to have to be changing — you might as well be happy and contented while you’re at it. Keep what makes you strong, leave everything that looks wrong to you, and just be happy.
Sitting and sobbing has done nobody any good. Smile and live. Setting yourself on a journey to happiness is the best way you’ll ever find to move on.
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