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Abstract

My courage has a cost. I wake up every day willing to connect despite the pain of my past. I know that I am worthy of a love as fierce as mine. Instead of finding that love, I encounter one more sad tune of how they would be great partners if only I’d met them before someone else broke them.</p><p id="c63d" type="7">I wake up every day willing to connect despite the pain of my past. I know that I am worthy of a love as fierce as mine.</p><h2 id="f499">It’s Not Them; It’s You</h2><p id="1144">I don’t know how to tell them that they broke themselves. Bad relationships aren’t usually a good versus evil equation. They involve incompatibility, poor communication, and maladaptive behaviors. I can honestly say that I’ve been a wonderful partner, but that doesn’t always mean I chose well (I didn’t) or that my trauma didn’t impact the way I responded in relationships (it did).</p><p id="5b5c" type="7">This is how we get beautiful, broken humans that a broken part of us will want to fix.</p><p id="8f39">We are all personally responsible for the relationships we choose. It’s hard to elect to be accountable when the other person’s behavior was arguably worse than our own. It’s easy to point the finger, but it doesn’t challenge or change us. It puts the burden of responsibility on everyone else to deal with our dysfunction instead.</p><p id="5982">They tell us they’re broken. They make sure we know they won’t do anything about it. They ask us to give knowing they cannot, or will not, match our efforts. This is how we get beautiful, broken humans that a broken part of us will want to fix.</p><p id="e070">The truth is that it just adds another layer of hurt to the hurting. Broken people go out and reinforce their own brokenness while hurting other people in the process. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that will only end when they choose healing over victimhood. But for us, the ones who tend to partner the broken, we can only end the cycle when we stop giving our hearts to people who are ill-equipped to care for them. Their brokenness may be a problem, but our pattern of selecting them is equally to blame.</p><h2 id="a242">We Cannot Fix Them, Change Them, or Love Them</h2><p id="bf98">There will always be a part of my heart that reaches for people who are broken. After all, I know intimately how it feels to be hurt, and I never want anyone to feel that way. It’s taken many, many relationships to realize that I can’t fix them. I can’t change them. I can’t even love them the way I want to because it can’t ever be reciprocated fully. They love me at arm’s length or not at all.</p><p id="52a3">I used to overlook the red flags in exchange for whatever they were willing to give. I made myself vulnerable knowing that it was unlikely to end well. I broke myself again and again, and I, too, would love to blame someone else for my choices. Then I wouldn’t have to evaluate my behavior or make any changes.</p><h2 id="4f57">It’s Not Them; It’s Us</h2><p id="8001">There’s another way — one where we can acknowledge their brokenness with kindness but

Options

not take on the construction project of putting them back together. We can gently say that we need more than what they can offer and place the responsibility for their happiness back in their hands. We can believe them when they share their flaws and limitations rather than trying to find some other interpretation that better suits our plans.</p><p id="c43d">I hurt myself every time I chose a relationship against my better judgment. I wish these men could have been emotionally available and willing to take the risk on love, but that’s not reality. My responsibility was to hear them, to acknowledge their needs, and to honor my own.</p><p id="66d1">Another man tells me that he isn’t ready to take the risk on love knowing he could be wrecked by it. I hold space for his experience and validate those feelings. After all, I’ve been there, too.</p><p id="068b">But what I’m not going to do, what I’ll never do again, is try to convince someone to stay who has already decided to go. I’m not here to glue their pieces back together or hold their hands through their recovery. I’m saving my love for someone who will return it.</p><p id="16da">If I don’t, what am I but one more beautifully broken person in a world full of them?</p><div id="6e21" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/how-to-know-if-youre-the-problem-in-your-relationship-4f9e8de0b165"> <div> <div> <h2>How to Know If You’re the Problem in Your Relationship</h2> <div><h3>The answer isn’t as easy as you think</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*GNl48cYdZiKwubtP)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="fb98" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/the-one-question-youll-want-to-ask-every-potential-partner-47d6ffad737a"> <div> <div> <h2>The One Question You’ll Want To Ask Every Potential Partner</h2> <div><h3>Their answer could be revealing</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*4j_Ty4TonbudgyNj)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="e8f0" class="link-block"> <a href="https://psiloveyou.xyz/you-deserve-the-love-you-give-not-the-love-you-get-6d1e1b7c87fa"> <div> <div> <h2>You Deserve the Love You Give — Not the Love You Get</h2> <div><h3>undefined</h3></div> <div><p>undefined</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*d42NxNo15uddzugv)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

To All The Beautiful, Broken Boys

It will take courage to let go of the demons you dance with

Too many broken boys live inside fully grown men. I meet them often, and their stories are always completely different and absolutely the same. The details diverge, but the tale is as old as tides and time.

It mimics film noir where an honorable man is brought down by a femme fatale. Their world-weary air is easily explained by the wrongs done to them. It shows just enough vulnerability that we start to care, but the story stops just where it should begin.

It doesn’t matter if they’ve been through hell if they decide to stay and dance with the demons.

Self-Awareness Isn’t the Only Step

Self-awareness is all well and good, but it means little if there aren’t steps taken to recover and heal. It doesn’t matter if they’ve been through hell if they decide to stay and dance with the demons. We’re meant to emerge with fire in our eyes and use the pain as motivation to change our lives. We weren’t meant to make our home there.

Another broken boy tells me he is committed to his hurt and not to the possibility that he is the author of it. I won’t lie when I say that I am disappointed. Unsurprised, but disappointed all the same. I appreciate the honesty, but there’s a part of me that wants someone to believe I am worth the risk. More than that, I know that I need someone brave in love.

Brave People Need Brave Partners

I’ve been through hell myself. I have the scars to prove it. The difference is that I don’t use that pain as the reason I cannot love, commit, or try again. I don’t close myself off to the very thing I want most. I don’t become an expert in self-sabotage with a story about how the world was against me, and I’ve surrendered to my fate. I am not fearless, but I am brave. I need a brave man or none at all.

It may not be universally true, but so many women I know are actively doing the work to make their lives better. They’re serious about their careers, managing their finances, and unpacking their baggage in therapy. They’re working on their issues, not waiting for someone else to come along and carry them.

Meanwhile, most of the men I encounter have a story about how a woman ruined their lives. It usually comes with a sad song of how they’ll never love or trust again. Or they say they want love only to do absolutely everything in their power to sabotage it.

I have so much empathy for that experience, but I’m tired of breaking my heart open on beautiful, broken boys. My courage has a cost. I wake up every day willing to connect despite the pain of my past. I know that I am worthy of a love as fierce as mine. Instead of finding that love, I encounter one more sad tune of how they would be great partners if only I’d met them before someone else broke them.

I wake up every day willing to connect despite the pain of my past. I know that I am worthy of a love as fierce as mine.

It’s Not Them; It’s You

I don’t know how to tell them that they broke themselves. Bad relationships aren’t usually a good versus evil equation. They involve incompatibility, poor communication, and maladaptive behaviors. I can honestly say that I’ve been a wonderful partner, but that doesn’t always mean I chose well (I didn’t) or that my trauma didn’t impact the way I responded in relationships (it did).

This is how we get beautiful, broken humans that a broken part of us will want to fix.

We are all personally responsible for the relationships we choose. It’s hard to elect to be accountable when the other person’s behavior was arguably worse than our own. It’s easy to point the finger, but it doesn’t challenge or change us. It puts the burden of responsibility on everyone else to deal with our dysfunction instead.

They tell us they’re broken. They make sure we know they won’t do anything about it. They ask us to give knowing they cannot, or will not, match our efforts. This is how we get beautiful, broken humans that a broken part of us will want to fix.

The truth is that it just adds another layer of hurt to the hurting. Broken people go out and reinforce their own brokenness while hurting other people in the process. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that will only end when they choose healing over victimhood. But for us, the ones who tend to partner the broken, we can only end the cycle when we stop giving our hearts to people who are ill-equipped to care for them. Their brokenness may be a problem, but our pattern of selecting them is equally to blame.

We Cannot Fix Them, Change Them, or Love Them

There will always be a part of my heart that reaches for people who are broken. After all, I know intimately how it feels to be hurt, and I never want anyone to feel that way. It’s taken many, many relationships to realize that I can’t fix them. I can’t change them. I can’t even love them the way I want to because it can’t ever be reciprocated fully. They love me at arm’s length or not at all.

I used to overlook the red flags in exchange for whatever they were willing to give. I made myself vulnerable knowing that it was unlikely to end well. I broke myself again and again, and I, too, would love to blame someone else for my choices. Then I wouldn’t have to evaluate my behavior or make any changes.

It’s Not Them; It’s Us

There’s another way — one where we can acknowledge their brokenness with kindness but not take on the construction project of putting them back together. We can gently say that we need more than what they can offer and place the responsibility for their happiness back in their hands. We can believe them when they share their flaws and limitations rather than trying to find some other interpretation that better suits our plans.

I hurt myself every time I chose a relationship against my better judgment. I wish these men could have been emotionally available and willing to take the risk on love, but that’s not reality. My responsibility was to hear them, to acknowledge their needs, and to honor my own.

Another man tells me that he isn’t ready to take the risk on love knowing he could be wrecked by it. I hold space for his experience and validate those feelings. After all, I’ve been there, too.

But what I’m not going to do, what I’ll never do again, is try to convince someone to stay who has already decided to go. I’m not here to glue their pieces back together or hold their hands through their recovery. I’m saving my love for someone who will return it.

If I don’t, what am I but one more beautifully broken person in a world full of them?