That’s what’s on this week’s episode of Non-Monogamy Help.

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Podcast Transcript

I’ve had a few experiences of non-monogamy/polyamory in my past. My longest relationship was a multi-year monogamous cohabiting relationship that was also abusive.

After that I was in a romantic and sexual relationship (multi-year non-cohabiting), monogamous by default rather than design. At a couple of points, my partner expressed attraction to others. I was accepting and supportive of this. I didn‘t consider this to be a dealbreaker, but in the second incidence they felt it was cause to end the relationship with me. I accepted and grieved the breakup, and felt no anger or hatred towards my ex, only sadness. I would have been open to a non-monogamous relationship. I did perceive and interpret the breakup as a reflection on my desirability.

We stayed friends for a further period of years, both still feeling strong love for each other. During that time, I reflected on my own relationship values and preferences, and decided that I felt most inclined towards polyamory, specifically solo polyamory, and the values of relationship anarchy. I talked with my friend/ex-partner (I’ll call them L) about my realisations, and shared with them the Short Instructional Manifesto for Relationship Anarchy, which they read and told me they agreed with.

I explained to L that I was from this point onwards wanting to be polyamorous, and practise the values of relationship anarchy. Some months later we had a conversation using the Relationship Anarchy Smorgasbord about becoming sexual and romantic together again. This conversation agreed that we would not be exclusive to each other.

Initially, we both dated others occasionally, not leading to anything. After a while, I connected with someone that I wanted to continue seeing. This was unusual for me (my reasons for wanting polyamory are similar to your own – I connect with people sexually/romantically rarely!). L and I communicated openly and honestly and all still seemed well.

Some months on, as the other connection was developing, L began to experience feelings of distress. I tried to respond to these with validation, respect and compassion. I thanked them for bringing their feelings up and offered time to talk about them. I heard that L was feeling anxious about replacement, and offered reassurance verbally. We read Polysecure and looked at other resources too. I was also keen to consider the other person that I was forming a relationship with, as well as my own values, which had been carefully considered and arrived at.

L's distress continued. I continued to always be willing to listen to their very considerable communications. In a practical sense, I showed L that they were a priority to me by committing to see them every week, something that I offered to nobody else, and always planning my time with them before scheduling other social commitments. We also talked about steps towards more shared domesticity (short of cohabitation) which again was something unique to our connection.

We had many emotional conversations, all of which seemed to end with a positive resolution, with us reconnecting and feeling good together, although before long L’s distress would return (and mine too, I was obviously affected in turn by my effect on them). I'm aware that because we didn't live together, stuff like physical co-regulation which is so often recommended was difficult.

After a few weeks, L withdrew their consent for non-monogamy, which was absolutely their right, essentially asking me to choose between a relationship with them or polyamory. I very much appreciate their considerable attempt at trying it. This was an extremely difficult decision for me. I love L deeply. However I also wanted to act in coherence with my values which were very important to me, and not treat other relationships as disposable. L interpreted this dilemma as a sign of lack of care about them, or caring about them less than they cared about me.

After much heart-wrenching deliberation, I tried to act in accordance with my values, and sadly told them that we would need to renegotiate the terms of our relationship with each other, rather than me end independent relationships. L, on hearing this, seemed to respect my values, and in fact expressed that they were willing to continue as we were, in non-monogamy.

Soon though, L’s distress was retriggered, and we were back at the same place where I had to consider that same decision. By now I was feeling incredibly judged for my values (by L who was repeatedly scathing and insulting about polyamory), confused, and under pressure, recognising that this situation was also taking a toll on a third person. This time, I decided to break up with the other person and choose to be monogamous with L. It felt on a gut level like a decision that conflicted quite significantly with my values.

I’d been concerned of not wanting to choose based on guilt, or fear of not finding another person to be with long-term. However I recognised that I don’t NEED to have multiple partners – it’s much more of a values and principles thing for me – and I felt that in spite of the difficulties, there was a LOT between us to cherish and be grateful for and hopeful about. I hoped that with the trigger of non-monogamy gone, things would settle and we could repair.

After this point, L became very blaming towards me. They were intensely critical of me on a values level, and some of what they said gave me the impression they had quite a different framing of what our relationship to each other was. They also began to find fault with a lot of the ways I was showing up as a partner. I listened and made effort to see how I could be a better partner, by listening to audiobooks and consuming resources about healthy relationships, and examining my own psychology and patterns.

At the same time, I wanted to feel that although I'd made this one decision that I'd struggled with, I could still in other ways be true to my values of relationship anarchy, for example by honouring the equal significance of other friendships.

L talked about leaving/breaking up many times, but always went back on that. One day, after starting to feel quite unwell with it all, I finally drew a line where I said if there were any more flare ups where they just berated me with a list of criticisms, that would have to be it for me. I explained why and pointed to better ways that we could communicate, something we could work on together as a team. L thought that was unfair, even though they'd said the exact same thing about me hurting them any further.

Shortly after that, I was plunged into an extended frightening emergency situation, coinciding with a major professional commitment. To my dismay L got angry with me about a minor slight, right in the middle of the emergency, that to them illustrated what a neglectful partner I was. I apologised right away and more than once for this. I tried to tell them it was one of the worst times of my life, let them know that the best way they could support me was to not barrage me with criticism, and repeatedly expressed a boundary which L ignored.

They escalated in that same vein, and that cumulation was it for me. I felt on an instinctual, intuitive level that telling L I didn’t want to be partners was the right and only decision at this point, tragic and unwelcome though it was. After the break up L has smeared me on social media, sharing serious allegations and very personal information in detail. They’ve also bombarded me with communication, alternately seeking to get back together, praising me and speaking affectionately and declaring love, and flipping back to calling me abusive and slut shaming me.

I can only now focus on myself and my own feelings. I’ve come out of this feeling very questioning of my own values. At one time I felt they were beautiful, they made sense to me and made me happy and I was excited to start navigating the rest of my relational life with clarity. For me, RA is about freedom and autonomy for people who I love. But L’s criticism of polyamory as greedy and individualistic has affected me. I wonder if after my abusive relationship and seeking to avoid past people-pleasing tendencies I have over-corrected and been too firm on defending my independence.

But then I wonder if actually my preferences were valid? I was not offering monogamy or the status of a couple-unit when I first got back together with L.I feel massively detached from my sexuality at this point (I understand the breakup is very raw still, I'm grieving, so this is unsurprising) – that it’s something harmful and that I don’t deserve to express it. I feel a huge amount of guilt for causing L pain.

I’ve tried to apply some DBT skills and I’m unsure if guilt is appropriate, as I also think I’ve acted in accordance with my values and tried to be caring and considerate – without immediately abandoning my principles. Do you have any advice for how I begin to reconnect with what once felt so clear from within for me?

Response

You have gone through something really awful. This is horrible. This is a horrible experience. And you said that you were in an abusive—this is an abusive relationship. Far be it from me to diagnose L, obviously. I'm getting one side of the story, I don't know what's going on, but this doesn't sound good in a lot of ways. And you are bending over backwards to give L the benefit of the doubt, the grace—I feel like your situation is one of the biggest reasons why people say that typical relationship advice and couples therapy doesn't work in abusive relationships.

This is a big reason why. I feel like you definitely still have a people-pleasing tendency. Because what you had here, from what I can see and what you provided, is that you had this connection to relationship anarchy for similar purposes to me. You're not necessarily super interested in dating loads of people, but you value autonomy and freedom. This is about the principle of the thing, rather than necessarily needing to sleep with a bunch of people or have a bunch of relationships. And you have that really strongly for yourself.

And then this person comes along, and they aren't even sure of themselves. Everything that they've criticized polyamory for is a reflection of their own shittiness. They can't decide what they want. It sounds like they consistently utilized their emotional—I mean, I don't know what they knew, but this is what it sounds like—they knew that having an emotional reaction would cause you to also have an emotional reaction, and they could slowly chip away at this situation by just continuously having this emotional reaction.

Even if what they said—this is textbook devaluation and pedestal… especially what they're doing now. It's very textbook. And if you haven't read "Why Does He Do That?" by Lundy Bancroft, I definitely recommend you read that, because it shows you the way that this type of thing operates in a way that you can't really see it when you're in the middle of it.

Projecting onto polyamory

This sort of thing of like, "It's really selfish and individualistic"—what about what they did wasn't selfish and individualistic, right? When you said that they withdrew their consent for non-monogamy, which they have every right to—no, that's not what they did. I'm going to say this with all the love in the world to you, but no, that's not what they did. They forced you. They attempted to force you to break up with other people. They put you in an ultimatum situation.

If it would be one thing if L came to you and said, "Look, I know that we kind of started off in this non-monogamy journey, but I'm feeling like this is not what I want. So I feel like the best thing for me is to end this relationship and to seek out something"—that's what people with fucking integrity do.

Somebody with no integrity—which I clearly have no patience for, as you can tell—is someone who demands that someone else break up with others and puts them in that situation. That is the mark of a coward. And there is nothing righteous or okay with what L did.

It's fine if people don't want to do non-monogamy. That is absolutely okay. And sometimes people are not going to know that it's not what they want until they actually do it. That is fine. That is legitimate. And it is also legitimate to not want to do non-monogamy anymore.

What is not legitimate and what is not “withdrawing your consent”, what is not okay, is then forcing the other person to have to make a decision between you and another person. That's not acceptable. If you're the one who is initiating the breakup, or if you were the one who was wanting to change the terms of the relationship to such a degree that it will involve other people, you don't foist that decision on somebody else. That is cowardly, selfish, individualistic behavior. There is nothing okay with that, beyond all of the other shit that you describe here of what L has done.

People pleasing in polyamory

And it really, really worries me because you are a lovely person, it seems like. And of course, everyone makes mistakes in relationships. I'm not saying you're an angel and that you did everything “right”, whatever the fuck that means. But what I am saying is that you're constantly—I hope that you come back to this letter. I hope you save it and after you get some therapy for a few months, I hope you come back to read it. Because what I see constantly in this letter is you constantly trying to make room for L to be this wonderful person, for L to—it's okay they did that, they had the right. You're trying to peacekeep in this letter.

And I actually want you to be angry on behalf of yourself, because you had this principle of relationship anarchy, which you agreed with. Somebody basically came along and slowly and slowly and slowly twisted you away from that. And you are a grown adult. You are responsible for your decisions. I'm not saying that you were completely subject to L's whims, and that's something for you to learn and something for you to take on board going forward. Notice that you have a pattern—this is a people-pleasing pattern. You've identified this.

These aren't past people-pleasing tendencies, and you have not been—I want to stress this with every fabric of my being—you have not been too firm on demanding your independence or defending your independence, my dude. You have been anything but. You're still people-pleasing in this letter. You have not over-corrected. In my opinion, you've under-corrected.

The very moment that somebody would have come to me and said, "Well, I'm not into non-monogamy anymore, so you're just going to have to either be with me or be with that other person," I would have been like, "Okay, fine, bye." I have no tolerance for people who attempt to shove that decision on me. That is the antithesis to me of relationship anarchy—someone forcing me, attempting to force me (I mean, they will not force me, I'll do what the fuck I want), but attempting to force me to end a relationship with somebody else.

And I don't even care if it's any kind of relationship. I don't even care if it's a friendship, as if that means less. Anyone who attempts to control me in such a way—automatically, no.

So you have not over-corrected by any means.

And the fact that after you ended things, after you finally were like, "I can't do this anymore, I can't deal with this anymore," that L's response is to blast you on social media—this is one of the reasons why I really think that the culture of the way sometimes things go down online can be problematic. This is exactly the kind of situation where somebody who is like this can utilize that type of community response. I don't know all the details of that, but my point is that this behavior that L has consistently demonstrated has been horrific.

And I'm wondering if I don't even know the half of it, because I'm sure that— not that you're trying to portray L in a good light, but I'm sure that there's stuff that you're not including in here. And oof, oof, oof, it's not surprising to me that you feel like you're out of touch with yourself, because consistently, you've prioritized L's feelings and L's perspective and L's point of view over yourself.

Self-abandonment in polyamory

And what you do when you do that to yourself, when you allow another person's whims and wishes and will—we all… I'm not saying you should be totally like, "I don't care about anybody, fuck anybody." I don't, I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is that when we get to a point where we no longer advocate for ourselves anymore, when we no longer—it's like you don't even have any needs and wants anymore, and we really betray ourselves.

And I really want you to especially look over the part where you talked about, "Well, I don't need other partners." What?! That doesn't mean anything. You need to be true to yourself—is what you need. It doesn't matter if you're not sitting there horny AF or whatever, and being like—that's not what this is about. You need to be true to yourself. You need to be true to your values. You need to make decisions based upon the alignment that you have with your own values. That's what you need.

It doesn't matter if—we've chosen polyamory for the same reasons. It sounds like. That's still a need. And whenever you're in a situation where you're downplaying the things that you want in life—wants are fucking important too. You really have one life to live, for god’s sakes. We get such limited time on this fucking planet.

I'm not saying blow all your money in a casino and booze or whatnot, but come on, man. Your life is more than just what L can get out of you. Your life is more than what other people can get out of you. You matter, and the things that you want matter. The things that you—it doesn't even matter if it's a need. If you want a fucking chocolate sundae, go eat a fucking chocolate sundae. It doesn't matter if you need it or not.

I just want you to look at this situation. And the fact that you think you've over-corrected, my dude. You have not over-corrected.

Hailey Paige Magee’s resources

I really think you should check out Hayley Paige's resources on people-pleasing. She has so much amazing stuff to say about people-pleasing, so many amazing resources on her Instagram, on her website. I'm sure she does more than just that. I would check her out because she also has a book as well.

I've been less and less of a people-pleaser as time has gone by, so I haven't necessarily needed to delve in too much, but even the things that I've read from her are so great and so impactful, and I can't recommend her enough. So please check her out: Hailey Paige, P-A-I-G-E (Magee). Amazing, amazing resources on people-pleasing. And I think that will be such a good start for you.

Definitely speak to a therapist about all of this, especially if you're being actively attacked by an asshole online. Please, please, please make sure that you have the support for that.

Reconnecting with relationship anarchy

I think it's going to take a little bit of time for you to parse out and figure out what your own personal values are. There may be a thing that you do, and this may come from survival—this isn't something you're doing to be a jerk to yourself—but it might be that you've grown up in situations where you've needed to basically kind of personally mesh with the people that are around you.

You need to repeat what they're saying, do the same thing they're saying. You need to go in with the crowd, because that's what's been safe for you. And so maybe you're going to have to figure out what your own personal values are. And I think you started off in a good place—relationship anarchy was something you wanted, something you were clear on.

And I think as you kind of pick apart a little bit of those people-pleasing tendencies, you're going to be able to kind of get back to a place where you know what is you and what is some other person's belief.

Because it does sound like you were influenced by L, and that has kind of left a lasting effect. This does seem like it was a slow kind of churn, just like, almost like death by a thousand cuts—death by a thousand emotional distress reactions.

Learning to sit with discomfort

And also, I do genuinely feel like if you are going to be a relationship anarchist going forward, there is going to have to be a certain amount of sitting in the discomfort of other people's feelings. You are going to have to learn to say no to people and for them to be unhappy about that, and for you to sit in that discomfort. And Hayley Paige (Magee) has tons of stuff about this that also really helps, but that is a really, really important skill in general for life, but definitely within non-monogamy.

Because if you do have multiple partners, and also even just for yourself, you are going to have to learn how to say no to people, and you are going to have to learn that disappointing people is okay. Adults can handle disappointment. It's not your responsibility to manage somebody else's feelings or emotions about that disappointment. You can be kind—and it does sound like you were attempting to be that with L—but ultimately, L was a grown fucking adult. And if L didn't want to be in a non-monogamous relationship, they also had the power to step away at any time, and they were consistently cowardly from this description and ended up being the ultimate coward and putting that decision on you, which was not fair.

Contempt in relationships

The other thing that I really, really, really want you to be aware of in any kind of relationship going forward is contempt. The Gottman Institute writes about this as one of the four horsemen of relationship apocalypse, and one of the worst things that in relationships will spell the end. Contempt is a huge thing, both within yourself and within other people, and that is when somebody—the contempt that I see bleeding through some of these descriptions that you have of L, the contempt L has of polyamory is a direct reflection of the contempt they have for you.

And when somebody has contempt, that's not great. Let me actually read from the Gottman Institute website, just because I think it's so important:

"Contempt, simply put, says 'I'm better than you and you are lesser than me.' Contempt is fueled by long-simmering negative thoughts about one's partner and arises in the form of an attack on someone's sense of self. Inevitably, contempt leads to more conflict, particularly dangerous and destructive forms of conflict, rather than to reconciliation. It's virtually impossible to resolve a problem when your partner is getting the message that you're disgusted with them and that you're condescending and act as their superior."

So some examples that they give of forms of contempt that people might dish out are like, "Look how I learned to tell time when I was five years old. When are you ever going to learn?" Or another one: "We haven't had sex in months. What, are you too busy flirting with that guy at work? Why don't you just marry him instead?"

I mean, that's fucking awful, but your descriptions of the contempt that L had for polyamory—I want you to pay extra attention to contempt. It doesn't even have to be about you. If it's contempt about something which is of core value that you have, that's still something that needs to be focused on, that you need to go, "Okay, this is contempt. It's not good.” It is a poison. It's a poison in any type of relationship. And it also is destructive of your personal health. How can you feel happy as a person when someone you care about and love has contempt for you or contempt for things that define you?

So anytime—be very aware of the way that people react. Everybody has disgust as a core emotion. That's why I love Inside Out—I could go on about that film and how awesome it is. But disgust is a core emotion. We feel disgust in certain situations. It's not to say we'll never feel disgust, but if that disgust is pointed at you or at your relationship, then that is something that I want you to pay extra attention to.

And I want you to look around: Do you have other relationships in your life where you excuse this, where people show disgust about you or about something that matters to you? Because that is not good. That is not going to lead to good places. So please, please pay attention to contempt and whenever it shows up in your relationships.

Identifying contempt

So yeah, overall, I've gone all over the place because there's so much about this situation, and I'm so, so sorry that you went through this. This is awful. Awful. I can't stress how awful this fucking shit is, man.

I think that—definitely fucking block L, if you haven't already. Jesus Christ. Definitely separate yourself from that situation. I think that really look at Hayley Paige (Magee)'s resources on people-pleasing, please. See if you can get therapy. Talk to a therapist about this situation, break it apart, think about it, write about it, journal about it. Especially because I'm really concerned that you think you've over-corrected and been too firm—you made the absolute right fucking decision.

And my hope is genuinely that you'll be able to have such a strong sense of self and such a strong sense of what it is that you want. And I think you're getting there—you do have that. It may just be, unfortunately, you met this dickhead, and that's the situation. But you are getting there. You had a really strong sense of self, and I do believe you can get back to that.

You may just need a little bit of time to pick apart the situation and deal with it and mourn the situation and all of this shit. You may just need a little bit of time, but you did have a strong—go back, reread the relationship anarchy stuff, immerse yourself in people and situations and the content you consume. Immerse yourself in things that encourage you to feel strongly about yourself, that encourage you to trust yourself.

This is going to be about building trust with yourself again, because what a lot of these situations end up doing is that when you betray your own feelings and your own desires and your own wants and the things that you value in life, you teach yourself that you can't trust yourself. And then you kind of—that might be why you even lean even further into L when you start betraying yourself a little bit more, then you have to find some other source of stability. You have to find some other source of constantness, or just something. You have to find something to lean on.

Sometimes it's just anxiety, constant anxiety and freaking out. The little kid in you is like, "Okay, I guess we can't protect ourselves, so it's my job as little kid," and little kid doesn't know how to emotionally regulate.

So I think if you can kind of rebuild that trust in yourself again, find those things that make you feel that way. Pay attention to how you feel. Reread that relationship anarchy thing. Reread the smorgasbord. Pay attention to how you feel when you are acting in alignment with your values, and hang around other people who make you feel that way too. Hang around, read content that makes you feel that way too. I think that that's really, really important.

I also think that read a little bit about contempt. I think that would also really help. "Why Does He Do That?" by Lundy Bancroft would also really help—identifying these kind of patterns that people have. The contempt thing was really important for me, actually, and it helped me avoid a really fucking horrible situation.

I don't know if that person would have necessarily been terribly abusive or anything. They ended up using me to cheat, but it was because of that book, because of "Why Does He Do That?" by Lundy Bancroft, that I recognized that this person—over time, he would make little small comments, and they would make me feel like shit, and I would kind of gloss over it. I'd be like, "Oh, well, you know, he's just having a bad day," and I’d make excuses for it, and it would make me feel super awkward, because I wanted to confront him about it, be like, "Hey, this made me feel like shit, and please don't do that."

And then over time, I just started feeling like this guy continuously kind of makes me feel like shit, and I don't want that in my life anymore. And it didn't have to be that he was abusive. It's just like, why is he doing this? And then I have to kind of constantly have these discussions with him, like, "Hey, you said this thing that made me feel like shit." I don't want to have to spend 50% of a relationship that I have with someone confronting them about the things they said that made me feel like shit. Why? Why would I spend my life doing that?

And it was because of that book. And then he ended up being a dickhead, so—he said things that were contemptuous. He said things that made me feel judged. He said things that made me feel like he thought I was stupid, and I'm not going to be with anyone who thinks I'm stupid, who has contempt for me.

And so I think that's something really to pay attention to, and I'm really hoping that you have a really strong support network, or that you have friends who don't treat you this way, because there's so many times, even after that experience, where I was in relationships with people where they were just negative. They didn't have contempt for me, but they had contempt for the world around them, and it's just a fucking bummer. It's just awful—constant negativity, constant sourness in my life, and it made me feel blah, and it also pulled me into that contempt cycle, and pulled me into that negative cycle of constantly being negative all the time.

So I hope that you can kind of examine your social circle, examine the type of content that you consume, and see if it's leading you into a much more positive place of trusting yourself and rebuilding that trust with yourself. It's going to take a little bit of time. I do think you can get there. I think that it's just a matter—I think hearing this, I'm hoping hearing this will be helpful for you, and maybe you need to talk more about it. Go make posts in places, join new communities and be like, "This is what happened to me." Sometimes we need a little bit of that moment.

The Four Steps of Trauma Recovery

There's a thing that I'm going to be sharing, or I probably will have shared already by this point, on my Instagram, which is called the four steps of trauma recovery. And it's kind of something like a framework that has helped me kind of understand how I've gone through trauma.

Step 1: Denial

So the first step is denial, and this is: "This didn't happen to me, it wasn't that bad. It happened to me and I turned out fine." And that's kind of a stage where people are in full denial that something's happened to them. It's too much for their brains to process, so it's easy to just deny it or deny its impact. And I think in relationships, it's kind of like, "Oh, that person was just joking, that's fine. Nothing's wrong, everything's fine"—the little dog with the fire all around them.

Step 2: Self-Attack

The next stage is self-attack. So that's "I can prevent this from happening again if I do X." This is the midway between fully accepting that something's happened to you, but still creating rules and attempting to control what you can't control, to try and delude yourself into thinking that you can stop it again. This works temporarily, but it's unsustainable because it requires self-blame and is a side quest from the full issue.

So this is like you going, "Oh, well, you know, I don't need partners. Or maybe I can rearrange this. Or maybe I can prevent L from doing it by being a good partner. I just need to read more books and better improve myself so that I can prevent this from happening again."

And you might be at that stage right now where you think that if you can just fix yourself well enough that you can prevent yourself from being in a situation like this again. And it's temporarily empowering. It gives you temporary hope, but it's ultimately not a good place to put yourself in.

Step 3: Victimization

And then you have the victimization stage. So that's where you go, "I am, or I was, a victim of this," and this allows you to fully acknowledge the impact of an event that happened. But getting stuck in this stage is not great, because it still requires that you maintain a position of a lack of agency. So it's important for you to be able to fully admit that you've had this experience and to accept and process the emotions, but remaining in this stage kind of repeats a cycle of victimization.

So you might need to be in a stage where you can fully say, "I was a victim of these situations. This happened to me." I think that's important, because we kind of sometimes blame ourselves and think, "Oh, well, we could have prevented it." Fully being able to embrace that—"I am a victim. This happened to me"—is really, really important. Again, not staying in that situation is something that is really, really important as well.

Step 4: Self-Actualization

And then self-actualization is the last stage. So this is where you say, "This happened to me, but I trust myself to take care of me." So this allows for one to accept the fullness of the impact of events, while at the same time being able to act as an active agent in one's life. One builds resilience and trust within oneself. One cannot completely prevent another traumatic event from reoccurring, but one is much more capable of recovery with trust in oneself.

So this isn't about you being so good at relationships or so good at correcting the situations in the past that you never, ever encounter another L in your life. You may encounter another L in your life—it's not something that you can control. And trying to take control of that is only going to lead to further feeling of self-abandonment and victimization, because you can't control that.

But what you can do is you can always take care of yourself, and you've done a good job so far. Please don't think that this is a failure. What happened with L is not an illustration of a failure of anything that you've done. It's not you failing to protect yourself. Don't be so obsessed by spotting red flags that you think that situations happened in the past because you didn't spot the red flags well enough. That's not what this is about.

It's a situation that happened. You were definitely a victim, in my perspective, of the situation. You were definitely a victim. But you can step through going forward, learn how to better trust yourself and better take care of yourself. You will get better at taking care of yourself. You absolutely will. It's just going to take a little bit of time.

Giving yourself space to mourn

And I think if you can kind of make little steps towards that and maybe give yourself a little bit of space to be the victim—if you have to talk to your friends, cry it out, be a little bit in that moment—sometimes even in situations where no one's been abusive to me, and it's just not worked out, just being able to sit there and bitch about someone has been really, really helpful. It's not about someone being wrong, or needing to take to the streets and find this person. Sometimes it's just nice for you to just bitch about someone, and for someone to go, "That person's a real dick." And yeah, they are a dick.

And you need a little bit of time where you can just sit there and call L every name in the book, and just have that time to just be mad and express that and get it out of your system. And be able to be in that situation for a while. And then I think you'll learn to step into your power a little bit more and feel like you're actually able to take control of situations.

And maybe you're not able to control everything, and you won't be able to control everything. You're not going to be able to prevent another L from walking into your life—you can't. There's nothing about that that you can ultimately control, but you will absolutely get better at taking care of yourself. I think you will get better at identifying the way that some people behave that you can then learn to step in a little bit sooner, and that's sometimes really, really helpful.

But ultimately, even if you don't step in, and even if you were to kind of go through this a little bit again, you have the ability to protect yourself. You have the ability to get better. You've already done that. You've already shown that. You took that step, and if nobody else says it you, I'm very proud of you for taking that step, for actually saying, “Enough is enough. I'm tired of this, and I'm not putting up with it anymore." I'm very, very proud of you for taking that step. You did a really good thing there, and actually advocating for yourself, so lean into that more.

And I think that things will get better. It's just going to take a little bit of time, but I definitely think things will get better if you can kind of take those steps.

So yeah, I hope that helps, and good luck.