“Hi! I know you’re super busy but if you have time I’d love some advice. I just broke up with my boyfriend and I am devastated. He had everything I thought I was looking for in a partner; funny, loving, caring, smart etc but something just felt off and I couldn’t put my finger on it. Even in the breakup he was so understanding and it’s making me feel like a horrible person and that I’ve made the wrong decision even though for months I have been trying to figure out if I should break up or not so surely it was the right choice?
I am so confused and upset and completely overwhelmed because I could still see a future but some part of me also thinks I could be happier.
Any advice on what the hell I should do?”
My Dearest Bad Biddie,
Just because he’s a good guy, doesn’t mean he’s the right guy. You don’t need to be able to “put your finger on it” or ascribe a neat definition to your feelings, because if I’ve learned anything from my twenties, it’s that if any small part of you was second-guessing the relationship, that small part will only grow into a larger part later on. Your ex-boyfriend doesn’t need to be Voldemort, or, more realistically, an even halfway bad guy in order for him to not be the right guy. He can be a good guy, maybe one of the best, and at the end of the day, still not be for you.
When I was in high school, I left my loving, funny, cute, kind boyfriend for a guy who played guitar. It didn’t last long with guitar guy, if that’s of any surprise, but what I realized, many years later, was that I needed to leave my loving, funny, cute, kind boyfriend to go figure out who the fuck I was so I could become less of an insecure ass to the man who would one day become my husband. To be clear, I’m not calling you an insecure ass, and you may very well know who you are and what you want. At the very least, it’s obvious to me that you know what you don’t want, even if it’s not obvious to you, yet. I often think that people know the right thing to do, they just have a hard time doing the right thing when it’s not the easy thing. The easy thing for you would’ve been to stay with your funny, loving, caring, smart boyfriend. It would’ve been comfortable, it would’ve been safe, and maybe you would’ve been mostly happy. But, to quote the film, My Dinner with Andre, “comfort can lull you into a dangerous tranquility.”
Don’t trade the life or the man of your dreams for the illusion of comfort, and know that even if you mostly wanted to stay, but a small, nagging part of you wanted to leave, that small, nagging part is reason enough. It doesn’t make you a bad person, it just makes you a person who wants something else, even if you don’t quite know what that something else is just yet. One day, you’ll be able to put your finger on why it didn’t work out, but only if you allow yourself the opportunity to walk into that day rather than anchoring yourself into the past.
Love,
Your internet hype woman