I have been processing so much stuff in the past few days, getting myself back on the road to emotional health recovery. Fortunately, I've had the help of several friends and several good books. I have been realizing where some of the issues involve critical thinking, and actually going back to my own school materials to gain a better understanding of where I am in terms of the critical thinking stages and how this might be affecting everything, and how knowing this can make me a better person.
One thing that came back to me was something I think I covered earlier in this blog, but I saw it from a different angle. I remembered when I was in high school and then in college, I met several men who were wonderful men and would have been great partners, but I found fault with them over minor things and broke up with them without really knowing why. I recently told a friend about this, and she assured me that it was okay; I was young at the time.
And I was young, and I realized I have come a long way. I am able to express myself better (most of the time.) And what I realized that the me that did that was someone who was not emotionally mature and did not have good critical thinking skills. I have since done a lot of work on myself and continue to work, and realize that I am no longer that person. I try to make better choices, and when I don't, I try to own up to them.
So what does that have to do with this situation? Well, for my part, I knew in my gut that something was off with this relationship, but at the outset, I had fallen back to a place of lower self esteem because of circumstances in my life. And I have improved in that respect.
In the meantime, while I started the relationship with someone who had fairly higher self esteem, he had to deal with circumstances that brought him to a more emotionally fragile place. And when you are in that situation (as I was earlier), you don't want to be with someone who is more emotionally healthy. It takes much more work, and the ego in this place can't take the effort. It is much easier to return to a place of familiarity, with someone whose self esteem is at the same level as yours.
I can see that this was what happened to me when I was younger, because I did have low self esteem, and something inside me said I didn't deserve those nice guys, which was why I found fault with them and ended up with men who were not good for me. And I am going by inference from my own situation, and my assumption on my now ex boyfriend may be off, but I think that is what happened to him as well.
The good news for me is that I keep working on myself, and enjoying my own company, and can, now, be in a place where I would appreciate a nice person in my life. That's my path, and I am comfortable closing the door and moving forward.
