No One Prepares You For Love After Betrayal

It turns out the hardest person to trust is myself

Photo by Candice Picard on Unsplash

People always tell you that you’ll meet the right person when you stop looking. What they don’t tell you is that you could meet them when you stop looking, but the timing is way less than ideal; they could live 600 km away and be ten years younger than you.

I’m a neurodivergent, recently separated, anxiously attached and seriously traumatised single parent, and I’m in love with a boy.

I know what you’re thinking— Girl, you’ve got some healing to do; what do you mean you’re in love? And look, that’s a complicated answer, and the time will come when I’m ready to share the story of my marriage and how it ended, but let’s just say I’ve been ready to love and be loved for way longer than I’ve been single. And besides, the heart rarely takes directions from the brain in these scenarios.

Which brings us back to the other stuff— The whole, I’m autistic, anxious and traumatised part. Who’d’ve thought that combination would cause trouble in a new relationship, amirite? Ok, probably everyone, but again, matters of the heart, etc.

Do you remember that episode of Friends when Joey is really depressed, and Phoebe brings him the happiest dog in the world, and by the time she comes to pick the dog up, it’s the saddest dog in the world?

Yeah…

I’ve always been worried my ‘sad’ would have that effect on people—And boy did this German shepherd find herself a golden retriever, so that fear has been tenfold.

Have you ever met a person that feels so different to you in almost every fathomable way but at the same time so fundamentally compatible it’s like they never weren’t a part of your life? That’s how I felt almost immediately when I met my boyfriend.

I’ve always loved big, and hard, and fast. My redeeming quality is that I’m at least choosy; I don’t fall like that for any guy who smiles at me the right way. When I feel this way, I know it’s the real deal, which immediately makes it terrifying because it can now hurt me.

And I’ve been hurt plenty.

There are parts of my neurodivergence that make me a great partner— I’m fiercely loyal, and I’m considerate; I’ll remember everything you ever told me you had an interest in (which makes me great for birthdays). But I can also be literal, rigid, and hyperfocused, which, in moderation, can be seen as endearing qualities, if not a little obscure. I also question myself a lot, particularly when it comes to interpreting tone and social cues. Oh, and I can get a little tangential… wait…

But that can make me less than easy on its own; add the anxious attachment and betrayal trauma to that? And I’m now feeling like a giant piece of lost baggage circling endlessly on the carousel because no one in their right mind wants to claim that.

Still, typically in relationships, the anxiety has never been an issue until something has happened to cause it, so I figured this would be the same. I had no idea the wounds from my last relationship were so fresh that they could be reopened with the lightest brush of a touch. And the person I couldn’t trust not to reopen them was, in fact, me.

It turns out that when the person who was supposed to keep your heart safe rips it out, stomps on it and throws it into the ocean like a piece of trash, that shit kinda sticks.

So I didn’t even realise that the heart I was handing over to my new love was being held together with dodgy bits of glue and tape.

When we met, I was doing well. I’d been separated for long enough to have fully grieved and accepted that the relationship was well and truly over. I’d had space to explore and grow and find myself again. I’d had a few dusty boys handle my heart too carelessly, not enough to reopen any old wounds, but enough to be done looking for love.

And then he found me. It took maybe two weeks before I realised I was done for. He was kind and pure and lovely in a way that felt so unfamiliar. The wildest part was that he seemed to genuinely be interested in me. And not me, the carefully filtered and angled Instagram selfie me, but my brain and my thoughts and feelings.

We fell in love over the phone; by the time we met, it was electric—earth-shattering, world-tilting, a life-has-just-changed-as-you-know-it connection.

Naturally, not long after this, my hypervigilant brain starts scanning for non-existent danger. Sabotage it, find the cracks so when it ends you can convince yourself you saw it coming.

Because no one could actually love me. At least that’s what the anxiously attached, sinister voice in my head insists on telling me at every turn.

Unloveable. Too much and not enough all at once. Unworthy. Undeserving.

It’s not that I couldn’t trust him. It’s that I couldn’t trust myself to be loved and not ruin it in some way. Even though the logical voice in my head says that no one deserves to be betrayed the way I was, the other voice whispers that I probably had it coming.

Life got increasingly more difficult around the same time. I started a new job— Hello, imposter syndrome! My daughter started school, and care arrangements with her dad shifted. Things I thought were stable became unstable as the legal side of the separation progressed.

The depression crept up on me again without warning, and suddenly the relationship was the only thing left that felt ‘good’ in my life— No pressure, right?

The fear of losing it became so unbearable I was constantly scanning for signs that weren’t there, behaviours that didn’t exist, anything that I could use to convince myself that the inevitable abandonment had been coming all along.

What is wrong with me?

It’s a dark spiral, and I know it’s taken its toll. But I’m pulling myself back out now. Holding on to the feeling of healing I had at the beginning of the year and knowing I can get back there.

A comment around choosing happiness landed hard with me, because it was at that moment I realised I’m not my sadness or what happened to me, and I'm not choosing to be here, but I was choosing not to claw my way out of it.

So I am now—I’m choosing my path. The path from sad to happy isn’t a straight line, and maybe I’m still a way away from knowing true happiness. But I can seek calm and contentedness. I can find the confidence within myself to face the uncertainty of really loving someone.

Because that’s the harsh reality: no amount of hypervigilance or preparation can create certainty that doesn’t exist. Even the most securely attached person is loving knowing that love could end or disappear for any number of reasons.

Today I’m choosing courage, for myself and for my relationship. Courage to risk the hurt and choose to love fully every day with the knowledge that I’ll be okay either way.

And if you’re thinking, ‘Good for you, lady, but why are you writing about it and putting it on the internet?’, the answer is simple— Writing pulled me out of one of the darkest times of my life. But not just putting pen to paper; it was also the community. The support, understanding and encouragement of strangers on the internet helped me heal once — Who’da thunk? So maybe, just maybe, it’ll help again.