(texts are written in English Language)
Honestly, the reason why this article is written is because the song from The Clash titled “Should I Stay or Should I Go” suddenly played in my mind. Not long after that, I was thinking about all the things that was happened with me and my ex-boyfriends. Yes, indeed that they are nice, they are understanding and there’s numerous good things about them that I can’t mention. But why in the end I decided to break up? What was really happening to me?
Then I remember there’s times where I felt like this thing that me and my ex did to each other is not right. Not rare I was questioning to myself is this love or not? Why did he do this to me? Why did I do that to him? Why did I become like this? Is this a normal thing to do if me and him love each other? The answer is simple; if you felt that it’s wrong, then it’s wrong and it’s a mild sign of red flags that you should know before things got even sour than it is right now.
There are numerous red flags to mention, but for an instance I will take my case as an example here. The longest relationship I ever had is four years, but it didn’t come all lovey. I dated a person three years older than me on my first relationship and I met him when I was about to turn eighteen after that time.
As he was my first boyfriend, I thought being with him until forever would be possible. But then, reality crash landing to my head when I finally stepped into the adult life. To go to work, get more pressured than anything because of deadlines, and then there’s a difficult guy I called partner smashing my head with the words he spat.
The common red flag is called Gaslighting, and this often happen in every relationship. The worst part about gaslighting is, you don’t even know it was a red flag.
I will put my own experiences as examples.
Let’s call my first ex here with K. So, K is jobless for years after he dropped out from college because of financial issue, meanwhile I got my first job as a content writer in the most prestigious Indonesian lifestyle magazine company who is in the same group as Jakarta Fashion Week when I was twenty years old. The coolest part is I’m able to be there because I use my own limited social skill with lot of helps from few of my friends on how to build a decent portfolio. I was super happy because on the first time I finally got a job that related to my hobby: writing.
K seems proud of me and often told me he’s amazed with my progress. But often when we fought, he always brought up that if it’s not because of him, I will never get this writing job. I thought he was just emotional and angry, so I just shrugged it off. But it got worse when I got my new profession as a full-time model. Like the first time, he said he’s super proud of my achievements. But then the conversation where in the end he said: if it’s not because of him, I will never be a model — is up again.
The effect was terrible. I often questioned myself, I felt like I was so separated from the world just because of thinking about his words to me. Sometimes it’s hard for me to make decision for myself because I was thinking if it will affect my relationship with my loved ex. I couldn’t even stop apologizing for things I didn’t even do wrong to him and everyone — until this day because I am afraid that I made a mistake I wasn’t aware of.
In the end, I decided to break up with him. Not only because of the gaslighting he subtly did and many manipulative things he did to me like isolating me from my friends, telling me how to dress, and so on — but because I fell in love with someone else that I thought will be a better partner for me. And yes, I was wrong about it too. Jokes on me. I’m being a clown, yet again.
Another red flag to notice is when you feel like you and your partner has too much differences in point of views and it’s just impossible to merge and collide to achieve a happy and fully content relationship.
Let’s call the second guy I dated here as L. He’s six years older than me and he’s a dreamy man. If you saw him in person, you’d tell me that the world is unfair because how good looking he is. I agree, he’s like a perfect match for me even though we are so different in every aspect. Our skin tone, our ethnicity, our diet, our lifestyle, even our eyes are in different color.
He was super kind. He’s funny, witty, smart, critical, physically lean, mentally built, caring, giving, understanding, and many more good things I couldn’t mention. He’s like that rare Pokémon card, hard to get from a bunch. Sometimes whenever I woke up from my sleep and I saw him sleeping beside me, I often asked myself — did I really deserve this guy in my life?
Sigh, now I wonder if he asked the same question to himself whenever he stared at me while I was sleeping. I know I looked like an Ogre when I sleep so yeah, maybe he didn’t.
His appearance in my life gave so much positive impacts. I’m inspired to be in better shape because he did yoga everyday. I went down to the gym and spent two hours maximum to do a lot of cardiovascular set from my personal trainer. I become more picky about what to eat even though in the end he often saw me eating fast food and laughed. He makes me feel pretty, he makes me feel loved, but he had zero idea what’s our relationship is — even after nine months living together.
Sometimes I felt like he was trying so hard to change me even though I know his intention was just only to make me a better person. He never force me to do things, but he often repeat the things he wants me to do too often even though I already explained why I stopped doing things he told me to, as if my explanation was an empty sentences.
It become crystal clear to me that he doesn’t really count me as a partner because when I asked him does he want to continue the relationship when he’ll be away from my country, he told me that he don’t really see us will be together again after that because he thought I looked like I am not trying at all to get better mentally and physically.
But maybe it comes to his conclusion that harsh words might build my motivation to do better. In the end after he went back to his country, he just stopped texted me and I grow tired as well since it seems like he doesn’t even want to make the long-distance relationship work.
I do understand he has difficulty to text everyone as per his confession, but when I called him last time, he doesn’t even sound like he wants to talk to me. “Well it seems like we don’t have any topic to discuss anymore, time to say good-bye”. That’s what he said.
Wow, it still blows my mind even until this second. I immediately turn off that phone call without any reply. It’s just too odd for me to bear the fact that he just left to his country and suddenly he had this major change of attitude. If you love someone, you’d want to make the conversation going longer for whatever reason, especially if you’re on long-distance relationship.
The examples above are the red flag that you should notice that it’s not worth it to keep someone who doesn’t want to fight for you and the relationship you and your partner have. Yes, there will be difficult times, but if one person in the relationship doesn’t even want to work it out, maybe you should go.
Simplified red flags are sexual assault, jealousy, violence, stalking, coercion, verbal and physical abuse, mental manipulation, possession, isolate you from your friends and family, giving you silent treatment, tell you how to dress, put you down, and many more.
If you happened to experience the same thing as I mentioned above, it’s better to discuss this matter with the person you are close with to ease your mind, so it will be easier for you to figure out the ways you might need to go forward in life.
I will repeat this again: if you felt that it’s wrong, then it’s wrong.
You deserve so much better.
