There is a very specific kind of delusion women carry like a designer bag. It is expensive, unnecessary, and somehow matches every outfit.
You do not miss him.
Sit with that for a second before your ego starts building a defense. I am not being cruel. I am being precise.
You miss the version of yourself that felt chosen. The one who walked lighter. Talked softer. Let things slide because "he is just like that." The one who suddenly believed in patience, forgiveness, and whatever spiritual bypassing you had to perform to make his inconsistency feel poetic instead of pathetic.
That version of you was not better. She was just distracted.
And distraction feels a lot like peace when you have been at war with yourself for years.
Let me be clear about something. He was not mysterious. He was inconsistent. Those are not the same thing, and the fact that we confuse the two is the reason half the women I work with are stuck in cycles they cannot name.
You were not in a whirlwind romance. You were in a loop. And loops feel good. Familiar. Addictive. Like checking your phone knowing full well there is no new message but doing it anyway because hope has no self-respect.
I have been in that loop. I know what it tastes like. It tastes like 2 a.m. rationalizations and "maybe he just needs time." It tastes like rereading old texts looking for evidence that it was real, because the present is not giving you anything to hold onto.
Here is what nobody wants to hear: the attachment was never to him. It was to the feeling of being seen. And the moment he stopped seeing you, you started performing. Louder. Softer. More accommodating. Less demanding. Whatever you thought would bring that look back.
But you cannot earn a look that was never yours to keep.
The reason this matters, the reason I am writing about it instead of just letting you scroll past another quote about "letting go," is because this pattern does not stop with him. It follows you. Into the next relationship. Into your friendships. Into the way you show up at work. Into the way you parent, if you have children. Into the way you talk to yourself when no one is listening.
You will keep choosing people who make you feel chosen, and then losing yourself in the process of keeping them. That is not love. That is a transaction. And you are overpaying.
Here is the part nobody tells you, and it is the only part that matters:
The moment you stop romanticizing confusion, you become magnetic in a way that does not beg.
Not the performative kind of magnetic. Not the "I posted a hot photo and got 200 likes" kind. The kind where you walk into a room and people feel it. The kind where you say no and it does not require an explanation. The kind where your presence alone communicates that you are not available for anything less than what you deserve.
You do not glow because of him. You glow because you finally stopped dimming.
I spent years dimming. I know what it costs. And I know what it feels like to get that light back and realize it was never his to begin with.
If you are reading this and your chest is tight, that is not discomfort. That is recognition. Your body knows what your mind is still negotiating with.
Stop negotiating.
The version of you that felt chosen by him was a fraction of who you actually are. And the version of you that exists on the other side of this pattern is someone he could never have handled anyway.
That is not a loss. That is a filter.
END
