Why do We Torture Ourselves?
I was spending some much deserved quality time with a BFF last night who is going through a tough season in her life — she’s been hit with a bad case of a heartache from a recent break up. We were on our way to paint the town red and suddenly, she taps me on my shoulder from the back seat and shows me her phone. There it was — a photo of the douche-bag she’s been crying over for months now wearing a grin that reached from ear to ear with his new love interest. It didn’t take more than a few minutes for her eyes to well up. The pain that was masked in her gaze was so apparent, it nearly moved me to tears.
I asked her with a strong hint of impatience in my voice, “Why do you torture yourself like this?!” She muttered, “I can’t help it. I can’t stop looking at his Facebook.”
I felt frustrated, annoyed and angry for why she continues to let a man who never deserved her affect her this much. I felt defensive for my BFF who, by the way, does not fall short of gorgeous, successful and kind-hearted. No girl of her caliber deserves to be treated with the kind of disrespect he has shown her. “What purpose does looking at their pictures serve?!” I asked her. Then my guilty conscience nudged at my heart and reminded me that I was once there. When no one was around to witness my unhealthy behavior, I, too, obsessed over his Myspace page (Facebook wasn’t a big thing at the time), frequented her profile and asked myself over and over again like a broken record, “Why her? What does he see in her?” I remember I would weep until there was nothing left in me but to fall asleep on my tears-soaked pillow. That is, sleep enough until I had restored some energy to wake up and begin the vicious cycle all over again.
I had no right to judge her. She was just doing exactly what us women do best after a painful break up — especially when there’s a third party involved. I got out of the car and put my arms around her as she fought back the tears so as not to smear her mascara. She bit her bottom lip to control the quivering all the way to the entrance of the club. I held her arm tightly.
I can’t help but wonder, why do we (women) do it? Subject ourselves to this kind of torture? “I can’t help it.” Those words have flown out of my mouth too. Why can’t we just cut them off and move on? Why do we feel the inner urge to check up on them from time to time and then feel hurt and betrayed when we see that they’ve happily moved on — as a matter of fact, with a new girlfriend in tow? In a perfect world, the heart quenching words of “it’s over.” should be more than enough to get us packin’ up and never turn back. Right?
What boggles my mind the most is that it’s usually the men we never thought deserved us to begin with who ends up being the biggest perpetrator of them all. I remember hearing about this guy from my BFF and how she made him work for her love. She resisted him for months simply because he didn’t quite fit the bill. “I don’t really like him —he’s not even my type.” As a matter of fact, he wasn’t even all that attractive in the looks department. He knew how to play video games —that’s all they had in common. But he was a persistent one — promised her the world and his eternal love. But from the moment she gave him a chance, she bought into the lies and gave him her all. Everything she had, including her dreams of a bright future together. One devastating day in June, he told her he met someone.
As someone who has been on the receiving end of that news, it is not a moment in my past I would wish to re-enact. I’ve learned from the experience. It’s made me a more informed, mature and resilient person. I’m in a different place in my life now— a very happy and healed place. But I don’t want to forget how it feels to be there too, and be able to sympathize with my girls who do stupid things after break ups. Like stare at their ex-boyfriend’s picture with their new girl. We do dumb things…especially when we’re hurt — that’s probably as best of an explanation as I can come up with for why we torture ourselves. I know it doesn’t matter what kinds of advice I throw at my BFF for how to deal with the break up. We all deal with matters of the heart differently. I do know that only time will heal all wounds. While we can’t push them to recovery — we can certainly facilitate it by simply putting our arms around them, no spoken words required and let them know we’ll be there to offer a listening ear and be a good cheer when they need, or better yet, want it.
