The What If Ex: why your fantasy is destroying your life

Ladies, you really need to just stop

“No,” a woman once angrily responded to my belief that only incompatible relationships fail. “It would have worked out if his ex wife hadn’t kept interfering.” I felt really bad for her, because she was clearly still in a world where her ex wasn’t the man he really was. In her world, she wasn’t in love with a man who let another woman interfere with his new relationship, she was in love with a man wickedly torn from her by a nefarious other woman.

Here’s the thing, ladies; everyone has autonomy over how they choose to treat you, leave you, and cheat on you. Even Gorgeous I’ll Never Get Over Him Barry. And everyone who decides to end a relationship with you is doing so because the relationship isn’t going to or wouldn’t work out. And everyone who walks away does so because you were, on some level, incompatible.

You weren’t happy. No, really.

If a man isn’t in a good space to date you, he is wrong for you. If a man is constantly going back to his ex, he is wrong for you. If a man finds you needy and boring, he is wrong for you. If a man cheats on you, hits you, or hurts you, he is wrong for you.

He doesn’t need to see how loving you are, you don’t need to try harder to win him back, and you absolutely don’t need to be more accepting of cheating…