Relationships

How I Found A Relationship When I Was Deemed Too Damaged To Love

by Lindsay Wallace

It is difficult to look at people who seemingly have it all on the outside, and imagine they are damaged and broken on the inside. These are the people who expertly hide their realities. These are the ones who quietly suffer from life experiences of abandonment and disappointment.

I find myself seeking these people out.

I suppose it is because I find an odd beauty in something that seems so wrecked. Perhaps I see a mirror image of myself in them.

I know I am screwed up, damaged and broken from past relationships. Someone shattered my heart to pieces. My spirit was destroyed.

There was a fundamental shift in my soul. After that experience, I never thought I could open my heart to another. I was perfectly content to walk this earth alone.

So, when I met someone I found myself sharing a deep connection with, it completely caught me off guard.

Sometimes, the emotions are so intense, I feel the internal struggle of wanting to build an impenetrable wall and surrendering myself to genuine love.

It is difficult to ask myself to be open to the possibility of loving someone again. It is even more difficult to ask another individual, who is equally (or perhaps more) damaged and broken, to let himself love me.

When we reach that point in a relationship, there are a myriad of thoughts running through our minds. If I couldn’t make it with the last person I dated, who can I make it with?

Am I the right person for him? Am I the right person for anyone? I know I will never be able to give him what he wants, and I never want to be the cause of hurt or disappointment in his life.

It is unfortunate, as we let our past experiences dictate the value we believe we can bring to a relationship. We do not desire to hurt someone else, or disappoint. But that is an impossible expectation.

No matter how hard we try to be the perfect version of ourselves, we are bound to disappoint.

I believe people come in and out of our lives at the right times, whether it is to teach us something about ourselves or for us to help them heal.

We cannot predict how it will turn out in the end.

I know, for me though, the relationship I am building now is exactly what I need at this moment in time, even if it is just to show me I am capable of loving again.

The lesson I’ve learned in all of this is we are all damaged. There is not a human on this earth who has not hurt, or has not felt pain.

We don’t hurt in the same way, of course.

I look at myself and the people I have met in my life. Some of the traumas they have experienced in their lives are hard to fathom. It is understandable why they feel broken.

The danger, though, is in letting those troubles dictate our future, closing ourselves off to the possibility of finding a "forever" with someone. The only thing this really does is give us the permission we need to stay single.

We are given one life to live, and if we can experience even a minute of genuine, pure love -- the kind of love without any expectation of something in return -- it is worth any amount of pain we may feel in the future.