Love is Letting Go

In October of 2022, my world came crashing down. I walked away from an engagement and the greatest love I had ever known.

It was the most difficult decision I have ever made in my life, but it was also the best decision I could have made for us both.

Let me explain.

From a very young age, I was taught that love was conditional. It lacked emotional presence and was shown only in assumptions of love and unspoken words, and having a roof over my head at all times. It was never shown in outpouring, big gestures, tons of affection, many words, or overly joyous moments. It reeked of rage, numbness, secrets, and emotional absence. Those were the messages I received from the media, from family, and from my culture. Unconditional love was not in my purview.

So, as an adult, learning to receive love has been a learning curve for me.

The thought of receiving someone’s unconditional and entire capacity to love has always been foreign to me.

So when this beautiful man walked into my life in the spring of 2020, I didn’t know that I wasn't ready for him.

I had been working deeply on myself in therapy because I knew I had a vulnerability issue. I didn’t know how to be my true self, speak my truth, or let people see anything other than the perfect mask that I showed to the world. I knew this, so I had decided that dating wasn't an option for me until I could change this behavior.

But life delivers blessings when you least expect it, and on a beautiful spring day in Amsterdam in the midst of the pandemic, I unknowingly walked into his home.

And there he was, in all his unconditional love for life.

I knew instantly that there was something special about him. The way he loved so purely everyone and every living thing around him, was something I had never experienced before. The way he played several instruments and wasn’t afraid to be playful or in his feminine energy. The way he asked how my heart was doing on days when I felt completely alone, away from my community in the height of COVID. The way he never held back on telling me when he was thinking of me.

But it wasn’t all butterflies and roses.

As our relationship grew, it became both my safe space and a place of constant triggers. We had a deeply spiritual bond and we were always completely honest with each other, but that also meant that we always said the things that were uncomfortable. We challenged each other to grow every single day, which meant that we were constantly evolving. But we were also constantly hurting each other’s feelings. There was so much love in our relationship, but we were also exhausted.

Even so, we did love each other deeply. So after 2 years he proposed in the summer of 2022 at a beautiful winery in Italy. His entire family was there to witness us in all our love.

But what was a moment that I had been sold on since I was a little girl as the  most magical moment in a woman’s life, the moment we all are waiting for, didn’t feel like I had imagined it. 

Not that he hadn’t planned a beautiful proposal, because he had.

The reality was: I had walked into that relationship a completely different person than who I was the day he proposed. I had been doing an immense amount of healing through working with therapists and coaches, and I had a new understanding of who I was, what I needed in a relationship, and a newfound sense of self-love.

I was ready to confront anything and everything that did not fit into this new version of Monica.

And I was awakening to the fact that my relationship might fit that description.

You see, when you shed certain parts of yourself in the process of healing, certain relationships will start to look different. You start to feel less and less aligned with them because the reasons you bonded with them in the first place are the same parts of yourself that you are now shedding.

And I had come to the painful realization that the parts of Monica that had been shed in the process of healing were same the parts of me that had accepted the aspects of our relationship that were the very reasons I wasn’t happy.

The very reasons I had to walk away.

But I won’t take this time to blame him, because I know that I played a significant role.

I had spent so much time sitting in feels of resentment toward him for not meeting my needs, when the reality was: I had set the precedent for those needs to not be met. I hadn't set the boundaries or asked for what I truly wanted. I hadn't been living in my truth or power.

So when the newly empowered version of Monica emerged, I knew that there needed to be a reset in our relationship. I had to ask him to evolve with me. But I was moving at such a rapid pace in my healing that asking him to keep up with my pace was an unfair ask.

And as much as we want to take the people in our lives along with us when we're healing and growing, sometimes we can't. We cannot force them to grow or heal. We can only choose it for ourselves. The sad fact is that when we do try to bring everyone along with us, it can sometimes stunt our own growth. 

So I had to make a difficult decision. 

When I walked away from our relationship that October morning, two things were true at once. I knew it was going to be the hardest decision I had ever made in my life because he was the greatest love I had ever known, but I also knew that I had to walk away in order to continue healing.

I had to say goodbye to him at that moment in order to fully love myself.

I no longer wanted to hold resentment toward him for not being what I needed at that time, because at that moment I realized it was my sole responsibility to be that for MYSELF. It was not his, and he did not deserve that resentment.

I needed to leave in order to build a loving home within myself, so that I could be a match for the love that I was demanding from him. 

And sometimes love can look like saying No. It can look like not settling for someone else’s best. It can look like surrendering when your intuition and heart tell you that there is more in store for you. It looks like honoring your boundaries and needs, even in the most uncomfortable moments. Love can look like being so honest that you may say the thing that could end the relationship.  

These are all difficult things to do when you love someone so much and every part of you wishes they could be what you need, but this is also when honoring yourself is the most important. It was heartbreaking to walk away from him because I knew that it would hurt him, but I had to equally honor the fact that I knew that staying would cause more pain for the both of us.

As tough of a pill as it is to swallow, sometimes love looks like letting go.

So when I finally said I couldn't do it anymore, my world came crashing down... but my world also opened up.

Because even though there was so much pain in that letting go, there was also so much healing, for the both of us.

And in the nine months that followed, we both took control and responsibility for our individual happiness. We did the deep inner work, confronted our own shadows, and were deeply honest with each other about what went wrong and what we needed more of. We made mistakes, we cried, and we broke each other’s hearts. We continued to have the necessary and uncomfortable conversations.

And by doing so, even in the separation, we never stopped loving. We chose honesty, we chose accountability, we chose compassion for ourselves and each other, but we also chose self-love. To honor our own journeys even though that meant not being together.

In the depths of the darkest moments and in the trenches of those heart breaks, I grew the capacity to forgive him, and myself.

And through it all, even after I walked away from him, he continued to choose me. Over and over and over again. My beautiful man helped heal my abandonment wound.

He healed it through consistency. He healed it by continuous questioning of his belief systems and making the conscious decision every single day to heal, and share that healing with me. He healed it by owning up to his own unhealthy patterns, setting boundaries for himself, and pouring love into himself in order to show up more fully for us both. He healed it through transparency and accountability.

He, and WE, chose love, when it would have been far easier to choose fear. 

Looking back, I now realize that I wasn’t ready for him all those years ago because I didn’t believe I was deserving of this big of a love, and I was living in fear of actually receiving it. I had held the subconscious beliefs that I deserved abandonment, and that I didn’t deserve unconditional love or consistency in a partner. That I didn’t deserve a man to take accountability for his actions or do right by me.

So when Anders walked into my life, I co-created an environment in our relationship that validated that belief.

But when I walked away from the version of our relationship that was not in alignment, I chose to rewrite that story. I chose love and healing. I chose to pour into myself so that I could show up more lovingly for us both. In doing so, I also made space for him to do the same for himself, because I stopped trying to control his growth and healing. And because he is the man that I have always hoped for, he took the wheel and did it for himself. And he walked back into our relationship nine months later as an even more loving and powerful man than he was before.

He is now the man I have always hoped for, and finally feel I am deserving of.

I can say with the most open of hearts, the most vulnerable I have ever been, and the most in love that I have ever been, that we are back together and better than ever. The same cup that is overflowing today because of the love that I was able to pour into myself by walking away, I am now able to pour from right back into him.

Together we have created the most healthy, transparent, spiritual, fun, supportive and beautiful bond that I have ever known. And we continue to do the work every day so that we can maintain this bond.

I can’t see myself doing life with anyone else. He is my best friend and the love of my life. 

This is your sign to set those boundaries. This is your sign to pour into yourself. This is your sign to write a list of non-negotiables for what makes you feel loved, seen, and valued in a partner.

This is your sign to become the vibrational match for the love you seek. This is your sign to make space for, and BE the love you desire.

You ARE deserving of the greatest love you can imagine.

If it is possible for me, it is possible for you.

I invite you to ask yourself:

What aspects of my relationship am I inviting in that could potentially reflect the healing I still need to do?

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“Paradoxically, the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love” - Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving