After my divorce, I thought the worst thing that could ever happen to me was being abandoned by someone I loved. I carried that fear into my next relationship without realizing it. I thought if I just showed up fully, communicated clearly, and loved the right way, things would finally be different.

What I didn’t see coming was that the real abandonment wouldn’t come from him.
It would come from me.

I felt something was off long before I admitted it

There were small signs, tiny, quiet moments where things didn’t line up. Shifts in tone. Half-answers. Energy that didn’t match the words. My intuition whispered that something didn’t feel right.

But I didn’t want to hear it.

I told myself I was being too sensitive.
I blamed the divorce.
I blamed overthinking.
I blamed anything except the possibility that my gut was right again.

Instead of listening to myself, I chose to override myself.
Not because I didn’t know better, but because I desperately didn’t want to repeat my past.

I didn’t lose him — I lost me

Looking back, I can see exactly where I went quiet inside.

I stopped asking for clarity because I didn’t want to seem difficult.
I minimized things that bothered me because I didn’t want conflict.
I softened my boundaries because I didn’t want to scare him away.
I accepted less effort because I didn’t want to feel “too much.”
I ignored my needs because I was afraid they would be inconvenient.

Piece by piece, I abandoned myself trying to hold together something that wasn’t even holding me.

He didn’t ask me to disappear, but I did anyway, trying to be easy, lovable, resilient, unbothered. Trying to be someone who wouldn’t get left again.

The truth is, I betrayed myself long before he ever disappointed me

And that’s the part that stings the most, not what he did, but what I allowed by shrinking myself to fit the situation.

It wasn’t loyalty.
It wasn’t love.
It wasn’t patience.
It was fear in disguise.

A fear of repeating my divorce.
A fear of being blindsided again.
A fear that asking for more meant losing everything.

So instead of risking losing him, I risked losing myself.

But there’s power in seeing your own patterns clearly

Once the truth finally surfaced, the inconsistencies, the shifting stories, the misalignment I could no longer avoid, the heartbreak wasn’t just about him.

It was about realizing how far I’d drifted from myself.

I had silenced my intuition.
I had compromised my standards.
I had allowed uncertainty to feel normal.
I had accepted crumbs while offering the whole version of me.

This relationship didn’t break me; it revealed me.

And here’s what I finally understand

Being abandoned by someone else hurts, yes.
But abandoning yourself leaves deeper scars.

Because when the relationship ends, the person you’re left with is the one you neglected. The one who warned you. The one who needed you to choose better.

And that’s who I’m choosing now.

I’m not ashamed of how I loved, but I’m done loving myself last

Going forward:

I listen to my gut the first time.
I honor red flags without rationalizing them.
I refuse to shrink to fit someone else’s comfort.
I don’t negotiate my needs down to stay “easy.”
And I will never again abandon myself trying to keep someone else.

If a relationship requires losing pieces of who I am, it’s not a relationship I want.

This wasn’t a story about him leaving me.
It was the story of me returning to myself.