I was admittedly always unsure of what my gut was telling me. I wasn’t sure I even knew what a gut feeling felt like, much less whether I listened to it or not. People would talk about it and I would nod in agreement as if I knew. They’d say things like – What is your gut telling you? Go with your gut feeling. Trust your gut. Your gut is always right. I knew what they meant, but I always wondered, how do you know whether a feeling is in fact a gut feeling and how do you follow it? It’s the thing that tells you this new friend is probably gossiping about you too or it’s time to leave your job or your sister needs you right now or your partner is cheating on you. The feeling is always there, from little everyday decisions to life changing events. When we listen to it, it can save us from getting stuck in a shitload of traffic or devastating heartbreak. But we have to listen. And we have to trust.
Me and my gut just had a hell of a rendezvous.
The feeling started early, nearly right away. It told me something about the woman I was dating. It started sometime around when she told me she was wasn’t going to date other people and she didn’t want me to either. This was about week 2. After a couple conversations about the topic I had decided to stop dating other people and eventually took my profile off Hinge. It was my decision. I made it my decision so that I could feel good about it. I didn’t have a HUGE desire to go on other dates and I was excited about where things could go with her. During this time my gut was telling me, you’re not ready for that, it’s too soon and she should respect that. But I convinced myself it was okay. I was excited about her so what’s the harm in focusing on just this one relationship?
That was just the start. The moments kept coming. The feeling in my gut kept appearing. Sometimes it seemed to be brought on by no reason at all. I’d be doing the dishes and listening to a story about her kids or we’d be cuddling on the couch. I couldn’t quite pinpoint it. It wasn’t one thing that raised a red flag and it’s not to say one thing was to blame or even that she was to blame. In a big way, we just didn’t align. We didn’t align and I could feel it. But there were more concerning factors as well, things that were unsettling and made me feel uneasy. The feeling in my gut showed up during conversations about past relationships and hearing how she responds to challenges and conflicts that arise in them. Something in the way she spoke and what she said gave a subtle hint at what the future held for us. It was a foreshadowing and it was a feeling that was familiar to me. It was the way I felt in my relationship and marriage with my ex wife. I started to feel the precursor to what would become myself shrinking. Walking on eggshells, tiptoeing around and keeping myself in a neat, tidy box to keep the lion at bay. I remember looking at her at one point in my kitchen while she was telling me something and thinking to myself, she is not safe. At that moment in my mind I distanced myself from her. I created an invisible barrier. It would come down at times when I’d get lost in the moment, when things felt like magic. Soon as the magic moment was gone, it shot right back up. The magic made me want to forget about the feeling. I wanted the magic to be reality. The magic, the good parts, the right moments were so beautiful I thought this could be it for me. I wanted it to be. I just couldn’t figure out what to do with this nagging, sinking feeling deep down in my gut.
I ignored the familiar feeling. I mistook my gut feeling for fear. I thought I must be so afraid of any new relationship being like my marriage that I am projecting my fear onto this person. I didn’t want to risk losing something that could potentially be great for fear that it would be potentially wrong. And there were many great things, really great things that I thought I’d never find in a partner. I was so excited about it that I held onto it for dear life. Like it would carry me through any dumpster fire of negativity, blame, avoidance and immaturity my partner might throw at me. The moment when you know someone isn’t right for you can happen at any given time during a relationship. Sometimes it’s caused by something that was said or that happened or sometimes you can’t explain it, it’s just a feeling you have. When you ignore it, chances are if something particular hasn’t happened yet, it will. The longer you’re in it, the stronger other feelings and attachments are allowed to grow around it and then it gets messy.
There was a big aha moment when I knew for sure that my relationship needed to end. I knew that I was no longer falling in love with this woman and there were components that logistically, rationally and fundamentally were so out of balance between us, it would never work long term. I knew my gut feeling had been telling me this all along and it was right. I knew we needed to talk about it but with the holiday only a few days away I thought it best to wait until afterwards.
My gut told me this was not my person. It told me this feels familiar and familiar isn’t good. It told me something’s off, something’s not right, something’s unsafe with this person. Why did I have to wait until I had tangible evidence? Why did I have to wait until the proof slapped me in the face? Why did I wait until it was so glaringly and painfully obvious and I felt like total shit? Why did I not trust myself? Why is it so hard to listen to the gut feeling and believe that I could be right? Am I so desperate for connection that I think it’s worth it? Maybe it’s because believing I was right meant the possibility of greatness was gone. I didn’t want to be right.
Trusting your gut sometimes means making hard decisions and sometimes if you put it off, the decision gets made for you. Ending a relationship is a hard thing to do. You still hope that it can be done in a mature and respectful way and there isn’t, in my opinion, any good reason why it can’t be. My relationship ended over text. Something that hasn’t happened to me possibly ever. The woman who claimed (with tears in her eyes) that she was falling in love with me ended our relationship over text, 2 days before Christmas. I imagine she had a gut feeling as well. To make it worse, she blamed me for the break up and for why she couldn’t at the very least call me and do it over the phone. I thought at 35 and 42 ending a relationship maturely was a given. I thought sharing intimate feelings and moments, building a friendship and being vulnerable with someone granted you some type of mutual respect. Is that too much to expect from someone? The way you handle yourself and care for your partners feelings during a break up is just as important as how you do it in the relationship itself. It gives you an opportunity to do the right thing despite things not working out the way you wanted. Have some respect for yourself and the time you invested in it as well as respect for your partner. A breakup deserves a conversation, on the phone if nothing else. If you can’t do that don’t point blame at someone else for your lack of courage, decency and common courtesy. Own it. I don’t need to best friends with everyone I’ve ever been in a relationship with but I’d like to still think well of them. So not only am I mourning the loss of a relationship which is hard even when you know it’s the right thing, I’m also mourning the loss of respect I had for this person. Which feels like a harder pill to swallow, I think at this age especially, we should have learned how to break up. We are grown ups, let’s act like it.
So, listen to your gut. Listen to it and trust it and believe it because if you don’t, you might just get broken up with over text two days before Christmas.
