I Didn’t Realize How Much I Neglected Myself Until I Made Myself A Priority Again

When you’re in the relationship bubble, it’s easy to neglect yourself. The shock comes when your relationship ends and you’re left to pick up the pieces of a broken woman. This is exactly what happened to me — and it wasn’t pretty. 

  1. I’d forgotten about the world around me. I was so consumed by my relationship that I wasn’t really living in the real world anymore. Things between my ex and I were on the verge of breaking down and I was fighting so hard to keep them going, so much so that everything that I said and did was for someone else and not myself.
  2. I had no one to make the effort for. I stopped caring about myself a long time prior because I thought I was happy in my relationship. As it turned out, I wasn’t. I’d just given up on myself and gotten lazy because I thought I’d found my person and I knew that he’d never leave me.
  3. I let myself go physically. I became out of shape, I stopped wearing makeup, I let my hair grow — heck, I even abstained from shaving my legs very often! Ladies, you know your relationship is doomed when you let your legs grow out for a few weeks at a time because you’re no longer having sex and there’s no one to impress. Bummer.
  4. I felt obligated to look after my ex. As my ex-BF was younger than me and away from all that he knew, I felt super protective over him. It became one of those situations where I felt more like his mother than his GF, and slowly but surely we began to fall apart because of it. A relationship can’t continue when it’s not between equals but I conveniently ignored that fact for a long time.
  5. I sacrificed things for the sake of my relationshipEven though I’m not proud of it, I admit that I put everything into making my relationship work and it meant that I cut back on things I loved like spending time with my friends and family. He was at the top of my priority list and everything else slid down to the bottom, including my own happiness.
  6. I stopped being myselfBecause I was deeply unhappy, I stopped acting like myself and instead became someone else. A shadow of my former self, if you will. I often looked in the mirror and I didn’t even recognize the person staring back at me. It was extremely heartbreaking when I realized that the happy, bubbly girl I once knew was gone.
  7. I took control and ended the relationship. It wasn’t long before I decided that I didn’t want to be in a relationship that made me become someone else. I wanted to be in a relationship that allowed me to be unapologetically and to grow and become even better. Even though it took a lot of courage because I cared tremendously about my ex and his well-being, I bit the bullet and ended things.
  8. I got my life back on track. I stopped neglecting myself and started to move my wants and needs to the top of my priority list. I made a list of my ultimate life and career goals long ago that had been sitting at the bottom of a drawer collecting dust, so I dug that out and started making plans for how I could achieve my dreams.
  9. I focused on myself. With my ex out of the picture and my new lust for life, I put all my time into my friendships, my family, and myself instead of finding a new relationship. In fact, it was a couple of years before I even started dating again. I decided during that time period that I wasn’t single — I was just in a relationship with myself.
  10. I never looked back. Even though I’m now in a new, happy relationship with another guy, I’m still in a relationship with myself first and foremost. After making the huge mistake of neglecting myself for so long before, I’m adamant that I’ll never do it again. That’s a promise.
Katie Davies is a British freelance writer who has built a career creating lifestyle content that caters to the modern woman. When she's not sipping tea, shopping, or exploring a new city, you'll probably find her blogging about her fashion and travel adventures at https://trendytourist.co.uk.
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