What My Ex’s Cancer Taught Me About Self-Forgiveness
“I have Stage 3 prostate cancer,” my ex-boyfriend said. It had been eight months since he told me he was still in love with his ex-wife, and we stopped speaking. He offered to come to my open mic reading that evening to catch up, but I declined.
“It’s about you,” I said, chuckling into the phone.
“You know I’m sorry, right?” he asked. We had spent two years going back and forth, trying to settle on marriage and a baby before he finally admitted he didn’t want either.
“I’ve forgiven you,” I said, “so we’re good.”
“Not if you’re still writing about it.”
Later that evening, I read my essay in front of a small crowd, carefully choosing each word as if speaking the truth aloud would cost my ex karmic points. I wanted to protect him in a way he had not protected me. I ended the piece by assuming the blame for the demise of my motherhood dreams, trusting healthcare professionals over my own instincts, and believing my ex when he said he wanted to be a father. As the audience applauded, I realized it wasn’t him I needed to forgive but myself.
With others, I was a notorious forgiver. I stuffed away people’s bad behavior like a dirty sock in a drawer once they apologized – and sometimes even when they didn’t. I’ve never been fond of messiness or untied ends, so I’d take responsibility for the mishap, whether it was my fault or not, especially in romantic relationships.
Female blame is not uncommon. Research from the University of Paris revealed that women are more likely to blame themselves if they fail, while men attribute falling short to bad luck. Women’s tendency to self-blame reminds me of a Sex and the City episode where Carrie questions her looks after not hearing from a guy she met at her psychiatrist’s office. Her friend Miranda responds: “A guy doesn’t call you for three days, and you’re ugly?”
Why do we, as women, take rejection in dating and relationships personally? After my ex and I broke up, I mulled over every detail of our romance, wondering if things didn’t work out because I was too needy or demanded too much. My fixation intensified after I spotted him on a dating website two weeks after we went our separate ways.
Being on dating apps in your forties is diabolical. I no longer had my youthful appearance to attract tons of dates as I did in my twenties. There were hard lines across my face and saggy mounds of flesh that jiggled. After being dumped by my ex, I wore rejection like a tattoo on my forehead, overcompensating for the things I thought I lacked. If a man I was talking to ghosted me or didn’t return my call until two days after our date, I immediately thought I was the culprit.
During my two-year online dating era, my ex-boyfriend and I remained friendly. I saw him hop from relationship to relationship, never settling on one woman. He would say the woman was either too outspoken, too independent, or not financially successful enough for his liking. A year ago, after being divorced for four years, he went back to his ex-wife.
I have since found a partner who makes me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world and supports my every endeavor. I’m never too vocal or ambitious; he fully accepts me as I am.
My ex continues to text me on occasion. “I want you in my life,” he says. When I asked him why he called me after not communicating for nearly a year, he told me I was one of the first people he thought to call after his cancer diagnosis. It turns out he hadn’t forgiven himself, either.
Whether we mess up at work or a relationship ends up in the toilet, how much differently would we feel about ourselves if we viewed failure as an opportunity to grow and do things differently rather than a reflection of our shortcomings? I learned from my previous relationship that taking accountability in a relationship is one thing; putting a blow torch to my self-esteem because a man cheated on me or didn’t want to commit is emotional self-harm.
What if, instead of thinking the relationship didn’t work because of something we did, we saw breakups and divorces for what they are—incompatibility—and moved on without further thought?