Women are born to be martyrs. Every woman I know has a martyr complex. We probably got it from Mother Mary. I don’t know what she did exactly but I do know that she sacrificed her future for her husband and son. How’s that for martyr syndrome?

Every woman I know believes that she can change a man. Believe me, not even God is powerful enough to change a man’s bad habits. I should know. I spent eight years to ten years of my life, hoping or praying that my junkie ( now ) EX-boyfriend would suddenly turn into a more responsble guy. I’m glad I didn’t hold my breath. I would have turned deathly blue by now.

A woman can and never will change a man. She has to accept him for who he is–bad habits and all. Most women are anal. We think that we can just fit a square peg into a round hole if we pushed hard enough. But that never works.

I wasted my life trying to wish that my boyfriend were a lot more responsible or a lot more financially stable. Deep inside I knew that he wasn’t the guy for me. But I wanted him to be the one. I was probably crazy or I probably was delusional. I just wanted the relationship to work even if I turned into a very wicked witch whenever I was around him. He wasn’t good for me.

And I suppose, I wasn’t good for him as well. My friend, Dora, who was in a relationship with a guy for five years before it came crumbling down earlier this year told me that she always knew that he wasn’t the one.

” Deep inside I always knew that he wasn’t the guy for me,” she said rather calmly. She’s calm now but I heard that for several months, she drank copious amounts of alcohol to drown out the pain. It was most terrible because he moved on right after they broke up. A couple of months ( or weeks ) after they broke up, her boyfriend found another girl. They got married. He is now a father.

” Why did you stay so long?” I asked her. Of course, I might as well have asked myself the same question.

” I was stupid,” was her simple reply.

” We were stupid. If you use your heart and ignore your brain, you will never go anywhere,” I said.

” How right you are.”

Women want the guy they meet to be the one. I know it’s stupid. But women are built that way. When the signs are all wrong, we ignore it. We’re martyrs. We always want a relationship to work even if it’s clear that it’s not working. We’re optimists.

And men, well, they’re realists. Women may be practical when it comes to practical matters but when it comes to matters of the heart, we’re hopeless romantics. Hopeless romantic being another term for hopeless stupidity.

But there’s hope. If a woman just learns to read the signs and stops ignoring them, she can actually bail out of her relationship before it transforms her into a mean cow.
Oprah said that the way to determine whether a person is good for you or not is to spend time away from that person. If staying away from that person makes you feel good about yourself, then you should stop seeing them. A person who is good for you will always make you feel good about yourself.

I wish I heard this. It would have saved me from much heartache.I know now that there are good relationships and bad relationships. A good relationship turns you into a better person. A bad relationship turns you into a cynic, a pessimist, or worse, it turns you into a bitter person. Sad to say, I belong to the last one. I’ve become bitter. I just refuse to let myself be dictated by it. I know I’ll snap out of it soon. I probably have snapped out of it. I’d like to think so.

Dora’s EX and my EX moved on right away. Yes, they’re jerks. But well, people move on. It’s sad when you’re left in the lurch. It’s not a pretty good feeling. But the way I look at it, it’s better that at least one of you is happy. Okay, that’s still the martyr in me talking. But if the relationship never worked in the first place, why spend a great deal of time grieving over it? The relationship ended because it wasn’t the right kind of relationship. Why fix something that is beyond repair?

Women like to fix things. Women are sentimental. But sentimentality never gets you anywhere. If you hold on to something and you won’t let go of it, how else would you grow and change?

It’s hard. It really is hard for me to cope. But I’m ready. I’m ready to let go of all attachments. Of course, I won’t stop writing about my EX. Call it therapy. I just like something to write about. And yes, heartache seems like a good topic. When I’m ready, maybe I’ll talk about new beginnings.

Background Music as I’m typing this blog: Cyndi Lauper’s The Body Acoustic. The great songs in the album are as follows:
I’ll Be Your River
Above The Clouds
Time After Time with Sarah McLachlan
La Vien En Rose ( not part of the album )

The Fray’s In Over My Head