Lifestyle

I Don't Hate Her, I Hate The Fact That You Moved On

by Alexandra Bannon

I think I speak on behalf of most women that at least once in our lives, we will experience what it’s like to hate the girl who is now with an ex.

Let's be honest: It’s so easy to hate the new girl.

It’s so easy to pick on the flaws on someone you don’t know, and make quick judgments about her to use to your advantage.

But, the thing is, these "flaws" we conjure up are false.

They’re just a façade to make us hate her because that’s what you think is the right thing to do. That's what your friends want, isn't it?

I’m going out on a limb here when I say from experience that we don’t hate the new girl.

What we actually hate, is that she was the one he moved on with.

I thought I hated my ex’s new girl to the extreme, but it turns out, I never did -- here’s why:

After you break up with someone, there’s this hidden agenda where you want to be the one who "wins."

There are lots of definitions of winning, but usually everyone wants to be the one who moves on first.

Now here’s the thing about this concept: It’s pointless. The more you concentrate on trying to win, the more you screw yourself up.

The more you focus on trying to find someone hotter or smarter than the ex, the more you lose yourself.

You forget how much you are hurting and barely give your heart enough time to heal, which leads to damaging repercussions.

After I realized how hurtful trying to be the one who wins was, I realized I was only doing myself more harm than good of trying to be in the arms of someone I barely knew.

I realized the more I resented my ex and the new girl, the greater I resented myself.

Finding out your ex is with someone new hurts so much because when someone you loved like nothing else in this world manages to move on, it hurts to the core.

Your ex did what everybody sets out to do one day: find love again after a breakup.

It also hurts because you believed there would be no one else for him but you, and no one else for you but him.

And when you break up, you carry around this false hope that you may get back together one day.

It is the hope that gets you through every day without him in your life anymore.

And then you find out about her and it kills you. That false hope that you held onto for so long dies in an instant.

We think we hate the new girl, and we may feel that hate in our bones, but beneath the surface, what we really hate is how scared we are of what's happening.

We hate how scared we are that he may love her more than he loved us. As selfish as that sounds, it’s the truth.

We’re scared that he's going to give her all the things he promised when you two were together.

And most of all, we hate the fact that we couldn’t be the one for him.

If there is anything I have learned throughout the mess of it all, is that all the hate I held onto for so long only did damage to my soul.

But I guess that’s life, right? You have the experience first and then learn the lesson after.

If there is one thing I wish I could say to the new girl, it's that I am grateful for her coming into my life.

Because if she never did, I would still be wasting my life away thinking I still belonged to him.

I wouldn’t have realized that I am worth so much more than lies and deception.

And I didn’t have to take the emotional abuse of it all on my own, for I found the inner most strength in myself, and through beautiful friendships.

To her: Thank you for taking the blame of being the new girl, for you have given me a reason to start over. For setting me free.

To all the girls out there struggling with this too, please know that rubbing dirt on the new girl doesn’t make you any cleaner.

Putting her down about what she looks like or who she is won’t make you feel any better. It sure as hell won’t make you feel like you’ve "won."

The new girl isn’t the issue, the issue is that he moved on and your heart still loves him, and it’s not your fault that you still do.

There is no magic switch for turning off the love you had for someone; life doesn’t work that way. It takes time, as simple as that.

Be the bigger person and rise above the situation. And most importantly, don’t be in a rush to find someone new, so you can be the one who "wins."

Know your worth, because once you know it, you won’t feel the need to entertain those who don’t know yours.