When You Realize You're Not as Important to Them as They Are to You

This image recently popped up in my Facebook Memories. I remember posting it because it resonated with the pain I was carrying from a breakup after a long-term relationship. It was the pain of giving my heart to someone who was one of the most important people in my life to finding out that he no longer felt the same way.

The ending of our relationship was probably a long time coming; it was the ending of our friendship that I wasn’t prepared for. I thought we would still be close; I thought we’d still be in each other’s lives. When I called him out on it, saying, “I get that we broke up; I can accept that, but you’re my best friend,” his reply was, “You were just my girlfriend.” OUCH.

It took me a long time to process losing my partner and best friend. I did an excellent job of blaming him. I remember the day I was walking outside, feeling all the pain from the loss, when I felt a quick, sharp physical cracking sensation in my heart - it felt like an actual heartbreak.

As I worked through my anger and grief, I came to realize my role in all of it. I also came to see that I’d put all of my eggs in his basket and he’d tossed them aside. The problem wasn’t that he tossed them aside; it was that I had put all of my eggs in his basket - something he never even asked for.

I lost quite a bit of myself in that relationship, but I also put the unspoken expectation on him that my happiness was in his hands. What a burden to put on someone. I often thought of him as my life vest in the tumultuous sea of life. Without my life vest, I felt like I was drowning. I had to remember that not only did I know how to swim, but that I had to rely on myself to keep my head above water instead of putting all of my energy towards missing that life vest.

When I saw this post pop up on my feed again, it didn’t hold the same emotional charge as it did all those years ago. Yes, it hurt that I wasn’t as important to him as he was to me, but what hurt even more, at the deepest levels, was that I hadn’t been acknowledging my own importance - my own self-worth. Happiness and love are an inside job, and I had been focusing on receiving them from the external.

If you ever find yourself resonating with the heavy emotions that come from the realization that you’re not as important to someone as you thought you were, know that it’s an invitation to take a deeper look. Are you placing your happiness, need for acceptance, love, or sense of self-worth in their hands? Are you overgiving and not receiving? Are you ok with such an uneven relationship?

When you’re in that kind of situation, I highly recommend taking time for introspection and doing some inner work. Maybe you will need to create better boundaries. Maybe you’ll need to let them go. If they let you go, allow yourself to process it.

One thing to keep in mind is it’s easy to feel resentful when this happens. You can resent them all you want, but please know that you’re the one carrying that “poison.” You may put their name on the bottle and aim for them, but ultimately, you’re the one who’s drinking it.

I have known the joy of wonderful people coming into my life, and I have felt the pain of them leaving, whether through choice or death. It’s not easy. It hurts and it takes processing. It’s a part of the roller coaster of life.

At the end of the day, the most important relationship that we need to be focusing on (and tend to focus on the least) is the relationship we have with ourselves. We need to foster self-love, self-care, and self-worth. We need to connect with our inner essence and inner wisdom. And we need to stop outsourcing that which is inherent in us - love, joy, trust, and wisdom.

Heart Hugs,

Adrienne