The Dark Side of Love

Photo by Cherry Laithang

I am an optimist, a learned skill that I have sought to obtain and hold close to my heart. A skill that has not been easy to tame because of the challenges and life-altering riddles that have been thrown my way. Still, I choose to find beauty in a glass-half-full world and if you haven’t gathered from my work yet, I love love.

While a lot of the things I have written lately have aired on the side of the darker parts of love. My experiences have reverberated from my heart onto the page to share with those willing to read and yet I want to get into the pieces that I still consider love even if they are painful.

It’s no secret my previous relationship did a number on me however, I still find so much love in it. I know some people will think that it’s probably closer to trauma bonding. Or that there is mass manipulation to the highest degree- and still, I choose to look at that relationship through the eyes of love.

So today, I want to dive into the dark side of love. The love that comes with broken promises while heartbreak runs on repeat. The love that gives everything and gets just enough back to keep you on a hook. The love that defies instincts and has you aching for peace. The love that thrives on insecurity and has you bracing for impact every moment of the day.

This may not be the healthiest version of love and yet, I still believe it is.

Joshua was a lot of things. I could sit here and list off all the angry awful things I have thought about him, but honestly, I have already written that letter and burned it. I have braved the pain and I continue to work on the healing process every single day.

When I fell in love with Joshua, it wasn’t for his games or charm or indication of the size of the package he was carrying in his pants (which between you and me was fine and not very giving if you know what I mean). No. Those things have never impressed me. Those things have never been high on my calling card. It was flattering to be wanted.

The pieces of him I fell in love with were humble and kind. I saw his passion when he picked up garbage off the streets. The way he connected with animals. When he got excited about making a new recipe or letting me into his world of video games. I fell in love with the gentle hugs and small thoughtful gestures. All these little pieces snatched my heart and I let it float safely to the bottom of a jar that he held.

My love for this man was real. My love for him may have been manipulation at play, but the way I felt, was genuine. I saw the heartbreak in the story he told me about his family. I saw the hurt that he felt from some lived experience in his past. I felt the ache in his heart when he spoke about the challenges he had endured. In those moments, I felt it with him. I hadn’t learned how to put up emotional boundaries yet. I hadn’t figured out how to safeguard my heart and my empathy, to feel compassion without taking on someone else’s pain.

So, there was love. There was a lot of it. And in some demented way, I think he had love. Maybe not directly for me rather than for what he was getting out of the situation, but maybe love for him is this way of life he has chosen. Maybe he loves the struggle to some degree. Loves the pain. Loves to want love but doesn’t know how to believe in it. I have no idea.

In the beginning, I gave him the most loving parts of me. I let him pile them in that jar he had, the one holding my heart, sitting on a shelf somewhere in his subconscious mind. All those things I fell in love with were set on display as reminders. Reminders he would set. Like all he had to do was say ‘Hey Marissa, set a reminder for why you love me tomorrow at 9 am.’ So it would be done. It was that easy.

After the first time I found out he cheated on me, which was a devastating night given the history I have with my family. He took a walk and came back with everything I needed to hear to let him stay. I wanted to prove to him that someone in his life could love him even if he made a mistake. I knew then it wasn’t going to be me, but he had owned his mistake. He had said that his relationship with women stems from his relationship with his abusive mother. That he sought attention from women to give himself security that he was, in fact, desirable. That his actions were not a reflection of me, but of himself.

The perfect response. The response I needed to keep him around. So, I did.

That was the last time he owned up to his mistakes like that. Unfortunately for me, my love had become soaked in desperation and I was just trying to hold onto love from him. When he did it again, I wasn’t going to let him go and he knew. He had me figured out.

I was taking a walk on the dark side of love. A love with a one-way road that only led to one place. There was no detouring, there were only strategically placed alternate routes. Routes that led back to the same road. To get off that track, I had to start inside. I had to take back my heart.

I didn’t know how to get it back. The only way off that meticulously paved road was trekking through the mangled forest surrounding me. Somewhere in there, was my heart. As the crazed forest grew, I could feel the light in my life fading.

For years, people had told me that they thought of me as a ray of sunshine. Joshua said it too. After dating him for long enough, I started wearing my ray of sunshine as a façade. A mask decorated in yellow rays that shone to no end. I was desperate to hide the heartbreak I was feeling inside. The loss. The shame.

Joshua saw it though. He saw me breaking.

He never asked if I was okay. He didn’t need to know. I was his and that was what he wanted. I was his bottom line. Someone to support him and pick up the slack when he couldn’t carry his weight. It was dark over there.

On the dark side of love, I didn’t get an “I am your father” moment. There wasn’t a blanket realization that shoved me in the right direction. I had to ease myself out of the darkness just like I had been eased in.

The dark side of love takes. It takes everything. It takes your spirit, your heart, your soul. It takes the goodness and covers it with an (un)welcome mat coated in shame. It takes the feelings of joy and shoves it in a zip-lock baggie, leaving just enough space in the bag to gasp for breath. The dark side of love kicks you when you’re down. It bares all its weight on you so standing up is like trying to lift a car. The dark side of love will touch you and use its hands to beat you down to make you feel like you need the darkness to survive. The dark side of love will always apologize but will still blame you. The dark side of love hurts.

It hurts.

And it is also the hardest thing to break away from.

Once the dark side of love takes hold of your mentality, finding yourself, the person you have always been, is like entering a 5000-yard maze. Somewhere in there, you exist - you live, but the cage that holds you blends into the surroundings and your soul hides in fear of the evil lurking around every corner. To get out we have to brave that first step inside. We have to choose to save ourselves first.

The dark side of love will be there to tempt you out. Will be there to challenge your thoughts and have you second-guessing reality. It will have you thinking about whether your memory is playing games or if it is just the darkness taking hold. It will blind you from that straight path home, the one everyone else can see. The dark side of love will feed on your weakness and target your deepest fears.

The dark side of love can be terrifying. It can be a matter of life and death. But it exists and it is very real.

I have seen many versions and lived through different forms. My relationship with Joshua is only one.

Still, when I sit back and shift my perspective into a different gear, I see that maybe the dark side of love isn’t so dark after all. It’s light, aching to break free. It’s this opportunity to find inner strength you never believed you had to walk away closer to the person you were always meant to be.

I believe we need the dark side of love so that we can see how much light we actually hold.

If you are there, sitting in the darkness, waiting for the light to break, I want you to know it’s already there. Find that sliver first and hold on to it and you’ll be surprised how fast the darkness fades.

Keep on shining you beautiful, beautiful soul. I see your light even when you don’t.

Love Always,

Riss