A past lover who left you hurting can become a darling to someone else
Many times we refuse to accept that exes can transform for the better
There is something in us that is unforgiving, that nagging little voice insisting old dogs will always be just that.
This is, however, an opinion we hold against others. We are allowed to become better persons, prosper and improve in all aspects.
We see ourselves as having become more enlightened and wiser over the years. In the same breath, we refuse to accept that other people grow and change, and that more often than not, they change for the better.
I have noticed this especially with how we perceive the people we have had romantic relations with – worse, when they broke our hearts.
You may have noticed how we become shocked and even pity those who fall in love with the people we were unable to keep in our lives. We assume that the infidelity, disrespect, damage and the miscommunication we suffered are because of an embedded character flaw of past lovers, an unrepentant trait and permanent state.
We cannot bring ourselves to accept that this very same punk we once knew so intimately could possibly be a great lover to someone else.
We deny that whatever resulted of our life with them was partly of our making, through our reaction, expression or passivity. We want to believe that this person’s ugliness is eternal. And we are comfortable with the thought that their new lover is yet another victim of their evil.
While we can never know if we can love a person enough for them to change into what we desire, the converse is true. A person can change when they have found the person they love and desire.
I was recently reminded of a good old friend of mine, a man whose history is laced with loathsome, impassionate women who swear he is the epitome of romantic horrors. A patriarch. A drunk. A cheat. A deserter. A broken man! A heartless bastard with no consideration for another’s feelings.
I have had the pleasure of watching him love a very fortunate lady in poetic ways. He woke up to a sobering love and met it with religious commitment and gratitude.
He found a new beginning and celebrates it even with light moments of simple living and appreciation. He has learnt to hold her hand when silently seeking support and stare at her eyes to reassure her that he still sees her. He displays genuine affection and true love, a thing he had never been considered to have room for before. He is living it, after all his failures and mishaps.
His lady couldn’t be happier. She had not expected any less from him.
Her experience of the man is a glaring contrast to what his former lovers would tell of him. She knows no heart break, hears no lies and tells of a gentle, loving soul, whose priority is her happiness.
Tomorrow, when his former lovers see him and his lady enjoying each other, they will frown at the memory of the bitter past.
They will be reminded of all the pain and misery he caused them. They will refuse to accept that he can be any different from the wreckage they once nursed unsuccessfully.
As far as they are concerned, the man is incapable of loving anyone else but himself. That remains a comforting thought at explaining why their relationship with him failed. In fact, it will be the basis for the failure of all his future relations, they insist.
“Soon enough he’ll show her his true colours. I know him,” is the reflection on a part of the man that lived some time in history.
They forget that his new lover is experiencing a new man in a new day, with new possibilities and a different person to build with.