Page 196 of A Solid Guide to Surviving a Situationship

And those avoidant men… my God! Do I have time to rant about them? No? Okay, moving on.

3. Your worth is not determined by whether someone chooses you

Some people can look directly at love and still not know what to do with it. That says more about where they are emotionally than it does about your value as a person.

Because rejection has a way of making people feel replaceable, forgettable, “not enough.”

But someone failing to choose you does not erase everything beautiful, lovable, intelligent, soft, funny, or extraordinary about you.

Sometimes, people leave simply because they do not have the capacity to hold what you offer. And that grief is real—but it is NOT PROOF that you are unworthy.

Choose yourself… always. Non-negotiable.

Also, if Beyoncé got cheated on, let’s all collectively calm down about tying our self-worth to another human being’s decision.

2. Your self-respect should matter more than wanting someone to stay

Because eventually, there comes a point where you have to ask yourself a very uncomfortable question: Am I fighting for love… or am I abandoning myself just to avoid losing somebody?

There is a difference between loyalty and self-destruction.

Between patience and self-abandonment.

Learn to love yourself so much that you won’t have to outsource it from someone else.

And one of the hardest lessons you’ll ever learn is that loving someone does not automatically justify losing your peace, your boundaries, your dignity, your sanity, or yourself in the process.

Sometimes the most painful form of love is realizing you have to let go of someone you would’ve kept choosing forever.

Not because you stopped loving them, but because you finally started loving yourself too.

Your self-respect should matter more than wanting someone to stay.

1. You are capable of rebuilding yourself after heartbreak

I realized that one of the hardest things you’ll ever do is heal alone.

But healing alone is better than using others.

Healing alone is better than ignoring the pain.

Healing alone is better than not healing at all.

Right now, it feels like your life ended. I know. Been there. You wake up with pain already waiting for you. Music hurts. Places hurt. Food tastes different. Their absence sits beside you like a ghost.

And for a while, surviving is all you can do.

But healing is strange because it rarely arrives like fireworks. It happens quietly. Slowly. Gradually.

One day you’ll laugh genuinely at something again.

One day you’ll eat normally again.

One day you’ll hear their name and your chest will no longer cave in.

One day you’ll realize you went hours without thinking about them.

And suddenly, you’ll understand that healing was happening the entire time while you were busy trying to survive it.