It Doesn't Cost Him Anything

— I don’t get it, man. He said he liked me and that he missed me. He was making all these plans for us and all of a sudden he just vanished. As if it wasn’t him that said all those nice things. I mean, why would he say them all if he really didn’t mean any of it?

— Because, it doesn’t cost him anything.

— What the hell does that even mean?

— It doesn’t cost him anything. He can say anything in the moment of the heat or he just says them because he wants to. He may even have feelings for you when he says them but there is no weight behind any of it. It doesn’t cost him anything to say I miss you, so he says. It doesn’t cost him anything to text you good morning, so he does. It doesn’t cost him anything, literally anything to talk about a future holiday, so he talks you up. That’s it.

This was a conversation I had with a friend of mine a few weeks ago. I admit, I first thought he was completely wrong about the whole thing. I was hurting and in denial, so I choose to deny it. The more I thought about it though, the more I came to a realization that he had a point.

After the end of a relationship, we dwell on the things that were whispered in our ears. The ‘I love you’s, the ‘I miss you’s, the ‘ I’ve never met anyone like you’s… The list goes on. We try to hold our ex accountable for all the nice things he has ever said. I mean why would he say all these things if he didn’t mean any of them? It has to mean anything because if it doesn’t, then the reality is too much to handle. We even use his past tense lovey-dovey interest to escape from the reality of the breakup and use it to keep us stuck in denial. He did say I love you, so him leaving now is just confusion, not a concrete end, right?

Well, not really. He said them all as none of them cost him anything. Now, don’t get me wrong, it is a d*ck move to do so, but then again, there is a reason why he is out of your life right now. When you stop wondering what he meant by the good ones and answer your mind with the answer that ‘ because it didn’t cost him anything so he did’, it literally gives you closure as it is an answer. The harsh mentality behind it is actually freeing. Think about it, the sentence pretty much answers all the questions. There is no wondering anymore, no sleepless nights thinking what he possibly could have meant by his love words. When your mind gets the answer from you, it is closure, and that closure is followed up by healing.

This rule especially applies for dating or early on relationships where there is not much action to support the love words. Then again it's harder when you are dating as you keep receiving good feedback but then get empty-handed with a half-decent breakup text. So how do we trust people then? How do we ever know what is true and what’s complete bullshit? How will we know if we are being played, especially when there hasn't been a lot of time spent for him to back up his words with his actions?

To answer that question we have to remember, we are only human. How many times have you been in an argument with someone you care about and you ended up saying things you regret the next day? Words just fly out of our mouths sometimes and we don’t think before we say them. Sometimes we even say ‘I love you’ to the wrong guy, even though we definitely know we don’t love them.

(2012, Pacific Beach, the guy with the white shirt, man I really didn’t love you, I was just really, REALLY, drunk).

Anyway, the point is we are all human and our partners mess up as much as we do. Unfortunately, they lie as much as we do, too. To forgive or to move on, are all personal decisions and risks, but the whole idea behind this concept is to get you going and move on with your life. Not thinking about the why’s anymore and focusing on how’s. To use it as an answer to get closure of some sort and make peace with reality. You may never receive an answer from your ex that’ll help you move on, so use tools like this to get one for yourself.

By April Moons.

Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash.