Seeing Past the Scars on Our Soul

I was recently reading a novel about breakups whose story was a bit on the stupid side but whose message was pretty profound.  It made me think.  Hard.  About why we do what we do during the relationship then feel the way we feel after the breakup.

Now, I will say that I have had a complete thought-process overhaul since my husband and I decided to divorce, but the epiphany I had at one point in this book is worth sharing.

Too often us women feel that we have to change certain behaviors inherent to our personalities in order to please the man that we are dating (or married).  It seems so silly when you see it written in black and white on this screen, but it is something hard programmed into our psyches and something we rarely actually think through.  We just do.

For example, I have a cousin going through a tough breakup that takes me back my own days of heartache.  The "why wasn't I enough?"s and the "what can I change about me to make him love me again?"s and the constant state of denial that the relationship has long-since been over.  I've been there.  Many times.  But here's (finally) what I realized:

Let's say that I was covered from head to toe with scars.  Big ones, little ones, disfiguring ones.  They are scars, so I can't do anything about them.  They are a part of me, but they don't define me.  And... I would never date a man who could only see those scars when he looks at me.  He wouldn't be good enough for me.  Period.

Every bad thing that happened to me has cut my soul.  Some cuts are small like paper cuts and heal without notice.  Others are huge, gaping, disfiguring scars that will be with me forever.  All of them tell a story of how I got to be me.

Now, my cousin pointed out that there's a difference between physical scars and emotional scars, but I disagree.  There's nothing we can do to change these scars.  They are with us whether we like them or not.  We can put Mederma on them, but it will only lessen the signs rather than obliterate it completely.  I feel the scars on our soul are worse because you can't see them at first glance.  You have to truly get to know us in order to see them.

So, why do we accept men that see those scars and won't accept us despite them or - staggering thought - help us to get past them?  They aren't good enough for us, yet we want them anyway because we have convinced ourselves that there is something wrong with us for having those scars!  Do we not think we deserve a man that helps heal those scars?

I now know that I am and won't settle for anything less.  And I hope you won't either!