We Needed to Break Up to Stay Together

My story of self-abandonment

It's coming up to my one year anniversary with my partner, Jamie, and I've got to say - this has been the most growthful and transformative year of my life. More than any healing journey I've been on. More than any training or retreat or plant medicine ceremony. Because relationships bring out our deepest, darkest wounds if we're willing to go there.

We met in Morocco in March 2025. There was no attraction at first - just friendship. And honestly, I think that was the groundwork. That was where the trust and the real connection got established before anything else.

Fast forward to the end of July and I was deep in the woods of Southern France staying at a divine feminine chalet called Les Contes. Alot of shit was coming up around my blockages around men and calling in a partner. I had grown sick of dating emotionally unavailable men and was ready to find someone I really bonded with- with the feeling of really settling down with that person.

And deep in those enchanted woods- I wrote down on a piece of paper, the man that I was manifesting- what he felt like, how we were together and the life we would build together. I did a ceremony and put it out to all my ancestors and guides and I planted that piece of paper into the earth in those magical woods- believing that my seed would soon take growth.

Fast forward to July. I visited Jamie in his hometown for three days and that's when the attraction really started to bloom after a few days of getting to know each other deeper. We had a night of intimacy, and after that, I flew to Tenerife, with no plan to see him again. We were apart for six weeks - video calling every night, having the real, confronting conversations- the ones about values, our desires, our fears, our dreams for the future

I'd recommend that to anyone actually. Lay your foundations before you're physically together. You're forced to have the difficult conversations without the lust and the chemistry getting in the way and clouding everything.

After 6 weeks of being apart, we decided to see each other again. We then spent the next six weeks living together- which brought up a whole lot of deep shit and confronting me with my shadows and how I was relating from my wounded little girl

We decided to go on a pilgrimage to Greece for 5 days, then onto Egypt for 3 weeks- a self-guided pilgrimage through sacred sites and temples that threw us into the fire even more. We argued a bit and we nearly broke up a couple of times. I got really sick and had to be completely taken care of by him. But we kept choosing each other. We both wanted to see where this could go.

After our trip in Egypt ended, we went to our separate countries. He went to Spain. I came home to Australia after eighteen months of travelling. We still weren’t sure if we were going to get back together as it was a big ask of him to leave his life in Spain to come to Australia to be together. About a week later, we missed each other terribly, and he applied for a working holiday visa and arrived in Australia just before Christmas. We were house sitting as I still hadn’t found a stable home yet and it gave us the chance to feel into where we wanted to live.

And that's when the problems really started.

I realised, looking back, that I had been abandoning myself- quietly & consistently. I was silencing my needs because I was afraid they were too much- that I was ‘too much’ of a woman for him. Swallowing my truth to keep the peace- smoothing things over and making myself smaller. I also realised now- that I was a very selfish partner- always thinking about what I could get from Jamie- needing to prove myself and my righteousness when it came to arguments- needing to be validated and tended to- outsourcing myself to him to save & fix. Not caring about him or his needs so much as mine- and wanting to have the final say- always.

My anxious attachment was running the show. And the dynamic between us became really painful - we were enmeshed, codependent, we were bringing out the worst in each other rather than the best. There was no space for either of us to breathe or regulate or come back to ourselves.

And then, about 2.5 months in- we decided to part ways

Those two months apart were some of the most painful of my life.I grieved him hard. I grieved the life we had been building, the future family I had seen us creating.

And in that grief I finally saw clearly what I had been doing. I had been abandoning myself at all costs just to keep the relationship happy. I had been operating from a wounded part of myself - an entitled, princess energy - that needed to grow up. That needed to become the adult woman I actually was.

I did the work. I got a therapist, joined a gym, surrounded myself with a supportive community and said yes to going all in on my business.

And after two months of being broken up, he reached out with an apology and an invitation to start over. We chose each other again - but differently. We moved into separate spaces, started slow, dated with no pressure and no expectations. Just two people seeing where it could go without the weight of everything it had to be.

And what's grown since then is something I couldn't have imagined before the breaking.

I will never abandon myself in a relationship again. I know the pain that comes from that now and I'm not willing to pay that price. That slow, insidious corrosion of the bold and empowered version of yourself that you once were - abandoned to the fears, the blockages, the silence of not speaking your truth.

I speak my truth now. I state my needs. I say the things that need to be said - the small frictions, the changes in energy, the conversations I used to avoid. I'm not afraid anymore. Because I've already been to the depths of losing him. There's nothing left to be afraid of.

A solid relationship can only grow from a place where both people are truly themselves. That is where real teamwork blossoms. That is where real polarity is formed. I feel more in my feminine essence than I ever did before. More surrendered & less controlling- because I wholeheartedly trust him- but most importantly, myself. Two people moving toward each other from a much more secure and grounded place.

The breakup was not a failure. It was the most necessary thing that could have happened to us.

We needed to break up to stay together.

And if you're in a relationship right now where you're silencing yourself, abandoning yourself, making yourself smaller to keep the peace - that is not love. That is fear dressed up as love.

Real love requires all of you- your unfiltered truth, your rawness, your messiness, your vulnerability

Not the version of you that makes your partner comfortable