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They say the only inevitable thing in life, is death…. and taxes.

But what about “hurt”? Happiness is relative, and don’t we need the sadness and hurt to put that in perspective? I don’t know… I guess after mentally pacing back and forth as to what to do in my own life recently, hurt became an inevitability.

Where do you draw the line between hurting yourself and hurting someone else? You can exist in a relationship without physical intimacy, and choose to stay, sacrificing your own happiness- or you can leave and “hurt” the other person.

But at what point are you hurting them?

Is it better to go through the every day motions and limit that persons freedoms and options out of sheer obligation to prevent hurt? Wouldn’t they be better off alone with a whole new world open to them?

This is the dilemma I faced.

A man who loved me, my best friend, who has supported me throughout the most difficult times in my life- do I stay with him because he was so good to me, even if the relationship had lost its intimacy? Or do I let him go, knowing that he will do great things once the sensation of hurt passes?

So I hurt him.

I hurt him because the short term hurt was better the long term sacrifice he was making staying with someone who didn’t feel the same romantic intensity as him. That wasn’t fair on him, and wasn’t fair on me either. If your emotional or physical needs aren’t being met, it’s a sure-fire way of those feelings spiralling in the direction of resentment.

Maybe if the roles had been reversed he would have stayed with me because I was vulnerable and needed him. Maybe he’d invested so much time into me, walking away seemed like giving a giant F U to all those hours he’d spent picking me up off the bathroom floor.

But would I have wanted to have been pitied that way? Yes, I had gone through intense physical and mental trauma that he had helped me get through, but staying with me because it might add to the trauma undermines my healing.

I loved him enough to hurt him. I walked away so that both of us could be happy and while it might be killing him in the short-term, he will be happy one day and now I’ve given him that option.

Life is too short to hold onto things out of fear of hurt. Hurt is inevitable.

So are taxes.