The Romance of Choosing Yourself

Renee Bell is a fantasy author living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Her first full-length novel, The Name She Is Given, is scheduled for publication in January 2028.

When she's not writing, she's probably reading, taking pictures, halfway through a sewing project, or trying out a new recipe. She works in marketing by day, has three teenagers and a cat named Princess Zelda who runs the house, and there's usually a trip coming up on the calendar.

You can find out more about her and her work at welcometovireth.com.

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The Romance of Choosing Yourself

My marriage ended in 2023, and however cliché it sounds, it flipped my world on its axis. It wasn’t that the marriage was ending - we’d been glorified roommates for the last few years. Yet, we’d been married 17 years and had three beautiful children, and I knew nothing different than the life I was living.

My best friend at the time was incredibly supportive. Without him, I’m not sure I would have made it through. He was going through something similar as his marriage ended, and as often happens in these situations, we ended up finding solace in each other’s arms.

I fell in love with this man who had the clearest blue eyes and a British accent, who watched Doctor Who with me and gave me his credit card when I was traveling across the world by myself “just in case.” Unfortunately, he did not feel the same. Yes, he told me that he loved me - only sometimes, whispered into my ear in our closest moments, and never outside of the bedroom. But I stayed, hoping that if I was steady enough, calm enough, supportive enough, giving enough… that eventually he’d say it simply because he did.

He was never going to choose me, though. It didn’t matter that we’d talked about the dynamic of raising our kids together (my three and his three), or that when he was looking at buying a new property he took me with him to make sure I liked it.

It feels strange to say, but now that I have more perspective, I don’t think he ever saw me as his endgame. More than 6 months into our… situationship… he still didn’t want to make it public. He said that his kids wouldn’t understand (I was just Auntie to them). But in truth, he just didn’t want to make it public, because that would have made it real.

It didn’t matter that his kids loved me fiercely, that I had tea with his mom, or that I was devoted to him beyond measure. He pulled me into his orbit when he needed me, and gave me just enough so I would stay floating around the edge.

I had a moment of clarity about nine months in. I told him that I couldn’t keep being his secret, and if he wasn’t willing to make things public between us, I was going to end the romantic relationship. He wasn’t willing to, so I did. But we’d been friends for almost 10 years at this point, and that’s hard to walk away from. While we were no longer spending nights together, me sneaking in after the kids were asleep, we still talked all the time, and I still told him everything. He listened, supportive on the surface, and when we’d hang out he’d hug me like he couldn’t get enough.

And then, he just… stopped. His responses to my text messages became shorter. We started to go days without talking. We’d only been “not together” about two months, and he was pulling away.

I was standing on his porch with a three-pack of hot sauce in my hand when the devastation hit.

Two days earlier, I'd been in Seaside, Oregon, with my daughter for her dance competition, and wandered into a shop that sold obscene amounts of hot sauce, tables full of it, some bottles carrying an actual warning label. He was obsessed with finding the hottest sauce on the planet; every fair, every roadside stand, he came home with something new for the collection. So I bought him a variety pack, because he was still my best friend and I loved him fiercely, even after everything.

I texted him from the car to say I was in the neighborhood and had a surprise for him. When I got there, he opened the door and hugged me like always, his hand gently caressing my back as we embraced, thumb moving up and down on my spine. His lips were next to my ear and he held me a beat too long, breathing in my scent before pulling away.

Then he told me. In the two months that we’d not been a thing, he’d gone on dating apps, met someone… and now moved her into his house.

Obviously, he had no obligation to me at that point, we were “broken up” for lack of a better term. But there’s a special kind of confusion when you try to reconcile this development with the fact that he hadn’t felt comfortable making things public with me because his kids would be confused in the aftermath of his (very messy) divorce.

Ouch.

It’s been three years since that moment on the porch, and the only explanation he gave me was, “Now really isn’t a good time, she knows about you and doesn’t want you here. I’ll call you later.” 

Spoiler: he never called. He never again answered a call or a text. He blocked me on social media at her request (his mom told me this when she took me out for tea without telling him), although he never blocked my phone number. To this day, my texts still go through. That was an unfortunate discovery of a few weeks ago when I tried to text a colleague with the same first name. 

When it was obvious that he was well and truly gone from my life, I cried for weeks. Months. 10 years of close friendship and a 9 month hot-burn situationship, and then nothing. It was as if I never existed in his life beyond what I could provide for him.

It took me a long time to heal (spoiler, I’m not there yet). A lot of therapy, even more wine, a best friend who knows the whole story, and several romantic interludes where I discovered I’m now a little bit of an avoidant. I think that’s an improvement on anxious attachment, but I’m not 100% sure.

I finally knew I was truly healing this past January. I started doing things that I’d always wanted to do, without him by my side. I started choosing myself. 

I started writing my book this past January - the one you're hopefully going to read in Fall 2027, since it's been picked up by two publishers and being considered for a screen deal (which is a sentence I still don't fully believe when I type it). I ordered Ozempic, because stress and comfort eating has been running my life for three years and I am ready to stop letting my body carry the marks of losing him. I bought a starter kit for WeaponUp: yoga, but with a sword, which is exactly as ridiculous and fun as it sounds. And just recently, half-convinced I'd talk myself out of it, I booked a flight to London.

We were supposed to go together. I remember the trip we'd half-planned - trains to Paris, a specific pub near his old flat he wanted to show me. None of that is happening now. But I hit confirm anyway, because going without him is still going.

I’m choosing to keep healing. I’m choosing to write the books, go on the trips, work on my health, and love who I am without him by my side. Because really, he was never really by my side to begin with. That was harder to see three years ago, and it took me years to get to the point where I am starting to see that I can romanticize my own life without having him (or anyone else) by my side.

He still pops into my head when I see a random bottle of hot sauce or a British flag, and he’s the one I am speaking to when I scream the lyrics to “Cry Wolf” by Alex Warren. I am still not fully healed from the wound he left. But the beauty here lies in choosing something for myself every day by doing the things without him that I always thought I would do with him by my side. And even more so, choosing to do the things I wouldn’t have done if we’d still been together.

So thank you, Pete, for not choosing me. Because you inadvertently taught me to find the romance and whimsy in choosing myself.