Woman Explains How Being The ‘Chill Cool Girl’ Ended Her Engagement 10 Days Before The Wedding
Sometimes you must put yourself first, even if it seems scary.
Yurii_Yarema | Shutterstock Since birth, women are conditioned to be easygoing, considerate, and empathetic to others, especially in relationships and marriage. Often, women are expected to cater to their husbands' needs, even if it means ignoring their own. Over time, however, this creates an unhealthy and unsustainable dynamic.
Content creator and former-bride-to-be Erika Olson recently came to this realization. In a TikTok, she explained how her "chill cool girl" mentality ended up hurting herself and her relationship.
Olsen explained how being the 'chill cool girl' ended her engagement 10 days before the wedding.
She said that throughout her entire relationship and subsequent engagement, she showed up as the "chill cool girl." Sadly, she confessed that she lost her own identity in the process.
“When you're the chill, cool girl and you let every unmet need just go away because you don't wanna be a lot, you wanna be chill, you wanna be easy going, over time, you lose your own identity,” Olsen said. “You forget what your needs are.”
"Your needs are your boundaries," she continued. "Your boundaries create your energy." When you don't uphold your boundaries, or even set them in the first place, other people are able to suck your energy away. "That's when you latch on to the stronger identity in the relationship,” Olsen went on to say. “In most cases, it's the man.”
She admitted that in her endeavor to be easy going, she stopped listening to her body and what she needed.
As a result, she couldn't tell her partner what she needed either. But, as Olsen pointed out, "Men are not mind readers. Women are not mind readers. Nobody's a [expletive] mind reader."
In a healthy, long-lasting relationship, you must be able to express your needs and desires. Being the "chill cool girl" prevented her from doing so. Then, when her partner couldn't fulfill her unspoken needs, resentment and frustration grew.
Olsen shared an example of what she meant. Imagine you are in the early stages of a relationship and feel that you need a little more from your partner. "Maybe you need them to text you back more. Maybe you need them to compliment you more," she said. "Maybe you bring it up and you have a fight about it, so then your nervous system gets dysregulated."
This puts you in fight or flight mode. But as Olsen pointed out, there's also a third option: fawn. As the "chill cool girl" who wanted to be easy going, she repeatedly fawned, letting any issues go. But over time, this created a lack of identity and a lack of boundaries.
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“Then anytime something comes up where you want to have a boundary, where you feel this unmet need, you feel shame, and you punish yourself,” she explained. “Because your nervous system has now learned that when we have an unmet need, we get dysregulated because we are worried about being too much” or starting a fight.
The right person will want to ensure that your needs are met in a relationship.
If you're in a healthy relationship and feel that your needs aren't being met, you should be able to communicate them with your partner. In turn, they should be willing to adjust their behavior to make sure your concerns don't fall on deaf ears. If bringing up an unmet need turns into a fight, that is a red flag
Whether you're 10 days away from getting married or you're a month into a new relationship, you shouldn't have to mess up your nervous system to make someone else feel comfortable. There are billions of people on this planet, and there is surely someone out there who can respect your boundaries and love you for you — not for your "chill girl" facade.
"For any relationship that you go into in the future, it's so fundamentally crucial that you learn how to address, accept, and love your needs because they are what make you you," Olson insisted. "What's really chill and cool is a girl who knows her boundaries, and a girl who stands up for herself, and a girl who isn't afraid to ask for what she needs."
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
