On last night’s episode of Bachelor in Paradise, Florence threw a full glass of champagne at Jake while yelling at him in his bungalow.
She’d just discovered Jake had kissed Megan, a recent addition to the island, despite him explicitly telling her otherwise.
“I have a temper,” Florence remarked, in between calling Jake a sociopathic narcissist and the most cold-hearted person she’s ever met.
For most of last night’s episode, Florence was pictured lying by a beautiful beach, moaning about a man who was very busy establishing a relationship with another woman.
I couldn’t help but think, not just last night – but from the moment she entered; Florence, this man does not make you the best version of yourself.
And is there anything worse?
Listen to the latest episode of Bach Chat with Michelle Andrews and Zara McDonald. Post continues below.
What we knew to be a funny, irreverent, smart, self-assured woman, became, in the presence of Jake, an insecure and angry one. And rightly so.
Jake broke promises, was charming the second she’d decided to let him go, and was telling other people their relationship was over, while very much pursuing it in private.
It reminds me of the instinctual response women have to boyfriends telling them: “all my exes were crazy.”
You don’t laugh. You don’t offer a sympathetic frown. You pause and think to yourself, “What did you do to make them crazy?”
There are some relationships, even if you feel painfully passionate about them, that will never bring out the best in you.
I’ve been the woman in a relationship with a partner who, as I once put it, “turned me into” someone I never wanted to be. Deceit, gaslighting, and mixed signals made me behave like a disagreeable, jealous and paranoid girlfriend that I knew deep down I wasn’t.
And that’s the biggest warning sign of all.
The quickest way to determine if someone is right for you is to ask yourself this question: Do I like who I am when I’m around them?
If the answer is no, then you’ve already lost the most important person in that relationship. And that’s you.
