All you can do is pay attention to the lessons and remember them. Take deep breaths when you’re feeling out of control in a relationship. Try to figure out if you need reassurance from a partner, or if you’re better off getting it from yourself. A lot of this is about believing you’ll be OK no matter what happens. You have to know that you will.

To be clear, it doesn’t sound like this guy was a great partner for you. Or maybe the better way to say it is that you weren’t right for him. You were uncomfortable with his inner circle. That made it a bad match from the start.

Your instinct was to cling to him because he was a “great catch” – on paper. Well-read, nice family, etc. I have to wonder how you would have felt about him at 27. I’m just pointing out that getting something done by 30 seems to be a big deal to you.

I do remember how it felt to flirt with 30. I didn’t have any deadlines for myself, but I still felt like something was going to change for me when I hit that number. I feared that everyone would get married and have a kid, and that I would be left behind. Then I got to 31 and … it didn’t matter. The same people were around, but some of them were wiser and more confident. I was a better version of myself, too.

Maybe that’s something you can look forward to. Thirty isn’t the end of anything.

– Meredith

Readers? Self-esteem issue? Thirty issue? A bad match? All of the above? How do you move on from your own mistakes?