Last night, Love Island’s Jourdan Riane and Danny Williams addressed their break-up in two separate statements. Williams denied reports he had been unfaithful, Riane stated she will not tolerate ‘lack of respect, disloyalty and dishonesty’. But the most interesting part? Riane’s expectation of the dreaded ‘I told you so!’ from her followers.
‘I know people will come with the “I told you so”, “you should’ve listened” (maybe it’s true) & more than likely snigger/laugh at my situation,’ she wrote on Instagram. ‘The reality is my mum raised me to be a strong woman and always give the benefit of the doubt and let people prove themselves to you.’
It’s a sad anticipation, but it’s no doubt true. Because, ‘I told you so’ can often be peoples first port of call when someone breaks up with someone who has a history of treating women badly. As outsiders, we look on a relationship with objective eyes, logically viewing previous behaviour as an indication of future treatment. The people in the relationship though? They’re clouded by love and lust.
Many of us have been guilty of it, of believing that if someone truly loves you or if you fulfil someone else’s needs just enough, they will change. That you are different. It’s a cliché, but there’s a reason so many love stories have taught us the lesson that ‘you can’t change a man’, because so many have believed they could. And really, when you like someone, it’s hard not to believe that you could be the exception.
It’s with this in mind that ‘I told you so’ becomes a particularly nasty response to a break-up. While the person may mean ‘I told you he’s a dick’, to the raw, hurting person fresh out of a break-up all it really says is ‘I told you you weren’t different’.
Logically, we know that when men treat a woman badly, it’s nothing to do with her (they just desperately need therapy). But love and logic do not work together. That’s why the alternative response should be to instil such logic, to explain to said heartbroken person that it’s not their fault, rather than attack them for a choice that 1. Is nothing to do with anyone else but 2. Says more about the friend ‘telling so’ than the person being ‘told’.
What value does ‘I told you so’ ever bring to a conversation about heartbreak?
Because, what value does ‘I told you so’ ever bring to a conversation about heartbreak? All it does is justify the persons need to be right or spot a fuckboy. And if that’s someone’s instinctive response when another is in pain, it’s clearly an insecurity on their part if they need to feel more knowledgeable by mocking someone else’s choices.
Ultimately, all we can do when a person expresses heartbreak or pain is be supportive, to take our own desires to be right out of the situation and let them heal in peace. Heartbreak is hard enough with random dickheads online screaming ‘YOU SHOULD’VE LISTENED’.
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