Perrie Edwards recently reached out to her former lover with a heartfelt message. The Little Mix sensation revealed that although her romance with Zayn Malik, spanning from 2011 to 2015, marked her "first love," their time together inadvertently skewed her perspective on relationships in a way that left her feeling less than ideal post-split.
"Encountering someone at a similar juncture in our respective careers was a breath of fresh air," she reminisced on the August 19th episode of the 'We Need to Talk' podcast. "'Cause it's like, 'Oh, you understand. We sort of resonate with each other. We're both going through this similar experience.' It just clicked, and everything seemed effortless in the beginning."
Yet, as Perrie elaborated, "As time progressed, it undeniably grew more challenging." Reflecting on her first love, she shared, "At the time, I deemed everything we experienced as normal because it was my maiden relationship, my first love. I thought, 'Oh, this is what love is supposed to feel like. It's supposed to have a hint of toxicity. This must be normal, right?'"
Continuing, she poured her heart out, "When I became single afterward, I vowed never to revisit such emotions. I didn't even want to meet anyone else." Stressing the gravity of heartbreak, she added, "I distinctly remember thinking, 'I'm done with men for good.'"
Indeed, when Perrie crossed paths with her now-fiancé, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, in 2016, her jaded outlook on love initially tested their burgeoning romance. "At the outset, I had numerous unresolved issues in our relationship that I perhaps overlooked at the time," she confessed. "Looking back, I realize, 'Oh, that wasn't healthy. It wasn't right.' I've become acutely aware of this," she explained further. "Early on in our relationship, I handled situations with Alex differently, and his calm demeanor often threw me off balance."
Now, happily ensconced in a fulfilling relationship with Alex, and a doting mother to their three-year-old son Axel, Perrie can retrospectively view her time with Zayn as a valuable life lesson. "It undoubtedly molded me," she emphasized. "I gleaned a lot from that relationship."
