It is never easy to lose someone you love. Someone that you have let into your life, friends, and family. The cleanup seems daunting. And there’s no magic pill or advice that will make the process any easier or faster.
Even the ‘good’ breakups suck. Even if you have the most mature and respectful conversations to end the relationship, you will feel delayed emotional tides of anger, resentment, sadness, and frustrations so strong that you feel paralyzed. What now?
When your friends say “screw that, you can do better”
After listening to you talk about your ex for the 15th time that week, your friends might have a well-prepared response that goes something like this: “Good riddance! It’s a good thing that you know now rather than being stuck with him/her for years before finding out what a horrible match you guys were. Now you can move on and meet someone who actually deserves you.”
They are not wrong. But it doesn’t help either. If we can just wave our hands and say “Bye, Felicia” so easily, we wouldn’t be humans. Relationships are rarely so black and white. Maybe your ex was awful. Maybe you both were at fault. Or maybe you guys just had horrible timing. And frankly, it doesn’t matter if you and/or your friends believe your ex to be the reincarnated Satan. You have the right to miss your ex. It’s okay to reminisce.
If you can’t talk to your friends about it, then write it down in a journal or a draft email. You can be as honest as you want since nobody else will ever read it. It helps sometimes if you write a letter (that you won’t send) to your ex to say everything you wish you had said. You will likely go back and update that letter over a certain period of time as new feelings or realizations arise but breakthroughs do not come if you stay silent.
Do trust your anger highs
Anger is a lot easier to deal with than sadness. So often we intentionally start thinking of all the annoying habits and screwed up things the other person had done and get angry. Rage temporarily washes blocks out the sadness.
But sometimes the anger high is so strong that you accidentally convince yourself that you are over it. You might feel as though the anger gave you the shock you needed to jolt you back into reality.
It will not last. And the more you rely on your anger high to keep you going, the harder you will crash when that starts to fade away. Post-breakups are all about the ebb and flow of extreme emotions. If you are feeling white hot rage remembering something he/she had done, you are not getting closure – your mind is detoxing you of all of the emotions that need to be expressed and confronted.
When you feel like it’s not over
More often than not, relationships don’t feel over immediately after the breakup. There’s always a grace period afterward where you keep in touch, flirt, maybe grab dinner and backslide into a relationship only to end things shortly after.
But there are also relationships which ended with devastating, explosive breakups but still feel unfinished. No matter what you do or who you date, you think about that person every day. Because this one was and still is different.
I have gotten back together with someone after one and a half
excruciating years of trying to get over the relationship. Did the relationship last? No. Do I now believe that I should’ve just moved on after the first breakup? Absolutely not.
Here’s the thing. If YOU feel like it’s not over, you will never be over it. Your brain can scream at you for weeks and months to please stop pining after someone who has hurt you so much but if your heart can’t, then your heart wins. So don’t fight a battle you can’t win.
Maybe you guys will reconcile in the future and end up happily ever after. But even if you don’t, finishing that relationship, whatever that means to you, is the journey you are meant to take. To people who say that a relationship you are meant to be in is an easy one, I call bs. There is no possible way they can know that. For some of us unlucky people, we have to take the more difficult, windy roads to get to where we need to go.
But that doesn’t mean you should just sit there and wait
Now the hard part. You’re not over the relationship, you believe you guys will or really want to get back together…but you can’, at least right now. So what do you do now?
Getting over a breakup doesn’t necessarily mean moving on. It means you get your life together to a point where you feel like yourself again. You have goals and desires outside the relationship that give you a sense of purpose.
Initially after a breakup, thinking about your long-term future is never a good idea. Because it goes something like this… “What if I have to live the rest of my life without him/her?” -> “I don’t want to date anyone else so does that mean I’ll just be alone forever?” -> “What’s the point of everything?” Yes, our minds will have a seizure trying to envision a future your heart clearly wants to reject.
However, you sitting around sulking will not bring him/her back. If you stay in the exact same place as before without growing or maturing, do you think the relationship will last even if you guys get back together? Maybe this ‘temporary break’ will give you both a chance to become the best versions of yourself that could have a harmonious, symbiotic relationship down the road.
So focus on small victories. Each day, have one small goal you can accomplish. Going to a salsa class. Writing in your journal. Reading a book for 20 minutes. Ideally, you have a productivity planner (here is the one I use) so you can mark it complete at the end of the day. If you feel your mind wandering to the distant future, you bring it right back and plan out what you’ll do after work, tomorrow or this weekend.
Moving forward doesn’t mean letting go of the person or your feelings. It means you are walking towards the future you want to envision so you can act on it when the timing is right.
