 | Breaking up. Getting through the pain. Ok so I got a email off a friend (not naming names) but the questions were about break ups. The email: How do you begin the healing process? How do you stop talking to someone that for everday for nearly 2 years you talked and said a "I love you" & "kisses" a million times a day? How do you just stop loving someone? Why does some love have to end? Do soul mates end up together? Can you love 2 women at the same time, or love one and still be with another? I hate talking about breakups, it's so depressing. But, unfortunately, it's a fact of life and equally unfortunately, I have what I would call "too much experience in that area." I have been through many break ups in my life time and many for the same reasons. My heart goes out to people that feel like the one that sent the above email. The backstory that I didn't paste in is that the other person ended up going back to their ex. How sad to have spent so much time with someone, and not only have the relationship end, but to be rejected in favor of someone else, someone that it didn't work with the first time around. I think the hardest part about a breakup is the unanswered questions, like the ones above. Why do relationships end? Why do people go back to exes? Why does it seem like when a breakup happens, that everything that went before means absolutely nothing? Are there such things as soulmates? When it comes to relationships, they end for a variety of reasons. It's almost impossible to list them all out, but if a relationship survey was taken, the biggest reasons listed for breaking up would be either incompatibility or infidelity. I think to that we can add: lack of trust, poor communication, and differing value systems. Bearing that in mind, how many relationships end because of poor preparation? By this I mean, not selecting the right partner to begin with, failing to match up your values with theirs, getting involved with someone who's involved or not over someone else. I don't mean poor planning in a negative way - we all know how awesome that feeling is when we first meet someone, you're walking on a cloud, everything and everyone around you is beautiful, and it's easy to ignore the little things that should be red flags but in your love-induced haze, are mere speed bumps. Or worse - they are "but I can change that" things. Understanding why relationships end, unfortunately, does not particularly help when you're sitting on the bathroom floor, drunk as a skunk, and crying your eyes out over a breakup. It doesn't help to know that relationships end all the time, when the someone you love is staring you in the face and telling you that it's over. It doesn't help to know all that stuff when you see him or her out with someone else, making it work where you failed. Breakups are hard. In fact, they suck ass, really. No two ways about it. Someone almost inevitably gets hurt, and sometimes hurt really, really bad. Recovering from that kind of hurt takes a long time, longer than people sometimes think. Getting over relationships is so hard that there are a ton of sayings about it: "Time heals all wounds", "When one door closes, another door opens", "There are other fish in the sea", "Get over someone by getting under someone else", etc. Ultimately, though, breakups are a challenge but also an opportunity to examine why the relationship ended and how YOU contributed to it's demise, and hopefully learn from those mistakes and do it better next time. I need to lay out some rules here, that I think can help you if you are in the woes of a dramatically heartbreaking breakup, whether it was a two-month fling or a two-year commitment. - Keep your distance. When one party is hurt in a breakup, it is never, never, never a good idea to keep communicating with the other person after a relationship has ended. There are two reasons for this. One, it makes it all too easy to slide back into relationship patterns - sleeping together, fighting, jealousy, etc. I'm not saying you will never be able to be friends with this person, but when it comes to heartbreak, you have to flush out the wound in order for it to heal. The second reason is because you can't get over someone when they are in your face all the time. Number one reason I don't recommend having flings at work. When you've been hurt, the worst thing to do is keep going after that person or keep putting yourself in positions where you will see them or run into them. That is totally idiotic behavior, maybe even obsessive. So rule number one: Cut the cord. Maintain your distance, and don't go chasing after them.
- If it was not your choice to end the relationship, it's usually a good idea to spend time alone. Seriously. That one about "get over someone by getting under someone else" is crap. It's rebounding. It's applying a bandaid to a stab wound. It's also getting someone else involved in a potentially destructive situation just to make yourself feel better. When we've been broken up with, it seems like the thing we want the most is the affirmation that we are good people, that we are desirable, that there are people out there that want us. That is the major cause of getting into a rebound relationship. It's not a good idea, because it prevents you from taking the time to grieve and get over someone. it is also important to vent to your friends. Just set a time limit on how long you will engage in these kinds of things, because eventually you'll need to stop crying, stop venting, pick up your socks and throw away those hurt emotions which are eating at you. Indulging in emotional release is good; wallowing in it is bad. So rule two: take some time out. Allow time to heal, but set a time limit on how long you will indulge your grief. Make it reasonable.
- Look at what happened and why. Be really honest with yourself. Don't take all the blame for a relationship ending, but at the same time, don't blame it all on someone else. It's true that if they cheated, you may have ended the relationship out of hurt or being unable to stay with someone who cheated. But even in cases like that, you still own choices that led to you being in the situation of having to break up with someone because they cheated on you. Very, very rarely does a cheater not leave signals and signs that they are the type of person who would do this. If you ignore those signs, well, you own some accountability for finding yourself in the position you're in (because lets face it we all pick some bad people to have a relationship with). This is hard, really hard, because a lot of times we slide into "victim" mode, where we either assume ALL the blame for a relationship ending, which is just stupid, or we blame it all on someone else. Neither one of these attitudes is healthy at all. When you step back, take a deep breath, acknowledge honestly and without the blame of what or where you fucked up, and where they fucked up, then decide what you will do to fix your behavior so that doesn't happen with the next person, that will immediately start you on the road to healing. Why? Because you're acknowledging your role, owning up to it, and deciding what you will do to fix it. You're taking control of your reactions and of the situation, instead of playing the victim. So: rule three: Own your choices and take accountability, but don't blame yourself or the other person entirely.
- If the love of your life left you for someone else, as in the situation above (this is going to hurt, but it's for the best) he/she has decided to cash in their chips with you. I don't beleive that it is possible to truly, seriously love two people at the same time. I don't mean that it can't work; I mean that if you love someone, but choose to be with someone else, you are hurting the one you love. Deliberately. Deliberately and cruelly. So what does that say to me? It says they don't love you as much as they love the other person. Or, they're getting something from the other person that you're not giving them. What is it? That's what you need to discover. Understand, realize, and accept that not ONLY do you deserve someone so into you that they won't even think about someone else, but that by hurting you in such a way that they could have prevented it, they are showing no regard for your feelings, no respect for you as a person (let alone a lover) and you should not waste any further time and effort in pining after this person. They are not pining after you, are they? Or else they'd be with you. So rule four: Even when it hurts, face the facts. Look at what is and not what you wish it would be. Accepting reality is going to make the healing process a hell of a lot quicker.
Remember that relationships end for a reason. Usually not necessary the reasons that are most readily apparent. Accept the pain that comes with the breakup, because it means that you are capable of love, capable of being hurt, and able to be vulnerable enough to be in a relationship. And that's only a good thing. Even if it doesn't seem like it at the time.
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