Breaking Up is Hard to Do
The “it’s not working” conversation just happened. Perhaps the conversation was one you initiated and your first feeling is relief. Maybe the breakup has left you totally devastated and barely able to function. No matter what the circumstances leading to the end of your relationship may be, you know it is an end and thus a loss.
The good news is that this pivotal life event signals a vast potential for growth and openness to a new form of love. While it may sometimes feel like you will never again be a whole, functioning human being, the opposite is true. The first 30 days after a breakup are a crucial period not just for your recovery, but also in your ability to truly learn and evolve. “In the early stages, emotions are on the surface. You should take advantage of this rawness to grow,” says Patricia Covalt, Ph.D., author of What Smart Couples Know.
There are varying degrees of a breakup. Clearly the dissolution of an intense three-month romance does not shake up your entire life as thoroughly as the end of a five-year courtship, especially when children are involved. However, Marni Kamins, author of The Breakup Repair Kit: How to Heal Your Broken Heart, cautions, “The level of sadness and disappointment can be the same in both cases. It depends on the person. For example, if this short relationship was the first one in years that you felt excited about, the aftermath can be devastating. Your faith in love can be shaken.”
Embrace the Emotion
The first step of healing is vital. It’s OK to mourn the loss. If you attempt to run from the initial rush of raw emotion and pretend you’re fine, you are slowing your recovery. Ignoring these emotions would be like shoving things in a closet moments before company is due to arrive at your home. While your belongings are out of sight, the mess still lurks in the dark waiting to spill out as soon as the door opens. It’s the same with your pain. If not dealt with in a proper manner, your emotions could spill out at any time.
“Heartbreak is wonderful and terrible, and we should embrace it as much as we do the optimism and giddiness that comes before it,” says Erik E., whose relationship of three years recently ended. “As awful as I felt, I had this spark of hope because I could recognize potential and beauty and let myself believe in long lasting love.”
Feelings during these first 30 days may run the gamut from relief to anger to wistfulness. This seeming roller coaster of emotion can frustrate those who don’t know how to react to the news that a relationship is over. Barbara J. Rubin, Psy.D., an Atlanta-based psychologist who works with individuals and couples on relationship issues, says, “Immediately after the breakup there is often a feeling of disequilibrium, a lack of safety. You don’t feel in control.”
I guess for me, I had never been one to be in long relationships or let someone get close to me,So when i met her in January, i felt like i had met the one that i could be with forever, 5 great months,and then all fell apart,found out she wasnt really who i thought she was,she had many secrets..and well in the end..ends up i was just needed for a certain amount of time to get her to time in her life that she knew was coming when she met me..so for me to finally open up and lay my heart on the line, and to have it crushed like this..i did thing i would never get over it,i still struggle with it, i feel as if it will be awhile before i can even open myself up to even date someone again.
I think it does get easier everyday now, its more the pain of knowing i was giving her my all,and she was giving me what i wanted to hear and feel. All this from a person i would of given anything too.
My situation is pretty uniqe and that's why I can't seem to get over the pain and loss. In 1993 I met a woman who helped me out of a bad relationship. I am straight. She didn't quite know whether she was bi-sexual or straight. But she say she loved me very much and wanted a sexual relationship.. I didn't wanrt go there and said so. Believe it or not we lived together for 15 years, loving each other but celibate. I did date and have opportunities with men but dismissed them because I didn't want to leve her or to hurt her. This christmas, she told me she was done. she also said she was in love with a woman she'd met over the phone but had never met in person. She said she wanted a full love life and no longer loved me in any way but as a friend. She said she'd felt this way for ten yrs. but didn't have the courage to tell me. To make things worse, she controlled our finances. She worked in a field of high risk and when the bottom fell out of our economy her field literally dried up overnight. She made some very bad investments and lost everything we had. She literally forced me from our home because she was going through a huge transition and did not want me to witness that. Actually, she had some kind of break when the woman she fell for played her, filled her head with promises of enormous wealth and position through the position she offered in her company, then dropped her. Now, I am in my 60's and we have nothing. She is struggling to make some kind of money and promises she will make up for the pain and losses she's incurred. She said she can't be my friend now, but she may be some time in the future when she gets it together, She is 59 yrs old. I only wish I'd had some clue as to her real feelings so I could have planned my life better. But we always told each other we'd be with each other always. Foolishly, I believed her. I've had to move in with my daughter and I really do not want to be so dependent on anyone. I miss her terribly yet am very angry at the same time. I feel devastated by her loss, and the loss of all I worked for. Moreover, I am embarrassed and ashamed to be in this position. I live on $1,000. Soc. Sec. per month and cannot think what I can do to earn more money. Also, I feel so depressed and emotionally deflated that it is an effort just to walk my dog each day. Any advice for me will be much appreciated.
You may have just saved my sanity more than any therapist. I have had two people this week, who care about me, try to tell me how foolish I have been for having strong feelings related to the end of a relationship that they don't understand. It damaged an already painful situation for me to have others challenge the wisdom of what my heart is feeling. Having the information in your column has comforted me immensely and allows me to move forward with the grieving process and the overall view of the experience. Thank you!
esalvador61, sounds like you wrote exactly what i have been going through. For a minute their i thought it was me. I dont know about you but in my situation what makes it even harder is that i have two children 16 year old boy and 13 year old daughter. After my divorce two years later is when i met this man and my children loved him sprecially my son. As much as i still love him today i know that the realtionship was not going the way it should for two people that loved so deepy. Bust of course according to him it was all my fault. The harder i tried the worse it got. Then finially i said to my self i am in a relationship like i was with my mother, always trying to make her proud of me, but until today it is impossible. Cant please people who are not pleased with themselves. He comes from an alcholic family and cant even addmit to that . That is when di should have seen the red flag. But love is blind sometimes. The hurtful thing about it all is the way he cried and begged telling people i am the one he is going to marry. Two times we were to move in with him and he left me. He broke up with me i cant even count how many times. I learned it was all his own fears. But he also had a anger problem for every time he left me he woulde do something really really mean to me. I am a single mom with not very much income, him on the other hand was very very well taken care of. But very tight also. My father who was my life my back bone passed last year. the night that he was burried my boyfriend left me and served me with papers to get all my belongings out of 1 of his 3 car garages. But that is not even the best part i had to have a serious operation done that couldnt be cancelled and he knew about this and still had me served. It was not like he needed the gargre for any particural reason. But i could go on and on with stories. And God as my judgement with all of the hurtful things that he has done i never once retaliated against him. I felt he was really dealing with some underlying issue and would someday get help. With the change that i have made with myself over the years i have learned treu love dont walk away. You are their trhough thick and thin sickness and health. But one heart can only take so much hurt and i didnt want to continue putting my children through an on and off relationship. So at of all the time he left me i dont think he ever expected it but i had to end it. That is my story but their is not a day that goes by that i dont think about him or still really miss him. I have some so close to picking up that phone so many times. but i thought that if he loved me or missed me wouldnt he try to contact me. Mjy saying is if it is meant to be it will be.
i just broke up with my boyfriend of 5 years. this is our second break up and i initiated both. i have terrible feelings of guilt for leaving him because he was struggling with childhood issues of abandonment and loss. we could never move on and talk about the future. we couldn't open up and communicate about a future together. he was very ambivalent about moving in together or marriage. i couldn't wait any longer and decided to end it for good. i'm grieving terribly and feel lost. sometimes i think of calling him but remind myself of why i had to end the relationship. i'm trying to cope as best i can with reading, going to work, exercise. it's so hard and sometimes i think will this feeling every go away.