One of the things that is a primary destructive driver behind relationships is the F word, fear. In the Thirty Days of Drama Reduction series, it became apparent to many readers that their key motivations in their relationships was fear. That’s internal and external fear, which is why it is important when you want to heal and move on after breaking up that you remember commandment 3:
Thou shalt stop fearing the pain of breaking up and confront it!
Unfortunately all of that effort you put in to clinging to the past and avoiding confronting what is happening, actually results in more pain, the very thing you actually fear.
Your trade off is that at least you’re not fully feeling the pain now. In your mind, the pain of confronting the reality is this almighty thing that we just don’t think we can cope with.
When we want to stay friends with our ex, it is fear of letting go, even though he has often behaved like an assclown and isn’t exactly friendship material.
When we obsess about our exes, it is also fear of letting go, and you switch from being in a dysfunctional relationship with them, to living in your own little destructive fantasy world.
Every time I get an email from a reader asking for advice on coping, what becomes patently clear is that despite appearances from the outside, such as breaking it off with him, starting the No Contact Rule, and seemingly getting on with their lives, their thoughts are consumed with wondering about the what if’s.
We’re back to that feeling of hopelessness – deciding that we can’t cope and don’t want to cope, before we’ve actually given it a try. We’re back down Avoidance Avenue again, much like when we’re in a relationship with for eg, a Mr Unavailable and refusing to see the truth.
The truth is, breaking up hurts. There is no way to avoid it, short of being turned to stone. No matter what you do, it’s going to hurt sometime, but if you can learn to feel the pain of the break up, instead of putting it off, and then feeling devastated when you realise that he’s not coming back or changing, you will start to heal.
You’ll hurt, but with the pain eventually comes calm and the opportunity to grow and move on.
Let go.
Letting go of him doesn’t mean that you have eradicated them from your memory forever more – it means accepting that the break up has happened.
You can’t go on pretending that any minute now he’s going to pick up the phone and declare his undying love.
You can’t go on pretending that it doesn’t matter about the fact that he never did leave that wife/girlfriend of his or become the boyfriend you wanted.
You can’t go on pretending that his behaviour is acceptable.
You can’t go on pretending that your own actions are acceptable.
What if he never picks up the phone?
What are you going to do when he’s still with ‘her’ or is cheating with someone else? Or even worse, what are you going to do, if he meets someone else?
What are you going to do when you realise that you’re clinging to a relationship that you don’t actually want, with a man who has hurt you/broken promises/lowered your self-esteem?
What are you going to do when you suddenly realise that unless you deal with what’s really going on underneath, you’re ripe for moving from one dodgy relationship to another?
In accepting that it has happened, you will finally have the opportunity to grieve. You might cry, scream, wail, and rip up all of the photos only to sheepishly stick them back together later, but with acceptance comes reality.
Reality brings about the pain but eventually you get to closure because after the anger and the hurt fade, you will learn to be a bit more objective about things.
The key to coping with and eventually moving on from the break up is that in accepting that the break up has happened, you can get to understand why it did, what his part was, and what your part was, and learn from the experience.
You cannot move to new relationships with old baggage weighing you down. It is damaging and unfair to the new partner, but if you have unresolved issues about your ex that are impacting on you quite severely, the only type of guy that tends to be interested, is one who is lined up to give you even more pain.
The most awful thing about fearing the pain of breaking up and living in limbo as you try to avoid it and cling to fantasies and imagined scenarios, is that whilst you’re in limbo, he is living his life.
Now if that isn’t a reality check, I don’t know what is, but if you count up the man hours you’ve been spending avoiding accepting the break up and obsessing about him, it is a lot.
Now ask yourself, do you truly believe that he has given you or the break up as much thought?
Whilst we’re having a weep wondering why we’re not in the relationship we imagined with him, he’s working, hanging with the boys, chasing skirt, or wondering if he called you up on the pretext of seeing how you are, whether you guys could end up in bed and whether you’d expect more?
What are we so scared of? That it’ll hurt? It’s already hurting! All the obsessing and refusing to let go has given you a shot of Novocaine to numb the pain of the reality.
We’re scared of him suddenly realising that we’re The One and us not being around to welcome him back with open arms.
We’re afraid of being ‘alone’ even though we’re often alone with them.
We’re afraid of finally accepting that the man and the relationship that we have been making excuses for, is no more.
It’s over. The end.
Feel the pain, grieve, be angry, be upset for a while, obsess a little even, but after a while, it’s time to hang up the proverbial grieving gear and get on with life.
Check out Commandment 1: Thou shalt cut off this ‘Let’s be friends’ mallarky
Check out Commandment 2: Thou shalt not obsess
Check out Commandment 3: Thou shalt stop fearing the pain of breaking up and confront it.
Check out Commandment 4: Thou shalt stop doubting yourself and get angry.
Check out Commandment 5: Thou shalt be accountable
Check out Commandment 6: Thou shalt understand WHY and do something with the knowledge
Check out Commandment 7: Thou shalt forgive…but not forget…but don’t cling.
Check out Commandment 8: Thou need to get a life!
Check out Commandment 9: Thou mustn’t give up on love.
Check out Commandment 10: Thou must close the door and move forward
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definitely another good post! damn i wish you could scream all of these things to me so that it could sink in without any further delay.
i will say, though, that i’ve recognized things for what they really are and am moving in the direction of acceptance and growth. i swear i am.
i’ll “see” u 2morrow for another inspiring post that will hopefully post all this mess behind me once and for all. until then…..
“whilst you’re in limbo, he is living his life.” Amen! And while he’s doing whatever he’s doing, he’s not giving you one single, solitary moment’s thought…not one!
As for that being afraid to be alone even though we’re often alone with them, can I just get another amen!!! One assclown I was with for a year had me playing this sick little game with myself. I’d actually have running dialogs in my head. “But if I leave him, I’ll be alone.” “You’re alone now dumbass.” WTF? What was I thinking? Oh yes, I wasn’t…not clearly anyway!
Oh and unknowndiva, i’ll yell at ya daily if ya want. It would probably be good for both of us. A reminder for me at the same time I’m giving you a reminder. 😉
I was actually told: ‘I’m not really thinking about you and me at this precise moment’.
The more I repeat that back to myself, the more I realise that limbo is of my own making, not his. I’ll let him go and live his life, and I plan on enjoying every moment of mine, and opportunities that come along. Whether implicit or explicit, the above message rings out loud and clear. Heed it, accept it, and live your life!
I actually stumbled on this website because tonight everything has told me that i need to face my issues or i will lose myself. At 20 i was engaged to this really nice guy, suddenly i realised i needed to live a little because i had previously led a very sheltered life. I met my ex, who it seems i had plenty in common with. It so happened that i met him one month before he got married. I didn’t get to know until later that he got married. I stupidly continued the relationship because i figured i was just having fun. Fun turned into 8 years of being together of his and my family shunning both of us, but him still staying married to his wife but practically living at my house. He suggested we start a family and he left his wife and i got pregnant. Everything was ok until talk of divorcing his wife came up- he said he was doing it and just wasn’t. One day i came home and he was gone – back to his wife not one word to me. One month later he came back and said he had gone to counselling and relaised it was me he really loved. After 3 months of living together again, i got pregnant again and he became distant and said he wasn;t ready for this child. After a particularly bad argument i told him to leave and he did, just turned around and went back to his wife. Although he maintains the children financially, he makes no contact with them and for the past 2 years he has been the ideal husband to his wife and his kids with her, he absolutely shuns our children together though. The thing is, during the preganancy i chose to block out the entire situation because i din’t want to have a baby born with any depression, after that i had to be strong for the 2 babies i had to be caring for alone. i am still afraid of facing this situation because i don’t think i will be strong enough to handle it and i have my kids who depend on only me. His family is very supportive – we got close during the time we lived together and so is mine, however i constantly feel guilty about what i have done to my kids and to myself and i just can’t seem to get over this break up. We all live in the same town and i see him and his wifeat least 3 times a week. I have called him to ask for a reconciliation but he doesn’t want anything to do with me . I just can’t seem to face this situation. Any advice?
UNknowndiva – Just imagine me as the loudmouth on your shoulder 😉
Lisa Q – It’s true. Men don’t think about things in the same way that women do so expending all of this energy is in the overall scheme of things….futile. Keep shouting!
China Blue – Amen! I don’ t think it can be any clearer than that!
Jana – This is an incredibly difficult situation and I think I will dedicate a post to answering your question. You mustn’t think ‘can’t and you have to think ‘will’. If you believe you can’t do it before you’ve started, you won’t do it. You’ve got to get in the right mindset. Don’t batter yourself any further by trying to get him to come back because he has made his choice, and you’ve already asked him back and he hasn’t returned. If the fact that you guys have two children together doesn’t sway him to treat you better – what will? You now have to do what is best for you and the kids. You need to focus on him having a relationship with his children that is independent of a relationship with you…and I think you need to be the one to give him up. Unfortunately from the moment that you stuck around in spite of the fact that he’s married…he will have decided your worth. Now show him that you are worth more. And trust me – you are strong enough to handle this situation because whether you realise it or not, you are on your own already.
I will post a longer reply in a post dedicated to your situation.
Even though i am not quite through the hurdle as my break up is relatively recent this advice and tips were really inspiring and helpful. Although you know all these things yourself it is easy to know that you are heard and not the only one facing this dilema thanks for all the advice.
I just found this series of articles….TRULY great advice! I think these posts would be a good group of articles to revisit/feature sometime in the near future. EVERY single observation that you have ever mentioned is exactly right; some people just don’t want to hear or accept it i guess. I’ve been there, but thankfully I’m not anymore. So much of what you say seems to coincide with a book that I read last year, “How to be an Adult in Relationships”. That book was my saving grace before I found Baggage Reclaim. It probably set the groundwork for my being able to put your advice & suggestions into action so quickly and really stick to them. I was wondering if you have read it or heard of it? It explains ‘how’ to grieve loses & accept things as they are, etc. I think it would be a great book to recommend (in addition to “Mr Unavailable & the Fallback Girl” and “No Contact Rule” of course 🙂 for those people who are struggling with changing some very deeply ingrained patterns/thought processes. Sometimes I wonder where I would be without David Richo & Natalie Lue! LOL…I don’t even want to know.