So I’ve written out some different ways of tackling some of the intrusive thoughts that go through your head after a breakup- different ways of thinking which I’ve picked up through CBT and talking things through with all sorts of different people. I was writing things out a lot for my own sake and thought it might help others.
Disclaimer: I’m not an expert or anything, if something doesn’t help just disregard it!
I should also say that I’m coming at this mostly from the perspective of the dumpee, especially when mistreated by the ex- this may not all be applicable to all situations. I also come at these anxieties with a firm belief from a good evidence base, that people do go on to find love again, and better love at that.
1. Why does my ex feel fine whilst I have to suffer?
2. People say it gets better every day, but I feel worse than yesterday. And I thought I felt better last week but now I'm worse. Am I backsliding?
3. I'll never meet someone with all their great qualities (and none of their bad ones) who'll love me, will I?
4. Why does everything remind me of them?
5. Have I just wasted X time of my life?
6. Why does life feel so empty? Will I ever stop feeling like this?
7. I'm so envious of their next partner! Should I envy them or pity them?
8. Should I be blocking the thoughts out or going over it all to process it?
9. I can't stop thinking of them, why does it take so long?
10. Why do people keep saying it's their loss? I'm the one who lost the love of my life!
11. I keep wondering what they’re doing. What are they doing?!
12. Why does everyone have a partner except me?
13. I could never imagine sleeping with someone other than my ex
14. Some other tips for how to look after yourself during the next few weeks as you recover
1. Why does my ex feel fine whilst I have to suffer?
They don't suffer like you because they don't feel things as strongly as you. I know it sucks right now, but it honestly means that when you find the right person you will feel so much more joy than they ever will.
Part of you thinks this is bullshit and I'm just saying it to make you feel better- but think about when you were with them, the overwhelming joy you felt (don't think too hard about this, just acknowledge you felt more happiness than them!)
Neurologically there is a lot of evidence that people who shut out their emotions or are emotionally stunted suffer from atrophy of the amygdala- the emotional part of the brain that allows you to feel empathy and connections. You can't pick and choose with the amygdala, the passion comes in both good and bad forms. In fact, the word passion comes from the Latin 'pati' to suffer (the same root as empathy and sympathy). So if they’ve found a way to cut themself off from the pain, more fool them, because they’re damaging their ability to feel happiness.
Another useful way to think of the suffering is the wolf attack analogy, especially if your ex mistreated you. Imagine a wolf attacked you and you were badly injured. You would be rightly pissed off at the wolf, but you wouldn't ask yourself why it didn't feel your pain. Furthermore you wouldn't try and get back at the wolf by getting out there and running around on your bleeding leg with your internal bleeding (i.e. rebounding when you don't feel like it, or posting party pics on insta in the hopes they'll see) because you know it won't matter to the wolf, and it won't make you better any sooner.
2. People say it gets better every day, but I feel worse than yesterday. And I thought I felt better last week but now I'm worse. Am I backsliding?
The platitude people through about isn't quite right. You have to remember that once you're out of heartbreak, it's hard to remember the pain (a good thing!) so people just say the words 'it gets better every day' without remembering the three-months-in-and-I've-just-smelled-her-perfume-on-someone-and-now-I'm weeping-a-little days.
This isn't to say they're lying or wrong, per se, it's just that it isn't quite that linear. But as long as you're MAINTAINING NO CONTACT (!!!) then there is no such thing as backsliding, every day is progress.
Think of an alcoholic who's 7 days sober and they have a day where they're fucking desperate for a drink but hold off. They're detoxing from a fucking addictive substance just like you are! Of course they want it! But detoxing is an inevitable physiological function. Without feeding the ex addiction, your brain slowly forgets them and becomes weaned off the oxytocin it's been dripping you whenever you saw him/her. Even if you wanted to be hung up on them forever, that's just not how the brain works. Today might be inexplicably worse than yesterday, but every day is a day closer to you being 100% over them. Promise.
3. I'll never meet someone with all their great qualities (and none of their bad ones) who'll love me, will I?
I have two qualities I'd love to find in my future life partner: being environmentally conscious and being good in bed. I dated someone who was the first of these and not the second and they broke my heart (few years ago, completely over it now- literally forgot their name the other day when I was giving this pep talk to a friend!) and afterwards I thought 'I'll never find someone else who cares that much about the planet, the other handful of people I've dated haven't at all'. I felt sad, I got over him, I kept being environmentally active but haven't found anyone else to date from that world since (most people who are into environmentalism are very old! Quite surprising when they're the least threatened by our looming climate catastrophe, but that's besides the point!) The person I'm getting over now didn't care at all about the planet, but we had great sexual chemistry. My irrational brain is now telling me 'you'll have to settle for someone rubbish in bed and you'll never get over how good it was!' (Even though I’m the main reason why it was good…)
But this is all backwards! Imagine a bag full of, say, 100 marbles- some red, some blue. You don't know the ratios, and you really want a blue one. You pick out a red. And another. And another. Aaaand another. A mathematician would estimate there are 100 reds in there and no blues. Sigh. Then you pick out a blue! Fuck yeah! But it's chipped. That won't do. It's so frustrating that you kept trying to find one and now you have and it's broken :( But:
- A mathematician would now estimate that a fifth of the marbles are blue! That means by the laws of probability there are 19 more in there!
- There's nothing to suggest that being chipped correlates with being blue. It just got knocked around in that bag.
Maybe the analogy is a bit obscure here. I mean there is nothing to suggest being an environmentalist would make someone a dick, or being sexually compatible with me would make them unkind. Heaven knows the other environmentalists I know are lovely!
Furthermore, if I could fall in love with person 1 without the amazing sex, and person 2 without the green heart, these things aren't non negotiable. And I fell in love despite neither of them being very intelligent or fun or ambitious!
Yes, your ex was special in some special ways- but not unique ways, and not the only ways that matter.
4. Why does everything remind me of them?
Oh God. Everything. EVERYTHING! Here's a very much non exhaustive list of things which have reminded me of my ex in the last month or so:
- peanut butter
- going past their bus stop
- going past the bus stop for the area we had our first date
- snow
- drinking beer
- seeing a dog which was maybe the same breed as theirs? Or similar at least?
- logging on to netflix
- my own mum (remember when they met my parents and brought round that nice wine)
- plants
- fireworks (we never even watched fireworks together)
There's no bloomin' escape!
Here's another bit of pop neurology for you (full disclosure: I'm an accountant and haven't studied science since I was at school. But my neurological understanding of relationships comes from my shrink so I have it on good authority!): during human evolution, there was a real selection pressure on being able to recall emotional memories- the trauma of near death experiences, and ‘which woman did I impregnate again?’ are important things to remember when survival is far from guaranteed. (This isn't to say the memories are more accurate, just more easily recalled). The other aspect to memory is that, obviously, we remember more recent things more easily than farther back things. Often it feels like the last year or however long with your partner takes up more memory than the decades before.
But you have hundreds of hours of memories without them. Even when you were together you were at work without them, you listened to music without them, read books alone and hung out with your friends. A big part of getting over a breakup is reclaiming your life outwith them. I bet there were interests of your that they never tried to engage with- celebrate those bits. Read a book that they would never read. Go to a teenage haunt that you never shared with them. Have a single lads/ gals chat with friends to which they could never have been privy. Chat with someone smarter than them and think ‘wow, they couldn’t challenge me like this’.
It's mostly just another one of those 'it gets better with time' ones, as your brain comes down from the high intensity emotions and re-categorises the memories, but establishing your identity outwith being in a couple with them helps.
All the things around your house that remind you of them- pop them in a box, pop it away and know that one day it will serve the following purpose: showing your future son/daughter how you felt just as rotten as they do after a bad breakup- here look at these pics of (gosh, I've forgotten their name...) whom I haven't thought of in years.
5. Have I just wasted X time of my life?
I asked this of an older friend of mine. This friend didn't find her partner until she was about a decade older than I am now, and I was panicking because I don't want to wait that long, and felt like I'd just wasted a year on this relationship that didn't work out. It's so infuriating when people say 'it wasn't a waste, you've learned from it' (like yeah, but why did I have to suffer to learn a little bit?) and it's infuriating to think we've wasted time.
My friend said that neither is true. Because it wasn't me who got into this relationship- it was one-year-ago me. A totally different person with different dating criteria and a different life. Asking if that was a waste of time because I wouldn't do it again is like asking if primary school was a waste of time because everything I learned seems so obvious now. I know, it sounds like I'm saying exactly the thing I said I wasn't going to about it being a learning process. But I'm not saying that- the changes over the course of a relationship are not just from the relationship- you experience other joys and sadnesses, achieve new goals and suffer new setbacks. Maybe you got a nose piercing or visited a cool new city or got your dream job or had a big fight with your best friend. All of these things change us and develop us into entirely new people, indistinguishable from our former selves, even.
So anyway, my friend says when she looks back on the guy she dated during her twenties who wasn't the right one in the end, she just thinks 'good for twenty-something Jean. I wouldn't date him myself, though'. She also says if the guy she married and has now been with for decades had come along then, she wouldn't have ended up with him because thirty-something Jean didn't exist yet.
Imagine also, if you had to do relationships in reverse- a few weeks of agony, then a few months of joy- the cost- benefit analysis seems pretty positive from that perspective, right?! It’s just hard to feel like anything could be worth this pain when you’re in the heat of it.
(An amusing insight from the other end of the generations, a 19 year old friend: 'if you get out with a funny story and no new strains of herpes, it's a win'!)
6. Why does life feel so empty? Will I ever stop feeling like this?
Poor you. I hope this doesn't sound sarcastic, because I'm totally sincere. It feels awful to just obtain so little happiness from each day and feel like you have no agency over that feeling, and it will never stop being that way because the thing that made you happy is gone forever.
You hear people say it gets better over time, but it feels different for you. Even if you've felt this before, this time feels different.
By now you've probably already googled 'breakup hurts' and 'why does my heart physically hurt after my breakup' and 'will I ever get over them' and 'good vegan restaurants near me' and 'how to get over them' (I assume your search history is exactly like mine) so I'll save you the 'your brain is going through withdrawal' speech.
Instead I'll tell you what a really empty life feels like: not caring if you have a breakup. Not crying, not yearning. Not feeling any pleasure when you are in a relationship. Maybe your ex was like that? I'm sure you know someone like this anyway, someone with anhedonia.
The paradox is the emptiness shows just how full of feelings you are, just how ready to give and receive love. When the right person comes along, you're going to fucking nail it, and you're going to feel very real, very deep happiness.
You will stop feeling like this eventually, but the heart has its own time. I know the temptation to do calculations (half the time we were together plus an extra month because we went through this together minus two weeks because I was thinking about ending it anyway plus a day because I miss his friends too...) I can't tell you when you'll be fully healed, but do this for me: skip forward three months from the breakup in your diary and write 'do you feel significantly better now?'. You will answer it when you get there, and the answer will be yes.
If you look at which usernames post a lot in this sub, it’s a collection of people who completely change every few months like the body making new cells- people come here when they need it, and that ain’t forever.
When you have a minute, try reading ‘One Art’ by Elizabeth Bishop. A beautiful poem about how resilient we are after losing things we thought we couldn’t bear to lose.
7. I'm so envious of their next partner! Should I envy them or pity them?
I promise you, when you're with the next person, you will not give a fuck what your ex is doing. If you don't believe me ask anyone you know in a relationship whether they're envious of or pity their ex's new squeeze and they'll say nope to both.
But this doesn't help now! Right now you love them still and you want to be the one with them. If they've treated you abusively at all (which I think is true of a lot of the posters here, as that makes the breakup process harder) you also worry for the next person to fall for their manipulations. If they haven't, you just want them and love them so much and can't bear the thought of someone else getting them.
For the envy, I offer you this thought: imagine you are a third party, and you're in a thruple with yourself and your ex. Weird thought, I know, but roll with it. You're sleeping with you and them, getting affection from you and them, laughing with you and them. I'm going to call the external you 'you 1' and the you from whose POV you are now living 'you 2'. You 1 and the ex have a big fight and go their separate ways. You 2 have to choose. Who provided more love? Who was more dependable? Who was funnier? Who was a more generous lover? I think if you’re honest with your(2)self, you’d rather date you (1). So choose yourself, love yourself and be loyal to yourself :)
A note re abusive partners- an abusive partner cannot provide unconditional love and that will never change with anyone. I know we think it'll be different with the next one because they won't get on their nerves like you did, or they'll grow up. But they watched you suffer and they did not care or did not understand, and that cannot be changed. As for worrying for their next partner, think of Kantian exceptionalism- why would I be special? Why should the rules be different for me? (or my species or personality or class). Why should you worry more for victims of this person than for victims of other abusers, or of natural disasters and disease? Not trying to bum you out! Just saying, take control of being a positive force where you can- make this world a better place in the special ways you do :) And know that if you survived and recovered from him/her, the next person will too.
8. Should I be blocking the thoughts out or going over it all to process it?
An almost pointless question because, as you're experiencing, you can't really control where the brain is going right now. Your mind wants answers and you can't really give it any good ones, but you can't get it to shut up either.
I think the best advice here is to figure out whose take on it you find most comforting- maybe your mum saying you're too good for them, maybe your mate saying they're a dumb c**t, maybe your gran saying you were just made for someone else. Internalise it and try and use it against the intrusive thoughts.
My shrink says the sympathetic system wants to know 'why' so much that sometimes you have to just say 'I'm sorry, I don't know, but you deserve better' to yourself like soothing a baby. Like actually say it out loud.
The stopping thinking about it is, again, really chemical. As the addiction fades and your life opens up to other things, it will lessen. Until then know that your brain will figure it out in its own way and as long as you're maintaining no contact, there isn't really a bad way to deal mentally.
9. I can't stop thinking of them, why does it take so long?
It's mad isn't it? We all have things at which we're really capable. I'm good with numbers- I can sit down and have a good think about a maths problem and get my head around it. But this just takes the brain ages to understand- that that person wasn't right and we're not going to be loving them anymore.
But gosh, isn't it a good thing that feelings take a long time to change?! Imagine if all it took was one thoughtless comment from your sister and your brain would stop loving her. Imagine if all it took was a friendly smile from a stranger and we'd love them. Imagine if your best friend's love for you could just turn off! We form deep bonds, and they move with tectonic slowness, but their shifts are of such importance.
It might feel like your ex's feelings did switch off overnight- if it is true then they are not forming deep bonds and they're living life on a really thin, shallow plane.
Have a read of ‘Bright Star’ by Keats. It’s the most beautiful poem. Keats wrote it about how sad he was to be leaving his love as he died aged 25 of TB. All he wants is to be with his love and not die young. You deserve that kind of love. Everyone who can give that kind of love deserves to receive that kind of love.
10. Why do people keep saying it's their loss? I'm the one who lost the love of my life!
People assign all sorts of different values to things, some of which are quite bewildering. The level of interest people have for reality TV stars, for instance. It’s bonkers!
When people throw this cliché at you they’re trying to make you feel better, but they’re also affirming the real value they see in you. They value you enough to comfort you, enough to be your friends. You would be so wasted on someone who sees you as less than they see you! Your true love will be the person who sees you more clearly than anyone else. Yes, you’ve lost someone about whom you cared a lot. But if you stayed with someone who didn’t get you, you would have lost out on finding that connection, which would be a million times more sad. Like giving an original Goya painting to someone who’s ‘not really that into art’.
If you have a bit of time and you haven’t read it before, read TS Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’, and imagine being the woman who says ‘That is not what I meant at all;/ That is not it, at all’ because her romantic partner doesn’t get her.
11. I keep wondering what they’re doing. What are they doing?!
Nothing terribly interesting. Watching TV, going to work, taking a shit. The same stuff you and every normal person does every day. That’s not the point though, is it?
I heard a private investigator on the radio once saying how dull it really was chasing around after cheating spouses and the like because they never do anything worth the attention. He said his clients really weren’t that interested in what their wives got up to, but rather the absence of themselves. Makes sense- my wife having dinner and romance and sex? Great. But without me?! Fuck.
So when your brain asks you what they’re up to, you’re really thinking what are they doing without me. Are they watching our favourite TV show? Are they thinking about me? Are they crying? It hurts that there’s no place for you in the picture.
Next time you find yourself wondering what they’re up to, try instead wondering what your future husband or wife is up to. They won’t be doing anything very interesting either- clipping their toenails, on hold with their internet service provider, looking for a mother’s day present- but there is a place for you in this story. One day you’ll be like ‘hey honey, any luck with the internet guy?’ and ‘I love those tulips you’ve got for your mum, I might follow suit’ and you’ll watch telly together and text each other during the day and it won’t matter what your ex is doing because the magic around their mundanity will be gone, and the thought of them taking a shit will be just as boring as it truly is.
12. Why does everyone have a partner except me?
I totally see the world this way when I’ve just gone through a break up. And what’s more, being reminded of the single people doesn’t really help because it just makes us feel like we’re one of them. I get drawn into an ‘us and them’ view of the world where everyone is either happily married or dying alone and that won’t change and I’m in the second group and it sucks.
This is part of what I, as an accountant (yes I am still single ;)) think of as balance sheet rather than income statement thinking. Let me decode- it’s looking at a snapshot of life at one moment rather than the processes which lead to things being as the are, and as they will be.
Have a chat to some of these happy couples- you’ll see that the path to it isn’t straightforward for everyone and is full of all sorts of relationships that didn’t work out and false starts.
Equally talking to the singletons will show you they’re not all unlovable sad-sacks, nor independent people who, unlike you, don’t need a partner. They’re individuals with different needs, figuring out the right life for themselves. For some people that’s being single. If you’re reading this, I don’t think that’s the case for you- and that’s fine too! It’s a totally valid thing to want to give and receive love, and there are plenty of people in the world who could provide that for you. You will find one of them.
I had a chat with my great aunt who is in her eighties and never married, and said I was worried I’d never find someone too. She said ‘dear me, I had three proposals as a young lady! I just wanted to focus on my career and it wasn’t a time where you could have it all like ladies nowadays… in fact having it all seems like a nightmare! I’m so glad my life wasn’t about looking after some man.’ She said she had absolutely no regrets and would do it all again in a heartbeat.
I guess what I’m saying is, people don’t fall into their lives by accident- we get the lives we work towards and choose.
13. I could never imagine sleeping with someone other than my ex
I must say, this time round breakup wise I haven’t been so tortured with this one. Maybe just a function of being a bit older and knowing the rhythms and cycles of my own body and heart and libido.
But I remember feeling like I wanted to puke at the thought of being with anyone but my first ex, after we split up.
This is exactly what one would expect when all the memories of sex with them are so recent, and every time you had sex with them your body released more bonding and pleasure hormones to make you feel close to them and happy.
It makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, but it sucks after a breakup. But again- IT IS NOT FOREVER!
My advice would be to put the thought of sex out of your mind and just think about your teenage crushes. Rewatch Titanic and enjoy Leonardo DiCaprio’s fineness. Leaf through an old yearbook and remember how your heart would beat fast for that girl in your Art class. Your ex isn’t the only person you’ve ever found attractive! Go through a little adolescence again, not rushing the sexuality but just enjoying reclaiming your ability to be attracted to people and feel emotionally excited at the thought of them. Get those butterflies in your stomach for a person sitting across from you on your morning commute.
Trust me- reclaim your romantic identity first, and your sexuality will come back with time. There’s no need to rush into sex right now anyway- your priority is looking after yourself.
14. Some other tips for how to look after yourself during the next few weeks as you recover:
Pick a comedy series and watch it in its entirety, an episode or two each night. You’ll be feeling so much better by the time you finish! It can serve as a measure of the lovesickness passing, and it’s diverting and doesn’t feel like a chore. I’d recommend Curb Your Enthusiasm because it’s hilarious, there’s loads of episodes, and it isn’t too much about people coupling up and having children etc like Friends or something, which might be a bit painful to watch right now.
People tell you to enjoy spending time with your friends and stay distracted, but it might just feel like you’re putting yourself through the motions and being a mope around them and they’re not really cheering you up because the only person you want to hang with is your ex. I’d really recommend celebrating the most wonderful things in the people in your life so as not to compare them to your ex: pick the brain of your smartest friend. Get a hug while you cry from your kindest friend. Ask your mum to tell you how much she loves you and tell her how much you love her. Stroke your dog. Go for a night out with your party animal friend.
I know how much harder it is to recover if you’ve been mistreated, betrayed, dismissed, than a happy breakup. But you will recover too. And you will be so fucking glad you didn’t end up with them.
Why are we so quick to dismiss the overwhelming evidence for climate change, or even if we accept it, to do nothing about it, when we are so sure we’ll never love again despite the entire history of humanity providing evidence to the contrary? Human minds truly are baffling… Sorry, rant over!
People say ‘remember it’s always both parties who contribute to a breakup’ but this isn’t always true. Sometimes you can act perfectly and it won’t work out. Sometimes it’s all them. I dated someone for a while who was lovely but didn’t really get my heart racing. I broke it off and they kept asking what they did wrong, how they could have been what I wanted. IT WAS NOT THEIR FAULT EVEN 1%! I hate the thought of them trying to be different for the next partner, when they were already perfect, just not perfect for me. You own your own narrative, and if you think you did nothing wrong, I believe you.
Remember that love doesn’t just happen to special people!
Submitted February 08, 2019 at 01:07AM by SilentSeasScuttle http://bit.ly/2DYX5mn
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