Musings on Life and Love

Image by utsavbasu1 via Flickr

We get lots of generic advice when we break up. “You’ll get through it.” “You’re better off.” “Don’t worry, you’ll find the One.” But no one ever tells us how to get through the pain, the loneliness, the emptiness. Whether the breakup is mutual, shocking, brutal, or civil, it sucks.

So what do we do? Blast “I Will Survive” until our ears bleed? When will those yucky feelings go away? I think everyone has their own progression that they go through, similar to the five stages of grief. Here’s mine:

Disbelief and Denial

After my boyfriend of two years broke up with me, I was shocked. In hindsight, it was a long time coming. During the last turbulent months of our relationship, I knew we were heading down that road. He had moved away six weeks prior—a tell-tale sign of doom. But when it actually happened… well, I was shocked. It was a Sunday morning, and he had spent the weekend with me. When he left that morning, he left for good. I was a puddle. I sat in my room for three hours, knowing that once I walked out of there, I’d have to face my roommates and tell them what happened. I wasn’t ready for it to be real.

Desperation

Six hours after the dumping, I made the tearful phone call begging Mr. Ex to take me back. Not one of my finer moments. I was a ball of desperate emotion. I needed to save us and wasn’t ready to accept all the valid reasons for the breakup. Read more…

Photo by Ed Yourdon

A few months ago, I posted some easy ways to make your relationship stronger. They were simple and not too taxing, right?  But now it’s time to talk about those dreadful things like:

• Introspection
• Personal responsibility
• Seeing past your own anger

Yikes! How un-fun is that? Because, really, how can anyone be expected to do these things when our partner is clearly in the wrong? Hmm, maybe it’s better to see beyond the need to be right and look at how to work out differences?

1.  Don’t be jealous, and if you are, own it. You may not like what I’m going to say, but look at sexy people. They are all around us. On TV, on the street, in the workplace. The day after our wedding, my husband and I took a walk on Mission Beach before we met up with the rest of our friends and family for the post-wedding events. Suddenly, this model-chick with literally the most perfect butt roller-bladed past us. All butts should aspire to look this good. And I know mine does not. But he was still holding my hand, and we had a nice little banter about the perfectness of what had just skated by.

Love yourself enough to know that, despite the fact that we are surrounded by good-looking people, you still have someone who loves you for who you are. Love and trust your partner enough to know that looking is simply that. Looking. Read more…