There are few things in life that cause greater confusion than a long
term relationship breakup. Those that have been on either end of a
breakup know what I’m talking about. For the person dumped, there is
the confusion of “why?” and “how could you?”. It’s natural. But
there’s a special kind of torture reserved for those who do the
dumping. Before the this past year, I always assumed that the one who
did the dumping got off scott-free. It was their choice. But it is
the choice that haunts us. It is the confusion of second-guessing,
the kind that keeps you up at night wondering “Did I do the right
thing?” ”If I did the right thing, how come this hurts so much?”
“Did I ruin any chance of happiness I had for myself?”
No one escapes a breakup unscathed. It’s GOING to hurt, it’s GOING to
be bad. I’ve never heard of a break up song that talks about the
torture of being the one to pull the plug. It’s because we’re the
villains in the story. We’re the manipulative demons that crashed the
train, that destroyed love. No one wants to hear our story, or wonder
about our pain because, objectively, we have only ourselves to blame.
And because it was our choice, the hatred and resentment that normally
shepherds the grieving process when we’re dumped is directed toward
ourselves. This self-hatred swells within us, it causes us to give up
hope that things will get better. Even worse, it makes us believe we
don’t deserve to be happy ever again. We despair.
That is not to say that a long lasting hatred for another human being
is healthy either. Anger is part of the healing process. But it
becomes unhealthy when it lasts too long. When that stage lasts too
long, it’s called bitterness. Show me one bitter person that’s also
truly happy, and I’ll show you flying unicorn puppies. Despite what
it may initially feel or seem like, Bitterness is worst case for
someone who has been dumped. Despair is the worst case for someone
who does the dumping.
In all of this, we have to remember, that this isn’t the first time in
history a long term relationship as fallen apart into a sloppy
breakup. We are not such a special case that someone else out there
hasn’t gone through something similar. The dumped are not worthless
and the dumpers are not demons. Love is not a lie, and hate is not a
cure for lost love just because things went wrong for us. Love itself
does not hinge on our delusional power to will it in and out of
existence.
I am tired of feeling pain, but I am even more tired of the endless
oscillation of despair and hope. Feeling responsible for the person
you hurt’s pain is natural when you make the choice to end a
relationship. Feeling the need to be close to them, missing them,
their presence, is also natural for long relationships. Wanting to
know if you made the right choice, and riding the fence because of it,
also understandable. But, in the end, it is not advisable to act on
any of these feelings. When you act on them, it makes things worse
for everyone.
Does sucuumbing to these impulses make you weak? Foolish? Cowardly?
Most likely.
But does succumbing to them make you a horrible person? Demonic,
manipulative, irredeemable? Of course not.
Growing up means having to own our decisions, but it never seems to
get any easier owning a decision that we aren’t 100% sure of. But
that’s life. Life is uncertainty. It’s filled with ambiguous paths
that don’t become clear until we travel down one and realize we’ve
reached a dead end. It’s the scariest part of life, making those
choices. Sometimes, we can go back, retrace our steps. But most of
the time, the best we can hope for is that new paths will become clear
to us up ahead that weren’t even visible before. And maybe one of
those new paths will cross over and old one someday. And maybe it
won’t. All we can do is own the decision we’ve made right now. Own
it, and don’t look back.
