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#advice, #breakups, #choices, #decisions, #easyreading, #featured, #love, #sad
Breakup: Unboxing
It’s been almost a year since the breakup. But even though it seems like a long time ago, to me, it just feels like yesterday. Every time I saw something he liked, heard “our” song or even as much as saw another couple, I used to have this gut wrenching feeling in my stomach that is difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t been through it themselves. Like they say, it takes one to know one.
When the breakup actually happened, I went numb. I was absolutely paralyzed all over. My world had crumbled all around me. I cried all night long. While my heart weeped, my mind was racing, trying to find the reason why it must’ve happened. He never gave me any closure. No reason whatsoever. Just that he didn’t feel the same for me anymore and wanted to breakup. I was shattered.
Though our relationship hadn’t been ideal lately, I’d always thought we’d work through it and find a solution. After all, we were in love…or so I thought. We met in college. He was a senior. Everything was so beautiful, I thought I’d found the one. He cared for me immensely, listened to every word I had to say and always supported me in everything. I’d even met his family. So for me, it kind of seemed like the perfect relationship that would end up becoming a perfect marriage. But that was until he graduated and left.
I didn’t expect to see a change so quickly but as soon as he left, things were different. While I missed him immensely and craved to listen to his voice, he avoided me at every chance he got. He’d take an entire day to reply back to my texts (despite being someone who always had his phone in his hand) and almost never returned my calls saying he was busy. I tried to understand and brushed it off, thinking he was only getting accustomed to this new arrangement.
It was always me who’d call. Even if he did respond, his voice didn’t sound the same as before. He seemed so…distant. So disinterested. It broke my heart. And what’s more, I let this happen to me every single day. Not a day must’ve gone by at that time when I stopped thinking about him.
I lost focus, my grades started getting affected. And no matter how much my friends told me to forget him and move on, I didn’t want to believe that my perfect relationship was coming to such a rocky end. He meant everything to me. Could it really be getting over?
Months went by. And while he became more and more aloof, I couldn’t get myself to accept what was happening. What did I do wrong? Was I being too persistent? Was I asking for too much? Was I acting too jealous? Every time I brought up the topic, he’d say he was too busy and that there was nothing to worry about. But I knew deep in my heart that that was a lie. His good morning and goodnight texts had disappeared completely. He hesitated to say “I love you”. I cried myself to sleep everyday. But what happened next was the last straw…
The Realization
With his birthday coming up, I decided to make a video compilation with small snippets from all his friends and family wishing him. It took me a little over a week to get in touch with everyone and get them to record their messages. It turned out beautifully.
When I sent it to him at midnight, I asked a common friend to video call him as a surprise so I could see his reaction as he watched the video. He didn’t seem in the least bit excited. Again, I tried to reason that he was probably tired from all the celebrations while I knew very well that it wasn’t the reason. While ending the call, I said “I love you” but he seemed more hesitant than ever to say it back. Well, this time, he didn’t say it. He simply cut the call.
I didn’t realize till that very moment that it was even possible for my heart to break anymore than it already had in the past few months. But this incident was like ripping off the bandage all over again.
A few weeks later, I got to know from acquaintances that he was hanging out a little too often with another girl, someone he’d never mentioned to me before. I don’t know why I did this to myself but I continued with the relationship. Needless to say, I got more jealous which drove him further away.
Two months of this and it finally got too much for me to take. I was hurting myself too much. So, I decided to tell him how I felt. Every bit of it in it’s raw, true form. His response: he broke up with me over text.
Despite having seen this coming for a long time, when it actually happened, it shattered me to a whole new level. What saddens me is I didn’t opt to end it sooner. But I didn’t realize all of this in the beginning.My hands all sweaty, my throat all dry and my heart pounding in my chest, I called him up. He picked up the call as though talking to some random friend; as though he didn’t even know what had just happened. On asking him for the reason, he said he didn’t feel the way he did for me before and that he was too busy for me right now. He still denied talking to that girl. But what hurt me most was that he’d been feeling like this for months but he chose to give me just the bare minimum of texts and calls when I asked for them and keep me hanging by a thread instead of just coming clean and getting it over with. Was I really worth so little? Did I not deserve to know? Or had i just been fooling myself all this while?
Taking Back My Power
Despite having seen this coming for a long time, when it actually happened, it shattered me to a whole new level. What saddens me is I didn’t opt to end it sooner. But I didn’t realize all of this in the beginning.
The first few months post the breakup were pure hell. I kept checking my phone, hoping he’d say he missed me and things would go back to normal. But he didn’t look back even once. While I stayed stuck in the same place for so long, he’d happily moved on. Sometimes, I feel like the relationship was over for him the day he left college. All those months, I’d been the only one in that relationship, trying to get the boat to shore, the boat in which one of it’s own passengers had drilled holes and swam away.
The next few months, all I did was blame myself. Maybe I wasn’t pretty enough. Maybe I was too jealous. Maybe I didn’t try enough. This was my first real relationship so the shock of it ending like this was something I didn’t know to deal with.
However, six months later, after having gone to the worst places and thoughts in my mind, I decided this had to end. I realized that the real reason all of this happened was because I didn’t respect myself enough. Had I loved and respected myself like I should’ve, I would never have allowed anybody to treat me the way he treated me. I would have more easily noticed all the red flags instead of blind-siding them just for the sake of saving a relationship not worth the effort. I needed to learn to be comfortable in my own skin in order to be feel secure in a relationship.
It was never he who broke my heart. It was me all along.
I allowed this to happen to me. And no, this didn’t make me feel bad. If anything, it made me feel liberated. It was like a new found freedom. The moment I realized this, I started seeing all the flaws in the relationship. How he’d never support me in front of his friends because of what they’d think.Or how many a times during our fights, he’d say he didn’t really have any strong feelings for me at all and never even apologized for saying this once the fight was over. Or how he’d show the same care he showed for me for everyone around him. I wasn’t special at all. He just liked being the “good guy”. This probably is also the reason he didn’t initiate the breakup: he didn’t want to look bad.
Regardless, I decided that to make a recovery, I would have to take back my power from him. I needed to heal and I had to do it my way, no matter the amount of time it would take.
I started being kinder to myself, taking care of myself. I started meditating, exercising, going back to my old hobbies that brought me peace. I even started journaling and talking to my friends and family about the breakup. People around us can be very supportive and healing. All we need to do is ask for help.
I even went to therapy for six months. Sometimes, there’s just some things you can’t deal with on your own and it’s perfectly normal to ask for professional guidance. Through therapy I realized that he didn’t want to hurt me on purpose. He probably had some unresolved trauma from his own past, some bad experiences that made him the way he is today. Whether he chooses to resolve this or not would be something he would have to figure out on his own. But this helped make it slightly easier for me to forgive him.
Sure, every now and then I still have doubts that maybe the girl he chose over me looks better than I do or is a better person than I am. But I quickly bring myself back to the realization that there’s always going to be someone smarter, prettier, richer even. But they’re not me. They’ll never be me. And in a relationship that is worth being in, you will never have to question your worth. Because for them, you will be perfect, just the way you are.
Look yourself in the mirror every single morning and say I love you to yourself. You know how good it feels when someone says it to you? Well, it feels even better when you say it to yourself. Because you know you will always be there for yourself and that is the most important thing in the world. Agreed, this won’t come naturally in the beginning but it is so worth it. That is the only reason why I’m so comfortable in my own skin and will never fall for a similar kind of relationship again. I know what I deserve and will never accept anything less. You shouldn’t either.
Take all the time you need. It can seem difficult in the beginning, especially if you’re fresh out of a relationship, trust me, I’ve been there. But trust your timing and know that your best is yet to come.