Aftershock
The Breakup
By Doe Zantamata
A breakup when all your heart was in it can be as difficult to get through as losing someone by death.
For the first short while, just focus on anything good in your life, and take it day by day, or hour by hour if you have to.
Find things in your life that you need to focus attention on, and that you really love doing. Creative things where your attention needs to be on them are good.
Be with your feelings. Grieving can't be rushed. You're not weak for feeling pain, you're sensitive. Only sensitive people can be compassionate, and really help others, but they also feel pain a lot more strongly.
Get detached...write a list of every quality you would want in a partner. Then go back to that list and honestly answer if this relationship gave you those things:
1. in the beginning,
2. 90% of the time, and
3. the last while.
If the answer to all or many of the things you want is "no," then it's not that person or that relationship you wanted, but instead it's attachment breaking that’s rough, or a strong reaction to rejection, or some other thing that's pulling you back toward something that you really weren't all that happy in when you were in it.
Let go of the “could have been.” If they’d only been nicer, or done this, or appreciated that…well if they’d done all those things, they’d be a different person. You have a lot of love to give, and you directed it toward someone who was unwilling or unable to give it back to you. That doesn’t mean someone else will be the same. Though you can’t even think of someone else now, it won’t always be that way.
It’s difficult to find your legs to get up and move on when you feel like you’ve been knocked down so very hard. But once you do find that love, that strength, inside of you, you won’t ever be knocked down like that again. This can be the hardest, but ultimately, the most rewarding, strengthening time of your life.
For now, enjoy the things about being single that you couldn't enjoy before...whatever those things may be. Do things that you want to do, when you want to do them, and learn to love and feel complete in a single life. Learn to love all the great things that are unique and wonderful about you, and really discover who you are and what you really love in life.
Whenever the time is right for a new love, you will be whole, and will have so much more to offer. You will have found you.
After a breakup, make sure to put your heart into intensive care. Give yourself time to heal. Focus on you, focus on good, focus on now. ~Doe Zantamata |
By Doe Zantamata
A breakup when all your heart was in it can be as difficult to get through as losing someone by death.
For the first short while, just focus on anything good in your life, and take it day by day, or hour by hour if you have to.
Find things in your life that you need to focus attention on, and that you really love doing. Creative things where your attention needs to be on them are good.
Be with your feelings. Grieving can't be rushed. You're not weak for feeling pain, you're sensitive. Only sensitive people can be compassionate, and really help others, but they also feel pain a lot more strongly.
Get detached...write a list of every quality you would want in a partner. Then go back to that list and honestly answer if this relationship gave you those things:
1. in the beginning,
2. 90% of the time, and
3. the last while.
If the answer to all or many of the things you want is "no," then it's not that person or that relationship you wanted, but instead it's attachment breaking that’s rough, or a strong reaction to rejection, or some other thing that's pulling you back toward something that you really weren't all that happy in when you were in it.
Let go of the “could have been.” If they’d only been nicer, or done this, or appreciated that…well if they’d done all those things, they’d be a different person. You have a lot of love to give, and you directed it toward someone who was unwilling or unable to give it back to you. That doesn’t mean someone else will be the same. Though you can’t even think of someone else now, it won’t always be that way.
It’s difficult to find your legs to get up and move on when you feel like you’ve been knocked down so very hard. But once you do find that love, that strength, inside of you, you won’t ever be knocked down like that again. This can be the hardest, but ultimately, the most rewarding, strengthening time of your life.
For now, enjoy the things about being single that you couldn't enjoy before...whatever those things may be. Do things that you want to do, when you want to do them, and learn to love and feel complete in a single life. Learn to love all the great things that are unique and wonderful about you, and really discover who you are and what you really love in life.
Whenever the time is right for a new love, you will be whole, and will have so much more to offer. You will have found you.
Dear Doe,
ReplyDeleteWhat about the other side of the story? What if my answers to all your questions is "Yes but my partner's is "No" or "May Be".
You can only be 50% of a relationship longterm. People, when they really want something to work will try to contribute much more than 50%, but they end up losing themselves in the process. Then it becomes much more difficult to see clearly, and if the other person leaves, it's much easier for the other person to get over it, since they had so little invested in it by the time it was over.
DeleteIf only one person is happy in a relationship, then two people are actually unhappy...one just doesn't realize it yet.
You not only want to have your needs fulfilled, but be able to fulfill the other person's needs, too.
Love, Doe
p.s. please feel free to reply, we can discuss further :)
It is the process of ending the routine that is hard for me. It has been less than two weeks, but if I am honest with myself, I saw it coming a few months ago. And I had even considered ending it at one point. But he did instead. That is the rejection I am feeling, I guess. And more than anything.....he was someone I communicated with daily for over a year and it just suddenly ended. I realize it has to if I am to move on. But I miss him and feel sad.
ReplyDeleteDear Doe,
ReplyDeleteYour reply to that comment was exactly what I needed right now. My ex and I were together for 5 years, and when we broke up it was devastating to me, but he just seemed to move on without a care in the world. And now I see that it was so easy for him because I was putting in about 90% of the effort for the relationship while he was only putting in about 10%. So with not having much to lose he could just walk away while I'm stuck here picking up the pieces.
Thank you for this. I now have a better understanding of how he could just leave. I used to blame myself, but now I'm not going to.
Thank you!
Rachel... I just, two weeks ago left a 5year relationship just as you described yours. Now I am going thru an angry phase and feel i need some closure... How n did you find yours??
DeleteThank you for this post ..Its helps me understand why it was so easy for him to walk out of my life and move on so fast with someone else ..while I am here stuck in the same place ..and the part about not being able to see anyone else really hit home ,I thought there was something wrong with me .I now see I was putting way more in to the relationship than I could ever get back..we where together 4.5 years and have been broke up for the last 8 months and I still hurt as much today as I did when he walked out the door ..But at least now I have some understanding on why ..it was so easy for him to forget me ..
ReplyDeleteFound this site today. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI want to thank you for this article. I spent everyday trying to put in 100% to try and make things better for the marriage and our son. After her being unfaithful with an ex from High School 9 months ago, I still stuck it out, giving my all while she gave nothing in return. She recently left the marriage without any emotion or caring for what she has done to me or our son. We were together for eight years and she decided that what she saw in her ex boyfriend, who let me say was married and didn't leave his wife for mine, was what she is now looking for emotionally. Again thank you for this article, it has helped me see some light at the end of the tunnel.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGood one for self healing, thank you :)
ReplyDeleteI REALLY BELEIVE AND GOT A LOT OUT OF THESE READING. NOTHING WORSE THAT PUTTING 100% EFFORT IN, YET STILL GETTING 100% OF THE BLAME.
ReplyDeleteiTS GREAT TO BE ABLE TO DO ALL THE THINGS I WANT AND NOT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT TRYING TO PLEASE THE OTHER PERSON, WHICH WAS NEVER APPRECIATED ANYWAY. THANKS FOR THE ACTICLE, IT HAS HELPED ME HEAPS!
I was with a guy for 2 yrs,I am American and he is Arabic so yeah that is the abuse emotionally so yeah my mistake, he was the world to me he made me feel amazing and I would make him feel the same way he would tell me always until the last few months around the beginning of Jan 2016 he started to talk to me less and less from 4 hours daily to 30 mins once a week our long distance relationship kind then felt really distant. He would tell me I was the one and only and I would tell him the same no other compared so we had a great 2 yrs I gave it all 100% he gave it 100% until the end it was now 10% he changed the way he talked to me its like everything I say or do bothered him, our sexy time changed from our romantic , loving one to a more of a weird one like it was not me it was like him an another- he said to trust him he wouldn't cheat on me and blah, blah. I trusted him you know how they say eyes that dont see heart that doesn't get hurt. Anyways I felt him different and I would wonder why if I bother him so much and he no longer loves me why keep me around? He is only hurting me. I asked him and he said I was out of my mind then I just looked into his gaming profile he was playing second life and his profile looked all happy then when I met him on second life, so I confronted him about it and he said it was for trolling I was not buying it he met me there.I am sure he met another and I know it because our sexy time changed did a 360 turn, he wanted to do things with me that I guess he was doing with the other female. But anyways I knew it was done he was not going to leave me so I took all my courage and desperation and ended the little relationship we had, he didn't stop me and he said it was my choice to remember that because he was not coming back to me, I didn't want to go because I still love him but he was not there for me like I am for him.I didn't beg him like other times he loved it when I did it, He at the end blocked me from all media where I couldn't do it to him I couldn't block him, he did to me with ease.so far its been one week I am in pain and I am mad at myself for letting this happen to me for staying with him for fear of losing the love of my life yeah he was my love he told me I was his and then at the end he just forgot about me. I got one more week to go to flush him out of my system like a bad drug because that is what he was to me a bad drug.I am ready to move on.And what make angry at myself that he was not even cute, gghhaa!!
ReplyDelete