I would rather set myself on fire than go through the experience of heartbreak again. It is the most impossible type of human suffering. Words can’t do justice to the unbearableness of what it feels like to live with a brand new broken heart. In the aftermath of heartbreak, nothing succeeds in alleviating the severity of the pain - no amount of self harm, crying, alcohol, drugs, human company or sleep. The waking hours of the day remind us of the consistency of our pain. We wake up in immense pain just like we go to bed at night with the same hole that has just been made in our heart.
Our well meaning friends and family members will do their very best to try to patch our pierced heart. A listening ear is the most precious yet priceless gift we can offer someone going through the early stages of heartbreak. Strangely, well meaning words often feel like nails on a chalkboard to the ears of the dumpee. The worst sentence to pull out of our rescue kit is any version of “You’ll find someone way better.” The possibility of meeting another, someone who isn’t the life partner we just lost - is beyond unthinkable. It’s the last thing we could possibly want. And the reverse - imagining our partner being romantically involved with someone else - is enough for us to want to dissociate completely from our own mind and body.
While I know all too well that being the one who initiates the break up (aka the dumper), can be immensely difficult (all the more in particular sets of circumstances, namely the “didn’t see it coming” one), nothing in my eyes hurts more than being on the receiving end of a breakup we did not want. Receiving the breakup talk is to have our worst fear materialize.
Incapable of digesting what got handed to us, in the minutes, hours and sometimes days following it, many of us will try to reason our partner. With nothing more to lose than a few inches of self respect, we will do the impossible to try to retain what’s left of our crumbling relationship. We can’t yet accept the new reality that has set in before our eyes - our relationship is officially over and no amount of sweet talk will bring our partner back to us. This realization is the hardest to comes to terms with. Precisely because it was forced on to us.
We are losing a partner, a confident, a best friend, a life we have built together and a future of dreams. We are forced to grieve the loss of a person we deeply love and who is still alive. If this doesn’t hit like a train going a million miles an hour, I don’t know what does. The person who brought light and sunshine to our every day is now leaving us with clouds of darkness that aren't going away anytime soon.
How can we make the best of the worst that has happened to us? I learned a few tricks along the way. What better trick to use than tricking our own mind at reframing our relationship. Time to throw away our rose tinted glasses. Writing down the instances in which our partner has hurt us and let us down is a great way to slowly stop idealizing the person who has made the choice to leave us without looking back. Keeping that list very close to us, especially in moments of weakness, can only be of help. With time and gradual healing, we may be able to look back and think to ourselves - Why would I want to be with someone who has it in them to leave instead of ex /seeking individual-couples therapy/finding healthier or better strategies to address the problems that perhaps contributed to the dissolution of the relationship?
It can be really freaking hard to make sense of a decision that makes none. We poured our entire heart and soul into this partnership, we gave our partner the best of us, we went above and beyond to put their happiness first - and here they are leaving us making it look so easy. If there’s one way I can console myself as a dumpee it is by telling myself that at the very least I won’t have to suffer the pain of regret. I will never be plagued by the pain of realizing that they’re the one that got away or that I never found someone who treated me half as good as they did. That pain will be theirs to carry.
When regret hits, it hits hard. It’s a very complex emotion, as regret of what “could have been” brings to life inside our minds endless possibilities that will never see the light of day in the real world. For that sole reason, I’m glad I wasn’t the dumper of my latest partnership. I can humbly look back on my role as a partner and I’m proud to see someone who had nothing but unconditional love, compassion and kindness to give. I’m nowhere near perfect, but I derive much satisfaction in looking back and being proud of the partner I was.
The heart is very fragile, yet our capacity at opening it up again for love even after it has been shattered and broken into millions of pieces will never cease to amaze me. That’s the definition of a superhuman to me. We lost our special person, but we gained several nuggets of wisdom. Worth it trade off? I guess it depends to whom you may ask. I have loved and I have lost and I’m not so sure I have it in me to endure getting my heart broken once more.
