If you have ever experienced a break-up then I am sure you don’t need me to tell you that these are simply not fun. Whether it was the end of a romantic or platonic relationship, either one isn’t nice to experience, and they can often be quite painful or dramatic. If you have never experienced either then I say, lucky you! It must be nice to have never experienced the end of a relationship and you must share your secrets on how you have managed that. Maybe start a blog?
Background and context
Let’s start with a little background and context before I get into the core of this blog post. I am an individual who is very very big on romance and love. Like I love love. My favourite genre of movie is easily rom-com. I can’t get enough of them. So when I fall for someone, when I fall in love, I fall very hard. I was deeply in love with my most recent ex at the time of writing this piece. We had been together for about a year and a half. Full disclaimer, it was I who decided to terminate the relationship. I didn’t want to. However, I came to the conclusion that they either could not be or did not want to be the partner I needed and I finally decided to end it, much to my friend and family’s delight.
You can now be responsible for your own happiness
After the breakup, I was very much not okay for quite some time. I am not going to lie, it hit me hard. I was grappling with feelings of guilt as this was my first time ending a relationship. I was dealing with a lot of regret, and torturing myself with the idea that I could have made the wrong decision in ending it. Constantly replaying conversations and arguments and entertaining a bunch of what-ifs or maybes preventing me from moving on. I was dealing with loneliness when it hit me just how empty my life now felt post-break-up, so I was in a bit of a tailspin. I no longer had someone checking in on me every day, asking me about my day, sharing the little moments with or simply keeping me company running errands. My days all of a sudden just felt so quiet and isolated.
Shortly after my breakup, I reconnected with an old friend. He too had recently gotten out of a relationship, however, the length of his relationship was far longer than mine. His relationship with his ex was almost 6 or 7 years I believe. I looked at him in awe as he seemed so well-adjusted compared to my emotional state of mind. At that point in time, every other sentence I said mentioned my ex and how badly I was dealing with it. I asked him how he took the break-up and how he got through it, and he gave me a very good bit of advice which I did not fully appreciate at the time. He said to me “You can now be responsible for your own happiness”. I didn’t get it at the time, I was just too caught up in my drama and grief to get the simplicity and genius of those words he imparted to me.
Months on from this piece of advice, I now get it. In my relationship, I became too focused on keeping my partner happy and doing whatever they wanted as this was what I believed was healthy and necessary for the relationship. I noticed upon reflection that historically, whenever a relationship of mine whether platonic or romantic had become strained I would try extra hard to try and mend the gap. I would message more, put more effort in to cover their shortfall or compromise on things that shouldn’t have needed a compromise because I did not want to lose them and wanted them happy.
Obviously, typing out those words I realise how unhealthy that mentality is. I forgot my own needs and didn’t bother reinforcing healthy boundaries. I stopped communicating things that hurt my feelings as I felt they would just lead to arguments and frustration. When the relationship was rocky, so too was my emotional state of mind. I had revolved my entire being around the relationship.
Having spent several months single and not actively dating, I have done the one thing I had not done in a very long time; prioritise my own needs and happiness. I took up new hobbies like learning how to play the guitar. I travelled more. I improved my sense of style. I dated myself by taking myself on days out to new restaurants and experiences. I worked on being comfortable just being by myself. I was learning all the things I loved about life, and liked about myself independent from anyone else. I began a journey of being happy, genuinely happy. I made choices just for my benefit and made sure that I had my best interests at heart even if no one else around did.
No man is an island
I treat breakups as an opportunity for growth…once I have done my crying to sad songs, eating excessive amounts of junk food, watching rom-coms to make me cry more, and the mandatory period of self-loathing. After all that, I do reflect on why things went wrong and my part in it. It also allows me to look inward and figure out what is missing within me. One thing was that I was just so alone after the breakup. Often staring at a phone which I didn’t use to talk to anyone. I felt completely isolated, which is dramatic I know. It’s not like I didn’t have friends and I live at home with my family. Yet I felt alone, and I had to figure out why.
I think it was due to me not prioritising my pre-existing relationships with those in my life. This period of being single has allowed me the opportunity to spend more time with one of my brothers in particular. I was around more so we spoke more, and because of him, I am a little less lonely in my own home. We spend more time together and even recently spent my birthday together.
Similar attempts were made with my friends. An issue of mine is that I find it difficult to be emotionally vulnerable. I can be open sure, but that is easy. Talking about events and emotions that I have already processed and dealt with alone is a lot easier than telling someone what I am currently going through. These last few months I have tried to be genuinely vulnerable and deepen the bonds with my friends. This also includes communicating with my friends when something is wrong or bothering me instead of my usual pettiness and purposefully isolating myself.
I spent so long mourning a relationship that wasn’t a long part of my life. I felt like I was not enough for someone. When in actuality, I have many friends who have known me from the ages of 11 and 16 respectively that consistently asked to hang out and spend time with me. I regret not cherishing these bonds sooner, but I make sure to let them know now. I became more vulnerable by openly telling my friends and family more regularly that I loved them and that they mattered a lot to me, and in turn, they did the same back.
Wipe your own nose
On the flip side of deepening the emotional bonds with my friends and family, I have come to the stark truth of being an adult. Sometimes I am going to have to do things alone. Now obviously I have been aware of this, but post-university this truth has just become increasingly apparent. Whether it is starting a new job, travelling to a new country, or going after my own goals. Sometimes I am not going to have someone cheering me on and it is down to me to do the cheering.
One of the last things I said to my ex was “I don’t know where to put all the love I have for you”. Dramatic again, I know, but if you know me I am a very dramatic man. I have learnt over these few months that all the love I had for my ex I could simply put it back in me. I became resolute in that whatever I have to do in this life I must be prepared to do it alone. I learned that the right person could come along, but there is no guarantee how long they are going to stick around. Not everyone in my life will always demonstrate or give their support on the things I want in my life. If I wanted to do an activity, people were not always going to be available nor are they guaranteed to reschedule just for me. Essentially, I realised that if I have a runny nose there might not always be someone willing to wipe it for me. So instead of standing still and waiting like a snotty mess, I could simply just…wipe my own nose and get on with it.
Adulting keeps people busy. My friends and family are not always going to be around. So on days when I needed a pep talk, I had to just start giving myself that pep talk and challenging my negative thoughts. On days I was feeling down, it was up to me to pick myself back up. If I wanted to go to a concert and no one else was interested, I decided to simply keep myself company. This does become addicting actually. I started to enjoy my own company so much I had to remind myself to go back to inviting people to do things with me. I didn’t want to cut people off inadvertently but, to be honest, not having to coordinate times and dates with people became refreshing. I saw something I wanted to do and then I just did it.
My emotional journey after the break-up led to me figuring out what makes me happy. I became more confident in myself and I put more focus on the things I loved, and this included me. In my personal opinion the best thing for any of my future relationships whether romantic or platonic was to learn how to love myself. Due to this, I became far more comfortable just being alone without feeling lonely. Being comfortable in being alone, I stopped being afraid to say no to doing things I genuinely did not want to do with friends because I wasn’t scared to be alone instead. I stopped chasing responses from friends who did not want to make the effort to reply or hang out. I essentially stopped forcing relationships that were not beneficial and consumed my energy without reciprocation. This will most definitely help me going forward in any future relationships because I am less likely to settle at all. If my quality of life decreases with the addition of a new person, then I am more than able and happy to remove them because I’m comfortable in my own silence.
The Art of Letting Go and Moving Forward
One thing I have also struggled with is letting things go. Whether it was someone who slighted me, someone who said something nasty, and of course my most recent relationship. I kept replaying arguments and wishing I said something else and trying to reanalyse those critical moments for signs of relationship decay as if I could fix things retrospectively. I kept replaying all the best moments in the relationship wondering if I would ever experience any of that again. I dwelled on all the things I didn’t say and the plans that could now never be. I got angry, bitter and cruel towards myself. I created this mental labyrinth with only one job, to torture me for somehow not being omniscient. This definitely stunted my healing process because I just couldn’t see a way forward as I was still living in the past. It became obsessive. It robbed me of pleasant moments when my mind inevitably cycled back to my ‘failings’.
Eventually, I just had to realise that I did the best I could with what I knew and how I felt at the time. Wishing I did something different when that could never be an option was simply mental self-harm. By repeating all these moments I left the door of my relationship open when that door needed to be closed. Hindsight is a powerful thing, and it wasn’t fair to berate myself for trying my best with what I had at my disposal. I had to be kind to myself and the kindest thing I could do was to accept my mistakes and fault and just…move on. The art of letting go can be done in smaller steps leading to big changes. Letting go of things like someone cutting in front of me or yelling at me or being rejected from a job role. Harbouring these negative feelings long after the event had occurred was not healthy. Then with these smaller things, I could work myself up to the bigger things in the event I do face bigger rejections or setbacks. Going forward, I must remember that if I cannot change something then I have to let it go. If I can change it, then I must make the steps to changing it, and then I no longer have to fixate on it.
Now my dear reader…
…this is where you come in. If you read this far, then I say thank you. I also hope that after reading my emotional spiel some of it resonated with you. If you are dealing with a breakup either platonic or romantic then I hope this gave you some advice that reminds you that you are not alone. I hope you realise that you are enough whether alone or with someone. I hope you take some time to reflect on your past and current relationships and figure out how best to improve or heal your future/current ones. Jumping from one romantic relationship to another constantly and without emotional reflection is not healthy. If you take one thing from this article then take that. It is necessary for your personal growth to reflect on the end of a relationship and figure out why it ended whether you were at fault or not. This will be the biggest contributing factor for how healthy your future relationships are. If you go from relationship to relationship because you cannot bear to be alone then you are more likely to settle in your friendships and especially your partners.
It is easy for me to say this after I have now (more or less) processed the breakup, however, it took a lot of small steps to get here. It was not an overnight process. I am glad it all happened though. I am more in love with myself than ever. I am more confident and self-sufficient than ever. I can pick myself up when I am down should no one else be around. I hope that if you cannot do this now, you can do so one day. Learn to love yourself, so you don’t need anyone else to do that for you.
The Life Of Lazlo 
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