The end of a relationship

You name the online article on getting over relationships and there is a chance I may have read it yet here I am writing my own. One word I never really understood until last Summer was the word 'heartbreak'. Sure, I knew the definition 'Overwhelming distress. An unforgettable tale of joy and heartbreak' (www.oxforddictionaries.com) but when it came to actual romance the feeling was something I had only been touched by lightly in my thirty years of life. When it hit me with a bang last July (see the previous blog entry to learn of my experience in fuller detail) it was like a tornado ripping through my world tearing everything in its path and ripping the heart out of my soul. Now it's nearly a year on I feel like I am almost out the other side and I am currently rebuilding everything that was destroyed with the help of a very caring very lovely man. I feel it's important to explain that instead of taking advice on what to do to ease your suffering, you have to go through it naturally no matter how painful. One thing I did learn during my online education was that there are many processes you go through as you grieve the end of your relationship, that they can come in any order and that they are all part of the healing process. I learnt through my own extremely painful journey that it is very important that you allow yourself to mourn this loss and I cannot stress how important this is. You cannot wake up one day and be 'over it' and expecting that to happen can defer or hamper your progress. It really is like a death. You not only lose the actual person but you lose the future plans you had made with them, the lifestyle you had built up with them and the person you became when you were with them. So here is a brief insight into my heartbreak and how I dealt with each process, I hope it helps you in some way or that you can at least feel like someone else has been there.

First of all I would like to say that no matter who put an end to the romance everyone deals with the end of a relationship in a different way. Some people feel the need to distract or pacify themselves with drink, partying, casual sex. Some people (myself included) even post excessive 'fun' photos on social network sites of them having a good time in order to try and convince their ex that they are okay or to try and make them realise what they are missing. Other people quickly move on to another relationship which in my opinion is pretty dangerous because it can cause a transference of feelings that you had for your ex. This means you can convince yourself that you love the new person when actually you are just attaching your previous love to them. The reason for doing this is often because either subconsciously or not you are suppressing or denying emotions you feel unable to cope with as dealing with them is too painful. One of my ex's did this and despite declaring to me that he didn't want children he got the new girl pregnant within three months of us splitting up. I did still feel hurt by this and sort of betrayed but I tried to concentrate on the fact that for me there had been zero spark between us. If I had been madly in love with him this would have totally devastated me and scarred my emotional self for life. As you will read below, following the break up of my last relationship I began to understand the need to seek solace somewhere else in order to dampen your pain. Sometimes the grief is so intense you need a distraction. Three years on I just feel pleased for the guy who moved on quickly as he seems happy and I know I could never have loved him enough or been what he wanted me to be and Its not like I have ever craved children anyway! I am not a big fan of babies to be honest ! That relationship was complicated and I may talk about it in another blog entry but it was in its own way an important part of my life as it taught me so much.

 Now I am going to talk about people who struggle to get over a relationship that meant something, people like me. If like me you were the one to initially end the relationship I believe you will at some point experience doubt and it's likely that you will experience it many times and that it will always be the background emotion in your grieving process. If it helps you, try to imagine it as the sinister noise of the drill when you sit in your dentists waiting room. No matter what else is going on or what other sound is playing nothing can cover it up and it chips away at something you have no control over. I cried for over a week almost non stop and I kept questioning my decision and seeking reassurance from anyone that would listen. My head was a total mess because as you may have read in my previous post it had been played with for months. I admit I signed up for a dating website within two days because I was trying to convince myself that it was okay, that I had done the right thing and (excuse the pun) that there were 'plenty more fish in the sea'. I wanted to know if other men still found me attractive and that I could move on if that's what I chose to do yet I soon began to realise I was just looking for a clone of my ex but without his obvious flaws. I also seemed to only notice the negative points in other men's profiles. Because they didn't know the full story a lot of people couldn't understand why I had finished a relationship with someone I loved so their opinions would often increase my doubts. I then started to focus only on the good memories and I started to mourn the loss of our physical relationship which I realise now was totally lacking in any emotional intimacy. I actually felt hollow, sort of asexual and deeply concerned that I would never ever want anyone to touch me ever again. I looked down at my body and it felt like it didn't belong to me. Due to my past it had been very difficult to let someone into my life in that way and it felt very strange now letting him out. It felt like my body was tainted with memories of his touch and that I would never be able to erase them and let someone else replace them. This made the doubts grow out of control and led me to establishing contact via text and then on his suggestion meeting up a few times. During these meetings he sent me very mixed messages such as telling me not to bend over to pick something up as I would give him 'ideas', calling me 'sweetie' (I know, yuk right?) and then saying he hoped that the sexual attraction would 'wear off' and declaring 'I can't be in a relationship right now'. The mixed signals messed with my head unbelievably, it literally sent me crazy (I hate that word). I began to want to try our relationship again and made it clear this was my intent yet he never gave me a clear response. I kept going back for more hurt, for more unbelievably confusing conversations which he purposely turned into arguments so he would later have ammunition to blame me for the fact that it would never work as we 'constantly argued'. He danced around and around the question of us getting back together, never actually speaking the words and he successfully manipulated me into taking the blame for the entire relationship going wrong.. Bang.....another grieving process, blame.

Blame is a strong emotion in itself but it can be interlaced with many other emotions  especially intense disappointment. I blamed myself for loads of things and he got me to tell him all my faults, all the things I had done wrong. He also made me apologise for these. As I sit here now I am disgusted I did that, that I let him do that to me, that I almost begged him to give me another chance saying I could change. However, everything I did was against the advice of everyone around me and I have to say I think it's very important that you do what YOU feel you need to do. It's your life, it's your future and it really is better to feel that you did everything you could and you followed your heart, even if it made the break deeper. I think its only the things you didn't say, the things you didn't do that you regret. So yes I made the heartbreak worse but I did what I had to do and I am proud of that.

I had one last phone call with Mr X, this was the one where he got me to take the entire blame but it was also the one where his true colours came out. It was like a different person was speaking to me, the person I had always worried he was. I put down the phone and cried so hard I thought I was going to pass out. I called my friend and he left everything and literally ran to my house to be with me. This showed me what it truly felt like for someone to care about you. That's when it hit me like a lightning bolt. In that very second my love for him became a pile of smouldering ashes as I realised what he had done to me. I realised I hadn't really wanted him back, I had wanted the lifestyle back. Over the next few weeks came the realisation stage where I began to realise that my relationship with Mr X had been nothing but disappointment after disappointment and that my decision had been absolutely right but something that I should have probably done months before. Up until this point I had defended him to everyone around me. No matter what he said, what he did, I either took the blame myself or gave an explanation for his behaviour. As I became more honest with myself and looked at the massive negatives, I saw him for what he was, a little boy trapped in a man's body. When I told people the full story they said I had made a lucky escape and I now realised they were right. I started to understand that it wasn't me to blame, sure I had my own faults and I accepted them but a lot of them were caused or at least made worse by him. Everything that I explained in my previous post (Narcissism , a clever chameleon) came to light and suddenly it was like I had found the missing pieces of the jigsaw. I even started to question what it was I loved about him because to be honest after the first three months when he put on his best behaviour, there wasn't a lot to him. After the realisation phase the sadness phase resurfaced but this time it was a sadness at myself for letting someone so cold into my life, my heart, my home and my bed. Throughout the entire process the sadness is truly and utterly overwhelming. It is such an intense feeling of hurt I cannot begin to describe it but I wouldn't wish it in my worst enemy. It is all consuming and it does actually feel like someone has reached into your chest and removed your heart. It feels like it will never heal but if you let the people around you into your life at this time it really helps.

Eventually came anger and lots of it. Anger at him for being such a cold hearted prick and anger at myself for being with someone like that. I wanted to shout at him and tell everyone what he had done (or more to the point, not done). I wanted to hit him and scream at him.The thing I still struggle with is the fact I gave almost two years of my life to someone who just didn't love me. I still have that anger today, it's fading slowly but I think I may hold onto it for a while yet and I have accepted that. Acceptance is a good thing, it's almost cathartic and it allows you to start to trust again, to want to share your life again. I had made the decision to stay single for a couple of years because I felt I would never get over the pain and if I did I knew I could never go through that kind of hurt again yet I write this as someone who has a new man in her life. This twist in my love life was totally unexpected and a strange yet lovely surprise. This man is someone who totally adores me and who I know will never ever hurt me.  So let me tell you that no matter where you feel you are right now, no matter what you think, there is light at the end of the tunnel and eventually you will accept its over and you will fall out of love.