When someone you’ve been seeing for a few months tells you that he’s getting back together with his ex-girlfriend, effectively ending your relationship, you’re naturally a little giddy. It doesn’t help that it’s at your favorite bar on a Saturday night, you’re sleep-deprived and you’ve got six double G&Ts between you. Passers-by turned to you as he emphasized how heartbroken he was that you were “so much fun.” He tells you that you are very cool, very pretty, very smart, very funny. “You’re hot,” he added, “I really rate you.” To your brain, the subtext is crystal clear: I like making love to you but I don’t like YOU. Surely you think, if the ground split in two and swallowed you at that moment, you would be grateful.
After you break up with your boyfriend of three and a half years, you convince yourself that nothing can compare to the discomfort, especially something that was basically meant to go away. Somehow, this pain takes over you. With the breakup of the relationship, you were in pain for almost a year. Occasionally it will turn on. This pain feels very hot and restless. You tried your best to put it aside, but it was always on your mind.
On Instagram, a woman asked the camera if anyone could explain why breaking up for three months was more painful than breaking up from her five-year relationship. It’s a question that seems to come up again and again.
The reason a relationship breakup can be more painful than the breakup of a previous relationship is because usually, one person doesn’t realize it. Given the circumstances, it’s fun, full of fireworks — you never know what will happen. You never know if it will turn into a relationship or just for the time being. With a relationship, you know where it is headed. Uncertainty is part of the appeal of the situation.
In long-term relationships, there is usually an awareness, even if subconsciously, of when the relationship will end. There may be a discussion (or several) before the breakup actually occurs. You may even get back together a few times before you actually decide to call it quits. Because you’ve done that preparation, it doesn’t hurt as much… The burn is a little slower.
The spontaneous, undefined nature of a situation can mean that you quickly go from talking to each other every day to being unfollowed, ghosted or blocked without a word. iMessage threads are deleted. There’s a natural desire to know for sure why he didn’t choose you, what you did wrong, and what you could have done better. At the same time, there is a belief that you have no right to ask because the person was never legally yours. “I feel like we’re in this culture, if I can’t call you my girlfriend, you don’t have the right to question my feelings or question my authenticity or question where this relationship is going.”
There are ways to try and mitigate this kind of downward spiral, which is very common when you feel as if control has been taken out of your hands. For people who do not have a secure attachment style, separation can be especially painful, because it confirms fears developed during childhood: that someone they care about may one day leave them, or be unreliable. Long-term relationships that were once secure usually don’t generate the same level of anxiety. If you are with someone for a longer time and both of you have identified that I am yours and you are mine, [breaking up] does not activate feelings of abandonment or fear of dependency per se.
Having an insecure attachment style can mean that you are instinctively drawn to the insecure nature of a situation and the people who accompany it, even though it makes you constantly feel anxious. Check out what makes you feel safe and comfortable. Do the people you keep trying to reach out to make you feel safe? Or do they remind you of an earlier life experience? Once you know what you need to feel comfortable in a situation, communicate this and set clear boundaries so that you don’t take the situation any further than you are prepared to take it. Opening up (beyond established boundaries) can risk emotional dependency, which is not the purpose of the situation.
To make the pain stop, you need to forgive yourself for being so upset that it ended. You have to (albeit reluctantly) admit that you really like this person and that you in no way anticipate that they will choose someone else, even though they have every right to. You need to talk to your own therapist about it, climb into your best friend’s bed and cry about it, write about it.
