Dating : The Worst Kind of Breakup

I have experienced the worst kind of breakup not once, but two fucking times. This is the kind of breakup where there is no reason that feels good enough for the pain; the kind of breakup where you feel real feelings for the other person and still walk away. How frustrating. How tragic. How unfair. There was a time when this particular brand of breakup almost killed me. Years later, the same experience feels very different.

The first time I was left holding the bag I thought we had both agreed to carry was in college. I was young. I knew nothing about love or sex or healthy connections. I fell haphazardly for a boy who spent our early days showering me with affection, begging for a chance. I took that chance. I said yes and trusted I would be cared for. Too soon, I felt uncared for; undervalued, unappreciated. I would cry for hours in my room and right to his face. He consoled me sometimes, but nothing changed. I realized this was the most he could give, but I did not recognize the danger of conflating what he was willing to offer with what I was willing to accept. It wasn’t just that I was accepting the limitations of what he could give, I was accepting those same limitations as a measure of what I deserved.

I lived that way for a long time. I rationalized the sacrifice in different ways over the years, “We have a connection beyond words”, “We’re soulmates”, “When it’s good it’s so good”. These narratives were a guise for self-betrayal.

Betray myself I did; beyond attempts at break-ups, beyond knock-down-drag-out fights, beyond vitriol and hate and physical expressions of disdain. I devolved into a shell of my former self. I refused to “give up” on us and in that masochistic and misguided attempt at relational martyrdom, I gave up on myself.

It took me so long to stop clawing at that dead carcass, trying to bring it back to the glory of its former self. I fought until I had nothing left, until the only options that lay before me were death or defeat.

I still carry a lot of anger toward that younger version of myself. I judge her for being foolish and weak. I want to shake her and I want to hug her at the same time. I am working on forgiving her for what she did not know.

In a fateful repetition of experiences, I have been broken up with again! Like the first time, it is not for lack of feelings or instinctual connection, it is not for lack of great sexual chemistry or a superbly good beginning. We clicked from the day we met. It was different. It was scary. I was grateful. I did the work. When I was afraid to be vulnerable, I leaned in. When I noticed a need that wasn’t being met, I communicated it. When I felt hurt, I came from a place of generosity and gave my partner space to have his own feelings too.

All that work and it’s still over.

I’m on my own.

This time, the end is different. I’m right here. I did not abandon myself.

What’s the worst kind of break up? The kind where two people feel deeply for each other, have invested in each other, but still cannot actively choose each other. There is a difference between love and choice. I didn’t know this when I was young. I didn’t know that love points you in the right direction, but choice is what moves you towards genuine connection. If you are not choosing each other, you are moving away from each other.

My now-former partner struggles with depressive episodes. We called them his “melancholy moments”. Sometimes they would last a few hours, sometimes it would be days before he could pull himself through. I welcomed them into the relationship. They were hard, but they were real. When it felt particularly trying, I put distance between myself and “the story” that told me it was personal or because of me. I knew it wasn’t about me. I reminded myself that these experiences belonged to him and they were his to move through at his own pace. But as relationships go, the things that impact the You and the Me, will eventually impact the Us.

Most recently, he fell into an episode with no end in sight. I did all the things I normally do, including asking him how best I could support him, but nothing moved the needle. Our communication was sparse and our quality time together was non-existent. I watched him spiral right in front of me, with a sheet of bullet-proof glass between us. There was a younger, wounded part of me that was desperate to fix it; desperate to carry the entire load and accept a facade of the relationship in perpetuity. I thought to myself, “Ask for less”, “You don’t need anything!”. But the wiser, self-actualized parts of me knew better.

These parts know that greater sacrifice does not beget greater love. Healthy relationships are grounded in the safety of boundaries and communication. When you cannot ask for and receive what you need from your partner, you are betraying yourself and each other. These wiser parts know about the difference between love and choice, and every part of me knew that I wasn’t being chosen.

So here we are, officially without each other.

In my former role as a psychotherapist, this was perhaps one of the hardest things for which clients asked me to hold space. This grief work is relentlessly slow and universally painful. The beginning stages of healing are consistently marked by confusion, frustration, devastation, denial, and earth-shattering disappointment.

“Why” is the question that haunts us.

Why can’t it work? Why can’t he or she just try harder? What can’t they be with me if they really love me? Or worse, why do I still feel unappreciated even when he or she is claiming to try?

There are all sorts of reasons we stay, the same reasons why others cannot; our family systems, our belief systems, our fears, our self-doubt. But there is no amount of logic to quell the pain of heartbreak. There are no answers that will really satisfy our yearning to understand. I’ve seen it and I’ve been through it and I know the inescapable truth: it just hurts like fucking hell. Don’t look for ways to run away from it. The irony of pain is that if you welcome it in, it will not stay for very long.

We don’t get to control our partner’s experience. We don’t get to make them show up for us. We only get to show up for ourselves. No matter what you’ve been told, by a parent, an ex, or that voice in your head: you deserve to be chosen.

My wounded parts still really struggle with all of this, but in the wake of seemingly unbearable pain one thought brings me great peace: I chose myself. I spoke up for myself. I asked for what I needed. I was patient, I was generous, I was true. I did the work. I admitted mistakes. I was vulnerable. I left it all on the field, but I’m still walking off at the end of a losing game feeling whole.

It will take all of my parts to move through this; to heal, and to open myself back up to the next great adventure.

It turns out the words I used to say to him in his moments of darkness are the same I owe to myself…

“I’m still here.”