Boyfriend of 2 years (best friend of 6) just told me he’s started seeing someone else. No discussion. Just ghosted me for a week and hit me with this news. Thought he was my soulmate, lmao. I feel like someone just ripped out my insides. Just turned 31 this year, this shit is not any easier than when I was a teenager.
How did you make it through that first night? The second? The third? Is it really just time? I feel like my body is too old to survive another heartbreak.
My little piece of advice: you don’t have to think about the future, tomorrow, next week, they are all far off. Think about now, this hour, the next 5 minutes, or whatever stretch of time seems manageable. What do you do now? Cook dinner? Watch a show? Cry in the shower? The future might be scary and too much to manage now. You’ll handle it when you get to it. Now, you only have to think about right now.
Verbena tea is calming and soothing. Lavender is relaxing. Green tea for me is a calming ritual.
You got this. Maybe it doesn’t feel like it, but you only need to do one step, and you got that one step.
Everyone here is so kind it’s making me cry even harder, lmao. Thank you. Thank you so much for your perspective, and for your encouragement. Your confidence in me makes me feel a lot stronger. my mind gets really caught up in what ifs and just general dread around the future when what I need to do is just be present in the now.
Just wish the right now wasn’t so lonely.
It’s already a day later! You got this, the hardest part is flowing by. How are you doing?
I don’t think there’s magic one size fits all answer to this, it really sucks you have to deal with it. Avoid destructive behaviours like drinking until you pass out etc, they won’t help in the long term. Do you have any friends IRL you can call on?
Yeah. I’ve been talking to my sister and best friend about it. It’s late though, and they need to sleep so I’m also trying not to bother them too much right now. The loneliness and pain is honestly just overwhelming. I haven’t felt this bad since I lost my dog and that absolutely destroyed me. The night I lost her I drank until I passed out and I think I did that for the next couple of weeks.
I don’t want to do that again but I do need to numb the pain or I’ll lose my mind from lack of sleep
Don’t drink. Cry. It sounds stupid, bit crying out all the pain might help. Do not run from it. Go through it and cry again if you need to. If you can do so safely, drive and scream in the car. Or break some stuff that you do not need anymore (like plates or something).
I have been through some traumatising stuff and the only thing that helps is not to run, but to go through it. I promise you, there will be a peak in pain and then it will reduce and the next peak will be less severe. This will go on and the pain will become less and less. As long as you keep breathing, you can handle it.
Thank you so much for this perspective. Thinking about it like that makes it easier to think about the future and be aware in my present. That being said, I’m hoping this is the highest peak because if it isn’t, I am not going to make it. My threshold for pain is in the negative digits.
I know I need to feel feelings to actually process them. I don’t think it’s fully hit me yet how drastically my life just changed. It makes me feel destructive and defeated at the same time. I want to jump out of my skin.
I went through something similar as you last year. I’m still not completely over her, still think about her daily, but it’s a distant past now.
Whatever happens, you are still you. Whatever pain you feel, it won’t change you unless you let it to. Use it to learn something about yourself, get stronger, learn to enjoy it. But never forget that you’re in charge, and that those feelings will pass.
I can understand that it feels that this is the maximum you can cope with. But as long as you keep breathing, you still exist and you can cope. I can promise you that if you go through it instead of around it, it will get better. I cannot promise you exactly when or how high the peaks will be, but I can promise you that as long as you keep breathing you can cope.
My little sister died from anorexia, I had a miscarriage, my parents emotionally neglected and emotionally abused me as a child and several other traumatising stuff happened. I know pain. I do not underestimate yours. But this is how I dealt with it and I think it will help you too.
I sincerely feel for you. But the pain has a function. You need it to process and you need to feel it to eventually be able to make a new and happy life for yourself. Just keep breathing and go through the waves. I know you can do it.
Soulmate is a fabrication. You find someone you like that likes you. You can tolerate their downsides and they can tolerate yours. GGG in the sack. Willing to work things out. There is no such thing as the perfect match but there are lots of people out there that will sit pretty high on your list. When you find one of them give it a go, hope it will work out, but it won’t always go the way you want. Eventually it will stick or it won’t, either way you’ve had a good time of it and start the next part of your adventure.
Da real MVP, right here.
I’ve been with my wife going on 20 years. She drives me insane at times and I her. I’m willing to look through her annoyances because she looks through mine. Before I met my wife I had one relationship I was 100% was THE ONE™️. She wasn’t. Neither will OP’s be. Break ups are hard, and they’re hard not to take personally, but they are just another person’s opinion.
The next one will come, most likely when you least expect it and have resigned yourself to “it won’t happen”.
Yes! Compatibility is a spectrum. GGG is so important. Dan Savage has some good advice on that topic.
What’s GGG in this context? Good guy Greg??
Edit: it means Good, Giving and Game!
You feel vulnerable and it’s okay. Sounds like you need to realize you dodged a bullet.
About the question, remember that you are you and the only things that you need to keep going is to breath, to drink water, to eat and to keep yourself healthy. Everything else are probably ideas in your head that can change at any time. If you are struggling, remember to breath deeply. It will be okay.
I turned on my computer and started to play mass effect 2… during 48h.
Slept a bit.
Call my family and friends to go out and not be alone.
Continue living.
Two years later I met my actual partner and we have a beautiful life with two incredible kids.
Just remember: losing someone hurts but is not the end, the heart heals.I’ve tried many things in this situations (seeing other girls, distracting with alcohol/drugs, etc) but they all just seem to alleviate the pain when they just throw it under the rug for a while.
For me, the best way to handle this has been to face my pain altogether. This pain does not come from this event. It is my own ancient pain that has been triggered by my now ex. Staying with the pain, listening to it, feeling it in your body and letting it be there is a transformative act.
I recommend listening to Pema Chödron’s videos or books. Maybe “When things fall apart”. I personally have been helped a lot by doing the “tonglen” meditation.
The shock gave me a fever that stayed with me for two weeks and I felt really tired, so I went to bed at like 8pm on most nights. Saw a therapist (wasn’t much help, but it was worth a shot). Told my boss about it who said I could take any time off that I needed. Told my coworkers so they’d know why I might not be working full time and would have trouble concentrating in the upcoming weeks. It was a relief that I didn’t have to be at the top of my game at work and nobody would judge me.
It got better after about three months. She kept doing new things that hurt me though so the pain kept returning for a full year, until it finally sunk in that she can’t be trusted and we’ll never become friends again. At that point I just tried to let her know as little as possible about my life, to give her fewer ways to hurt me. We still have to talk because we have shared custody of two kids.
Several years later I started seeing a therapist again because I just couldn’t stop feeling recurrent anger and anxiety related to her. After telling the therapist about everything that had happened they basically said I shouldn’t see my ex at all. Not let her into my home, and when I leave the kids with her I can say goodbye to them at the parking lot. It took so much weight off my shoulders when I didn’t have to force myself to act like we were close friends in front of the kids.
Moral of the story: Go no contact and fully accept right now that you’re never going back. Begin anew. You have your whole life in front of you.
The night of the breakup I went to my best bud’s house and talked and smoked for hours. After that, I worked on myself, started reading again, going to the gym again and finally got myself checked out by a psychiatrist and a psychologist. I had been putting all of that off for a long time and if there was ever a more cliche time to start, it was then.
Been about 2 years, half of what I was with her, and I still sometimes wish I had someone like her. I miss the connection I had with her. We went through a lot and at the time I thought I’d marry the girl. Then covid happened, some family tragedies, and suddenly our vibe was off. Sucks, but it woulda sucked more if it happened years later in life.
It was easier for me than it was for her, though. I’ve got issues regarding failure (not sure how else to word it). Whenever something might go tits up, I emotionally distance immediately. Job opportunities, dying pets, relationships, same defensive mechanism. Causes more trouble than it avoids, honestly, because I never know when to trust a gut feeling, or to stop being like this.
I still don’t feel 100%, but I wasn’t 100% when we broke up. Not looking for anything new, or to start up anything old again either.
Quite sudden breakup after almost 16 years. He didn’t love me anymore.
I made it through the first night listening to a recording of my mom reading my two favourite child books to me when I was three (these recordings were originally done on tape, but I digitalised them a few years ago and they are a bit of an auditory security blanket). That helped me through the night. Next morning, completely numb, I went to a bakery and bought something to eat, then I drove over to my best friend where I spent the whole day, crying and cursing but also laughing and most importantly talking. At the end of that, I was in a mindset where I knew this would hurt like fuck but it was better this way.
What followed were six weeks where my ex still lived in the same apartment and slept in the same room (we didn’t split in a fight, it simply was over), I fled to my best friend once per week and worked from there (self employed) and spent my weekends Friday afternoon till Sunday evening at my parents. I talked a lot with friends and family, took lengthy walks and overall just tried to make it through every day.
Once my ex was gone for good, my best friend came over for three days and helped with a deep clean of the apartment and setting up some new furniture to replace what he’d taken with him. Then I started my new life.
All I can say is, it gets better, it gets easier, and in hindsight it was one of the best things that happened to me.
It was in August of 2018, after almost 16 years. In January of 2020 I met my new partner who taught me what I’d missed in all that time.
As I was told by someone, you are going through the grieving process. One moment, you’ll be sad, then angry, then accepting, and then angry and sad at the same time. Your grieving process is unique. Time and distance does help.
When my ex-fiancé ended things almost out of the blue. I slept most of the time. When I was sleeping, I didn’t have to think about being dumped. I reached out to people to get the support system going. I wrote a letter to them, a very angry and emotional letter. Then I re-wrote it. I read that letter to my ex-fiancé to try to get back together. I purged and clean my apartment, made plans to back to school and get a Bachelors of Law, and even started learning a new language so I could move to a new country. Having a plan for the future helped a lot even if it was slightly insane.
They wrote a response letter confirming their decision. I spent the next several months trying to get over the anger that was there. I went solo camping and did a hike. I ate a low dose of magic mushrooms and wrote my response out. I found that a lose dose of magic mushrooms was able to break down walls and allow me to think about everything in different manner. While that helped with the process, it didn’t get rid of the anger. I did eventually send my last attempt letter/here are some things you can grow on too/thank you letter to my ex-fiancé.
I went on a lot of hikes and talked to people about the anger that would never go away. Eventually it was suggested that I write everything out and burn it.
I decided to go camping with someone to a place that was at least 3 hour drive away. Ate another low dose of magic mushrooms and sat in the middle of a water fall writing out the most angry letter ever. Then I burned the letter right there with the original draft of the last attempt letter/here are some things you can grow on too/thank you letter. As it was pointed out to me the symbolism of writing an angry letter right in the middle of water being turbulent was on point. It helped that the river before and after the falls was extremely calm, which represented the before and after the break up. I let all the negative energy be purified by the flame and water.
I went back to the campsite and wrote another letter, however this was all positive about my summer and what I achieved and looking forward too. I preceded to burn it in the fire to release all the positive energy back into the universe. As the magic mushrooms were telling me that needed to be done. The next day, I went on long and difficult hike to help cement the symbolism of moving onto a new adventure.
While the anger tries to flare up once and awhile, I tell myself that there is no need to be angry anymore. I got out of my system.
The final two pieces of advice; if you can, go no contact with them. Having them in your life is going to prevent the healing. I still love my ex-fiancé however having them in my life as a friend would only lead to major problems for both of us. The second piece, you’re never going to truly going to get over it, it’s like the death of a family member or the loss of a good friendship. It’s part of your life now. You learn to live with it.
Scientifically speaking, yes, it takes time for your body to rebalance your hormones that love inbalanced, and messed up. Good news, it won’t take so long.
First of all I’m so sorry to hear what you’re going through. It’s gonna hurt, and they are times when you may feel things are too much. Just take things a day at a time, if that’s too long take it an hour at a time or so on. I’d you have friends or family you can rely on spend time with them.
My first relationship was a 2 year one with a friend too. I blocked her on everything and cut out anything in my life that reminded me of her and immediately tried dating again, mistake for me. There will be times where you think you hear his voice and there will be a smell that reminds you of them.
It’s ok to feel hurt sad blindsided all that. My DMs are open if you want to talk about anything as well if you don’t feel comfortable talking to someone you know. I was 23 when I went through my first breakup but 31 is not too old. My mother-in-law found live at 70 so you’re never too old.
Spent the night playing on my computer.
Can’t really recall if Fallout or Silent Storm but got out of the chair the next day to go to work feeling tired but relaxed from the amount of gratuitous violence I could inflict on imaginary figures to vent all the feelings of betrail and disappointment I had felt when it happened. Over SMS.
🎶 oh, I can so just sit here and cry 🎶
but fr what worked well for me was blocking, deleting, getting rid of (or stuffing into a rarely used closet) anything that reminded me of them, then distracting myself 24/7 long enough to later process my emotions with a little bit of distance from the event itself - not to block out the feelings but to just avoid ruminating on them.
Mostly the point was buying time to provide my monkey brain with hard proof that I can survive without that person, that way it stops shooting me up with the Bad Chemicals every time I think of them.
I used it as fuel to make positive changes in my life. Not just breakups, but any time life throws something really awful my way, I try to make an effort to use it as a force good. Breakups, deaths, job loss, etc. Be a better you, quit smoking, get fit, learn a new skill. Things I normally wouldn’t be motivated to follow through, i do.
Sorry you’re going through this. Try to remember that it will get easier in time. Accept it wasn’t meant to be, and know there’s a version of you in the future, looking back at this knowing it was all worth it to find the person right for you.