If you’ve gone through a difficult breakup, you know it’s one of the most painful experiences you’ll endure, despite being an everyday occurrence. You go from seeing this person regularly, making them your biggest confidant, trusting them with the most intimate parts of yourself, to…well, oftentimes, becoming complete strangers.
Grieving someone who is still alive, but no longer in your life, packs a cruel kind of pain.
But breakups happen. People fall out of love, prioritize different parts of their lives, or merely realize they’re not compatible. Not to mention, we’re all just humans trying our best to navigate difficult situations. Love stories, even tragic ones, don’t always have a villain.
That being said, some people consciously take advantage of their ex-partner’s vulnerability throughout the breakup. And if you’ve fallen victim to this type of toxic dynamic or person, you’re not alone. You’re not weak. You’re not damaged.
You can overcome the breakup shame, and you can break the cycle and walk away.
Overcoming breakup shame
I haven’t always had the easiest experiences when it comes to dating. It wasn’t until my mid-20s that I learned how a trauma from my formative years was impacting how I showed up in my romantic relationships.
Early on in life, I developed a habit of blaming myself. I felt I was damaged beyond repair, and so I made myself small and centered others in my own world. I rarely, if ever, voiced my needs, but I thrived (or so I thought) while meeting and exceeding others’ expectations of me.
Essentially, I was operating from a place of chronic shame.
Needless to say, breakups have always been a sore spot for me. As the only person in my family who didn’t marry her high school or college sweetheart and have kids before age 30, I started to feel like something was wrong with me for not being able to move on quickly and find “the one.”
During a breakup, you’re supposed to be your biggest supporter and fiercest advocate. But instead, I was my own worst enemy.
I’d tell myself it was embarrassing to keep “failing.” I kept tabs on how many times I thought I’d found love when really I found another lesson. I blamed myself for the end of the few relationships I did have, and I isolated for months, sometimes years, in between to avoid getting hurt again.
Not to mention, it takes a lot for me to really like someone, and even more for me to feel safe with them.
But I’ve come to accept there’s nothing wrong with that. I realized I am allowed to be human. I am allowed to feel deeply and grieve intensely, but I am also allowed to love freely and start over. I am allowed to voice my needs, and I am allowed to walk away from people who can’t or won’t meet them.
There’s no failing in relationships. You learn, you evolve, and you share time with someone you enjoy, until maybe you don’t anymore. Maybe you grow apart, or maybe they end up being someone you didn’t think they were. And maybe that’s okay.
Navigating a Split with a toxic ex
Oftentimes, we don’t enter a relationship knowing the other person has malicious intentions or a selfish way of handling conflict. Otherwise, I think most of us would steer clear of such individuals to begin with.
However, people tend to show their true colors when they’re either A) not getting what they want from you, or B) watching you move on from the relationship, even if they were the ones who ended it.
Many unhealed exes will try to lure you back in for their own benefit, even if they don’t intend to work things out with you. I had an ex who would constantly “check in” to remind me he missed me, thought I was beautiful, wanted to see me/take me on dates, was dreaming of/thinking about me, and still loved me. When I’d tell him it was hurtful to hear those things without action, he would say he just “wasn’t in the place for a relationship.”
As it turned out, he was perfectly capable of commitment. Just not when it came to me.
I remember sinking to the floor of my shower and feeling like the walls were closing in on me every time he reached out, as it would open the wound all over again and undo any progress I’d made. I would sob and panic at the idea that I would never have this person in my life again. I’d never feel his arms around me in the morning, never hear his gentle reassurance when I was struggling, never laugh with him in the car or sing my lungs out at our favorite band’s concert again.
But I had to realize that those facts would not kill me, no matter how tight they made my chest. No matter how sick they made my stomach. They couldn’t really hurt me.
They also weren’t reasons to stay with this new version of that person, the version who weaponized my vulnerability against me and used my weakest moments to crawl back in for his own selfish fulfillment.
I know it can feel like your world is falling apart when you lose someone you love, but sometimes, that’s exactly what needs to happen so you can rebuild on solid ground.
As soon as I cut off this ex and truly wished him well, my life turned around. I found a new therapist. I started channeling more energy into my writing career. I made an incredible group of friends. I tried things that scared me just to prove that I was brave. I got back in touch with my independence and embraced my solitude—something I always loved about myself. I traveled more often, even if it was just weekend trips a few states away.
And after months of healing on my own, I fell in love with someone new, someone who makes me question why I ever accepted that kind of behavior from my ex in the first place.
Not to sound like a toxic positivity influencer, but life and love really do have their ways of working out. And sure, that doesn’t mean everything will go according to plan and you’ll never get hurt again. But there will always be new opportunities to take, new people to meet, new memories to make. Don’t deprive yourself of that luxury.
The post I Left Breakup Shame and Toxic Exes Behind, and You Can Too appeared first on VICE.
