Everyday there is a couple breaking up, and for various reasons…You are a constant cheat! You treat me like one of your boys! You slept with my sister/ best friend! You flirted with the neighbor! You always forget my birthday and the occasions that matter to me! You don’t care enough! You are never supportive of anything I do …  and so many more reasons.

Anyway, it’s never easy going through a break up and especially a break up where one cheated on the other. But to heal and forget about the person and the heartache caused, it will take some understanding…understanding the process of every break-up! The break up process that everyone goes through.

 “The five emotional stages of post break-up.”

So what happens in this process?

In most cases, we want to be treated like royalty, like you mean the world and probably more to that person you are in a relationship with. So, most of the time, immediately after a break up we want to imagine that the other person’s life will never be the same without us so we hope against hopes that they will try to come back into our lives. That they will  try and make things right again because that is the ‘normal’ that we know. Denial is what it is called.

Right! you cannot find any reason why he should just leave you without a fight. I mean, you gave him everything and you believe he’ll never ever find anyone who will treat him or know how to handle and tolerate him like you did. You believe no one will ever make him happy like you did.

You keep hoping that he will come to his senses and put his foot down and convince you with tears in his eyes that he can’t live without you. That he is miserable without you in his life. That he will apologize profusely and then sweep you off your feet all over again …but then he doesn’t and you cannot just understand what’s happening…nothing makes sense in this stage even food doesn’t taste good anymore and you don’t know how to get through the day without him. Without his texts. Without his constant calls. You can’t remember life without him hence for a minute everything is just a blur and you are well.. miserable! But there’s still a bit of hope that that phone will ring or you’ll get that unexpected knock on your door. A knock that will come with flowers and your man in that proverbial shining armor suit.

Then comes Anger when time passes and nothing has happened. You can’t bear to imagine that he doesn’t miss you… even a bit! And you feel like taking that phone and insulting him like you were made to hurl insults at people. You are angry at yourself that you even expected him to call despite how nasty he was to you. Despite what he did or didn’t do that made you super annoyed at him in the first place. You are even angrier when you start inviting the idea that he could be with someone else already and doesn’t even care to check up on you while your life is a mess such that you can’t even concentrate fully at anything.

You literally camp on his “Facebook” page to see if some random woman wrote on his wall and you want to punch something  when you see him in looking all happy and having the time of his life  in tagged  photos….without you!!! And for all that, you want to take the “cursing dictionary” and hit him on the head with it. I mean, how uncaring can he be when all you wanted was for him  to call and ask to have you back in his life just so that you can say NO and have the upper hand in all that?

Of course now you start Bargaining with your head and heart. You tell yourself that it is better that he is out of your life and you even pity the poor soul in the form of the woman in his life at the moment. You pity that she will have to put up with all those crappy things he does that made you feel awful.

You might even toy with the idea of looking her up  so that you can put a face to the poor soul that you have chosen to put all your pitying energy on.

Then you tell yourself that it is better that he is not in your life anymore. You list the pros and cons of that relationship in your head and you are happy to find that the cons outweigh the pros and that puts your soul in peace albeit for just a bit.

Depression– Everyone around you  is happy and  in a relationship. All you see on the streets and on TV are couples. Couples everywhere!! Cute couples, ugly couples in love, looking so happy, holding hands, kissing, feeding each other, cuddling and you so want that. You miss having that all to yourself. You miss those Sunday afternoons together and you just feel sad 🙁 . You don’t want to hear what everyone is telling you…that “you are better off without him anyway” that “you will meet the man you are meant to spend the rest of your life with and who will match all the qualifications in your check list”. You just want to be left alone… to be depressed in peace. To eat your soul out… or not. To drink as much as you want… or not. To grow thin…or fat! All in peace. Or is it possible to be let to sleep for a year?…That’s all you are asking for.

After wallowing in self pity for a while you let your heart come round. It is called Acceptance. You slowly forget about him, you take up another interest and stop seeing him in everything you do. You can even go to “your” fave restaurant and have a meal without missing him. You may think of the beautiful memories you had and smile…knowing that it is no more and it is for the better.  You even hope that he is happy wherever he is. In your hearts of hearts you know that you will build better memories with somebody else and that will be when you realize that there is a life after him. Hey, even food tastes good again and… that is how you know you have survived a break-up!

 

PS:  The process works both ways…yep! Even guys go through the stages of a break up.