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Dealing With A Break Up

Breaking up with your fella is painful, there's no two ways about it. As I wrote this article I was personally dealing with my own break up and I wanted to share my thoughts and feelings in the hope that they will help you.

So, here goes...

It's a week to the day I last saw him and I've cried enough this past week to sink a ship! So, the first thing I want to say is, splitting up with a man you love or are deeply connected to stinks. It can hurt so much that you don't know if you're going to make it through the day. The tears and deep sadness can wash over you and feel like they're drowning you at times, just go with them and if you can, give yourself time to heal.

Call friends and family and let them know what's happened and then let them help. Often we can be martyrs and say ‘I'm OK, don't worry about me,' but deep down you do need someone to turn up at your door, give you a big hug, make you eat some food and to just be there for you to cry and talk with.
You may not feel like going out for a while, that's OK, don't beat yourself up here. You're going through a grieving process and need to give yourself time to heal but if you can venture out, maybe have a coffee with friends and talk things through it can really help you to recover more quickly. Take it one step at a time and one day at a time.

This past week has been awful for me, but thankfully I have an amazing sister who came to stay for a night and brought me a book called ‘ I can mend your broken heart' by Paul Mckenna and Hugh Willbourn

Do take a look at it by clicking here:

She was there for me as were certain friends and that has helped me hugely to get through the dark days and be able to write this a week on.

I do subscribe to the theory that I learn more when things go wrong in my life than when they go right - so with that in mind I've set about learning this past week and trying to make some sense out of the break up.

Now, you're never likely to make complete sense of things but you can at least try to find your own theories and sense of peace with it.

Here are a few things that helped me and I hope they'll do the same for you:

1. Writing down at least 5 times when I had a negative experience with him and feeling what emotions were going on inside me at these times.
2. Writing down what would be important to me if he ever wanted to come back into my life. This is a bit like making your own club rules up. For example, he'd sometimes change our plans to look after his children, now whilst that in itself was not a problem, the fact that he didn't ask or check that it was OK with me first was. So one of my rules would be that I would want to be asked before he changed any plans we'd already made. Doing this exercise can help you see where you give up your standards or sense of self worth. Even though I am a very confident person in all other areas of my life, I've come to realise that this isn't always the case with men and my fears of being alone and rejected were leaking out. My deep need to be loved can stop me from enjoying the journey with a guy so these are areas of my life I need to keep a check on and keep working with.

I recognised that there was a lot of my Mum in me. In the book 'I can mend your broken heart' they talk about how our parents treated each other is more significant than how they treated us - how it's a bit like a slow moving video through our childhood of how a couple should behave together. Then we take on the role of the parent we like the most very often in our adult life. I could see how I give away my power with men, afraid to rock the boat in case they leave. I would put up with behaviour that wasn't right for me for fear of losing them, just like my Mum did with my Dad, scary!!!

I can now see that the challenge for me is to remain conscious of my feelings and to trust myself to express them positively and at the right time for a man I'm with to hear them.

This really is the key. Often we communicate with men from our emotions and ‘in the moment.' We react rather than choosing our response. Now I'm not saying you won't feel the emotion, just don't let it explode out of you as this will get you no where.
Gather your own thoughts first, look at where you might be making his actions mean something to you that they don't. What are the fears you have behind your emotions? Take responsibility for yourself first AND THEN...find a time that suits you both to talk. Be clear and specific as to what you want from him and then shut up! Give him time to respond and concentrate on understanding him and hopefully this will have you being heard and understood in return.

There's no quick fix or magic pill for making your next relationship work but you can choose to work on yourself and increase the odds.

Ultimately I paid the price for choosing a man I knew deep down wasn't ready for a relationship. I tried to make myself think I'd be able to change his mind. I convinced myself that if we spent enough time together that he'd fall in love with me. I chose not to listen to or see the warning signs in the ‘hope' that things would change. The thing is, if a guy's not ready to love, NOTHING you do will change that.

So, if you want to limit your chances of another break up...
Choose a man who is ready for a relationship, a man who's done some work on himself already, one that's filed the divorce papers and knows what he wants.

Trust in yourself to know if the next man you meet is a mature one, a man that's likely to be a good fit for you. If he's not, find the courage within yourself to graciously wish him well and leave, don't wait for him to leave you, you're worth more than that.