A letter to the broken hearted

Or, why I think you’re approaching your break-up entirely wrong

Edit: I wrote this post six years ago, and upon recent reflection, realize that this advice works for everyone who’s ever had a breakup and felt like it was the end of the world. I firmly believe we do not need someone to complete us, save us, or fix us. All of that starts with us first.

To anyone who’s ever felt like the world ended during a break-up, I am sorry you are hurting, and I am sorry you’re disappointed.

I feel obligated, after watching so many of my friends have their hearts broken many a time over the last few years, to impart a bit of my sage, older wisdom on you.

I see their heartbreak and it pains me because I know it could have been avoided. But then, all lessons in life work that way. I want to tell all of you that you’ll be okay — and not just okay like they always say in the movies, the kind of okay where you’ll one day look back and wonder why you’d cry at 2am with a tub of ice cream and a bad movie over a boy. I know this because I’ve been there myself. Countless times.

I also know that you must have felt like you put an eternity of energy into what could have been an epic love story, but it was only two years and really 2 years out of a 100 isn’t so terrible. That’s the exact amount of time it took me to get my Masters, master a smoky eye, and learn to clean my own drains out. But time is never wasted when you spend it with people you love and care about. In fact, the whole purpose of dating is to find what my public affairs professors called, mutuality, an equally useful term I’m applying here. See, two people dating looks a lot like a Venn diagram. The right relationship has a big overlap in the center, also known as the mutuality of the relationship. It’s when they share the same values, want the same path in life, and have the same interests. When that mutuality is lacking… well, it looks a lot like this…

Mutuality is when you both have similar goals, desires, paths, needs, and wants. Your relationship has common ground beyond your favorite band or food.

As I look back, I realize that I have approached my own breakups entirely wrong.

I’ve also thought that the man I (thought) I loved and wanted so desperately to build a life with who chose to leave me must have been the right person after all.

News flash: he definitely was NOT the right man for me. I’ve realized a few things over the last few years, and welcome you to ponder them:

1. Stop emailing. Stop texting. Stop communicating.
   If they wanted to be with you, they would be and hell or high waters wouldn’t stop them. The hardest truth and reality we have to accept is rejection. Sometimes it’s not for a specific reason. Sometimes it is. But also know that your worth is inherent and that no person adds or takes away from that.
2. You can’t guilt them into coming back.
   They’ve made up their mind. Their choice was clear to them, whether you see the logic through your own eyes or not. There are no magical words that will make them want to come back. Guilt is childish — and it really means that we’re failing to understand the other person’s point of view. Instead of guilting them, be humble; thank them for their honesty and move on quietly.
3. Accept your own faults and either fix them or embrace them.
   No one is perfect. But believing that had the other person done just a bit more, had they just reached a bit higher is self-serving, self-centering, and selfish. Relationships are much like the tango. Both you and your partner need to be in step with the other. And when one falls out of sync, you both do. My point is this: they are no less perfect than you are. There are things you could have done too, aside from hiding under your self-imposed rock where you believed that every road would lead to marriage. Second news flash: it definitely does not. Work on being your own, whole self before you try to be with someone else.
4. Move on quietly and keep your dignity.
   The one thing I regret most about most of my breakups is the lack of dignity I retained thanks to the flood of emotions. Instead of crying and yelling every profanity I could think of at the top of my lungs, I should have held my head high and walked away. The ultimate truth is that in this world, we all have a choice and sometimes we may not agree with someone else’s choice — but it’s rarely our place to question that. I would have felt better in the long run and I would have burned a lot less bridges that way. It’s a small world. You can keep trying to find meaning where there is none or you can choose to accept his choice and move on with your life. You alone hold the key to your prison. So write those feelings down in your overpriced journal, tuck it under your bed, and sleep well tonight knowing that you are everything you need in this world to be happy.
5. Stop lying to yourself.
   This is the biggest piece of advice I can share with you. You are not okay, and that is absolutely okay. You don’t always have to be okay, but you do need to accept where you are in the moment, and plan to move forward. You won’t hurt forever. You won’t be alone forever. But blaming, screaming, crying, and cursing won’t change the situation. In fact, the only person who can change your situation is you. So reframe the story and move on.
6. Love is not enough.
   The second hardest truth I’ve learned to swallow is that love is not enough. Partially because love is a choice, and while I can choose to eat an apple for breakfast, I actually have to follow-through for that to mean anything. I can choose to love someone, but if I don’t choose to do all the things that add up to that, my choice is void. We love a lot of people in life: I’ve loved a small handful of men in my lifetime. But most of them are no longer a part of my life because our compatibility was lacking and no amount of love could change that. I’m convinced there is no magic formula for making a relationship work, and while it should include love, love is not the ultimate ingredient. Love can be built. Love can be chosen. But compatibility, and needs, and wants, and values can’t be. Yes, it’s okay for someone to love you and choose to leave. Because in love, sometimes leaving is the best answer.
7. Embrace being single.
   My number one regret was spending my twenties thinking that I had to find the right person to spend my entire life with, instead of enjoying every second of it. You will never again be in a place in life where you are both young and free of any real responsibility. It may look pretty to have a boyfriend, and it might even make you feel grown up and adult-like, but honey, you were an adult at 18. What you choose to do with your adulthood is the true mark of being an adult. So go out with the girls — take that random trip to NY to meet the cute stranger from the other night. Enjoy the life you have now instead of wanting (and waiting) for the one you don’t. You can’t ever get this time back.

And remember, maybe most important of all: You are perfectly okay without a relationship, or a husband/wife (or a ring). You are enough as you are. Everything will always be okay. They may not be coming back, and that’s okay too. There is nothing wrong with you — you two just weren’t right for each other.