Breakups

I have always found it strange that you can be so close to someone that you know all their habits, quirks, and life history, and then you break up and you have nothing to do with them.

Before, you knew what their schedule was for the day, what they ate for breakfast, what deep and meaningful thoughts they’ve had, if any, that day. Now you don’t know anything because you’re not there anymore, sharing the same space, sleeping in the same bed, sharing the minutia of your day.

But, with time, you also find out that you didn’t know the person as well as you thought.  The process of breaking up itself teaches you things about your partner that you didn’t know about. Like how they deal with loss, how important you are, how hard they’ll fight for something they believe in. And what they weren’t communicating to you all along.

To me, the saddest thing of all is how cruel the other person can be in the breaking up process. How they can act like someone who never loved you at all. As though you had never made vows to spend the rest of your lives together. Or never intended to take them seriously. Suddenly, they can become a person who despises you and your sadness for making them feel guilty.

I’ve had the good fortune of not being broken up with in this way, but I have to admit, I understand why people do it. Personally, I preferred the passive approach. I always had an exit strategy–a guy who conveniently falls in love with me and can convince me to leave. A guy whose needs I could focus on to drown out the pain of hurting the other person.

It’s shameful to admit, and it’s so inconsistent with the person I see myself as being. The person that I strive to be. But there it is, example after example of exit strategies in my relationship history.

In my second marriage, I toyed with anger and exit strategies, but in the end I decided that I was going to have to stay in the relationship until I could leave in a respectful way. I tried to do it a few times in a disrespectful way and he wouldn’t let me. He wanted me to stay anyway. And that made me feel guilty enough to stay for a while longer. Eventually, I either had to find a way to be loving to both of us, or I wasn’t going to let myself leave at all.

I am proud that I did at least honor that commitment. To leave with love. But I can see why people don’t leave in this way. It’s easier to vilify the person to justify why you’ve left.  Much easier than it is to hurt a good person who didn’t do anything to deserve it.

This is the hardest part of having so much empathy.  Because no matter what happens, you’re still going to get hurt. My friends would tell me that I was more upset than he was because he’s on the spectrum and his feelings weren’t as apparent as mine are. But I could feel them, even if they couldn’t.

To this day, it still makes me cry, even as I write this, knowing that I caused him pain.  I think I might even be sadder about the breakup than he is. This is why I stay in unhealthy relationships. It’s unbearable to consciously, intentionally break someone’s heart, even if it’s the right thing to do for both of you.

The only consolation I can find is that if you at least try to leave in love rather than hate, you minimize whatever pain is in your control. And experience some pride to mitigate some of the self-loathing.