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Picture this: it’s a Friday night. Your boyfriend comes over after work, and he comes bearing your favorite meal. He’s so excited to see you–his eyes light up, and he embraces you in the biggest, warmest hug. He’s happy. You’re happy.

The very next morning, he breaks up with you. There’s no real explanation, aside from that he’s “just not ready for a relationship.” The fact that you two have been in a relationship for the past 7 months is seemingly lost on him. 

Sounds awful, right?

Well, this is what happened to me. Two months ago now, to be exact. To say I haven’t been handling it well would be an understatement.

In fact, it’d be more accurate to say I’ve been making a complete and total fool of myself. 

But what was I supposed to do? I was completely blindsided. I felt like I was losing my mind. 

Everything I Did (AKA: The Wrong Way to Handle Things)

This was my first real heartbreak. I’ve been in relationships before, but I had either emotionally checked out by the time things ended, or I just understood that it wasn’t a great match. It was sad, yes, but nothing even remotely close to the way I felt this time.

This time, my whole world crumbled. This was my best friend. This was the person who understood me better than anyone. I was going to fight for him. Because, surely, he’d have compassion. He’d understand. We were in this relationship together. We thought the world of each other. We always said that if it ever ended (which, by the way, it never would, since he and I were going to get married), we’d stay in each other’s lives. We were way too important to each other to lose the connection.

But after the breakup, he stopped answering my calls and texts. And I would know this because I called and texted many times. I said things in anger. I said things in vulnerability. I said things in complete and total desperation. 

And there was nothing from his end. 

Him icing me out only made me want to contact him more. There had to be some perfect combination of words that would get him to acknowledge me, right? I just needed to try to piece together words in any and every possible order to get that response. It was like trying to guess a password.

But there was no password. There was just a giant Jazmyn-proof door. 

I just figured that, since I wouldn’t have done that to him, he would’ve never done that to me. 

Boy, was I wrong. 

I will say, he texted me once to tell me that he wasn’t ready to talk, and he wasn’t sure when he would be. 

Now, the average person would see that and move on, right?

Well, not me!

So, for the next month and a half, I waited around for a text. One that never came. 

And one night, I decided, hey, I’ve already made a fool out of myself. Might as well try again!

So, I texted him yet again and asked to talk. To which he said he wasn’t in the headspace and, in so many words, said he never would be. 

And to conclude my humiliation parade, I texted him everything I’d been feeling. (If it balances anything out, though, I wished him well and told him I’d never reach out again–however, knowing myself, I suspect this is probably a lie.)

Now that I’ve regained some of my composure (only the tiniest bit, though), I can look back at my actions and properly cringe at how badly I made myself look (in the name of love, so maybe it’s forgiven? Probably not, though). 

Feeling how I feel now, here’s everything I wish I did. And to my friends reading this, sorry I didn’t take your advice. Moving forward, this probably will happen again, but, y’know, all we can do is try. 

Going Through A Breakup: The Right Way

Step 1: Grieve, But Don’t Bring Your Feelings to Your Ex

The hardest part of the breakup is the immediate aftermath. The grieving phase is one you’ll likely stay in for quite some time. 

Depending on how things ended, you may want to reach out. After all, they are the one person that could make things easier for you. But this really should be time you spend alone or with friends, family, random people you meet in a bar bathroom, just anyone that’s not your ex. 

You need time to feel everything. And your ex will probably just make things worse. Every situation is different, of course. I’ve maintained friendships with exes immediately following the breakup, but it usually just doesn’t work out. One or both of you is going to be totally under the influence of feelings. Staying friends only means you procrastinate the whole “saying goodbye part” in favor of elongating the moving on process. So, all around, not a great combo. 

Taking time for yourself also doesn’t remove the possibility of reconciliation. This is something I wish I knew. Right now, you probably just want nothing more than to get back together (unless you don’t, which, good for you, but you may want to skip this part). It feels like if you wait too long, that door will close. They’ll move on, you’ll move on, the world will end or something. 

But moving on isn’t linear. It’s a different process for everyone. And it has different meanings to everyone. It doesn’t innately mean that someone’s getting ready for their next relationship. It doesn’t innately mean someone’s putting all their feelings in a box and gently pushing it into the ocean, into the vast unknown. 

Moving on essentially just means allotting yourself the mental space to see things clearly. Yes, a byproduct of that is often falling out of love with someone. But it’s not a bad thing. It’s often redirecting the love you had for someone else back to yourself. 

It’s a time of growth and clarity. Putting yourself first. And it’s what you and your ex both need and deserve right now. 

If you’re worried about reconciliation, you need to move on (and trust me, this pains me to write). Sometimes, you don’t want to move on. 

But, I promise, you have to. Even if you want to try again in the future. If things are meant to be, they’ll be. It’ll happen naturally. But if one or both of you clings to the past, any chance at a part 2 will face the same patterns that led to the breakup in the first place. 

I’m all for being delusional (see here). Think what you need to think. One thought that has helped me tremendously during this time is ‘if we both use this time to heal and grow, we’ll have the perfect relationship when it’s time.’ If you’re not ready to move on, shift your mindset. Look at it as necessary space for when you guys do reconcile. 

And then, one day, your ex will reach out, and you’ll find that you haven’t been thinking  about them. Because you’ve moved on. And it’s a beautiful thing. Crazy how that works. 

Step 2: Crash Out

The post-breakup crashout is a near inevitability, a rite of passage. 

If you had real, genuine feelings for this person, and it ends, you’re going to have a lot of big feelings and seemingly nowhere to put them.

So, yes, crashing out is totally valid.

However, how you crash out is what you need to be strategic about.

As I mentioned earlier, I crashed out, but I did it directly to my ex. I do not recommend.

If you know yourself well enough to know that you’ll feel better sending that one final text, who am I to stop you? But, in hindsight, I wish I gifted both my ex and myself the beautiful gift of silence. Silence, in these situations, is much more powerful than words will ever be. 

Write your feelings down. Gather your support system, and talk their ears off. Tell the trees. Download a fake phone number app, save the fake number as your ex’s contact, and text it. Do whatever you can to get those feelings out, but, please, for your sake, don’t actually message your ex. 

Channel all your energy into something else. I was frequenting the gym at all hours of the day and night. I was writing sad short stories. I got a punching bag, printed out a picture of him, and tacked it onto the bag. I was screaming into pillows, I was screaming in my car. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hit up an Etsy witch. I was going insane. 

But the crash out helps your healing. I promise. 

Emotionally, I felt there was no stone left unturned. After all of this, I felt like I truly exhausted every avenue of insanity. And, honestly, it did help, even at the expense of my pride and dignity. 

Step 3: Hobbies

At the end of the day, hobbies are what saved me. I got back into writing. I breezed right through several books on my TBR list. I got some plants (that I began to talk to, which also helped–two birds, one stone). My journal has seen more of me in the past two months than it’s ever seen in the three years I’ve had it. 

Hobbies allow you to rediscover yourself. It allows you to fill your time with things that make you happy. Friday nights went from being a sad reminder of who’d I’d normally be with to an exciting opportunity–I get to have some me time!

Not to mention, if you get into crafty things, you get to discover the joy of creation. I started getting into jewelry making again, and now I have all these cool accessories that further my rediscovery of myself and my personal style.

It’s a small gift that you give to yourself. Your time doesn’t have to be filled with other people, and it most definitely does not need to be spent sulking about a failed relationship. There’s so much joy in the world, there are so many things to do! And now that you’re afforded the time to yourself, challenge yourself to see just what you can make of it. 

Step 4: Find the Joy in Being Alone

I’m someone who so deeply craves companionship at every level. I don’t mind being alone, but I love sharing my life with other people. Maybe this is a validation issue, I don’t know. But after my breakup, I had the hardest time being alone. 

Everything I did, I wanted to share with my ex. And I didn’t want to do anything, because I couldn’t share it with him. It sucked. 

But, eventually, I realized that I’m pretty cool to be around. And I’m sure you are, too.

This is why hobbies are important. You’re going to need to be by yourself, so you might as well reconnect with the things that make you happy. Somewhere along the way, your personality is going to start seeping through. You’ll make jokes to yourself. You’ll compliment yourself. You’ll nurture yourself. And then you’ll realize that it’s you, and it’s always been you, that makes your world turn. It’s not anyone else. 

You’re the one who makes yourself laugh harder than anyone. You’re the one who has these profound thoughts. You’re the one who will show up for yourself the most. There’s nothing more empowering than that. 

Step 5: Put Yourself on a Pedestal

Regardless of who ended things, it’s important to remind yourself: you are the prize.

It’s easy to live in a state of lack after a breakup. Once things are over, your brain tends to romanticize your ex and the relationship you had.

And maybe it was a great relationship. Maybe your ex was a great person.

But, no matter what, you’re greater than all of it. 

You may go through your days with a heavy feeling of loss. But there’s no grander loss than the loss of you. And that’s something your ex has to deal with. 

Not to bring my woo-woo beliefs into all of this, but there’s definitely an energetic shift once you start thinking this way. There’s some kind of frequency that people pick up on when you recenter yourself.  Once you decide that you’re the one who will come out on top, you’re the one to be chased after, I swear your ex will pick up on it, even if they don’t act on it.

Removing your ex from the equation, doors will open up for you the second you begin to reclaim your energy. 

When you live in a state of lack–missing your ex, pleading with any and everything to bring this person back–you’re acknowledging everything you don’t have, and, as a result, your spirit is chasing. This is what we don’t want. 

When you move through life like you’re the main character–because, let’s face it, you are–life starts treating you that way. Confidence is an energy, an ongoing invitation. This may sound like complete BS, but it’s true. The universe treats you the way you see yourself. People treat you the way you see yourself. Once you decide you’re magnetic, you’re the best thing ever, you’ll be surprised at how much starts coming your way, happiness being just one of those things. 

Conclusion and Recovery

Realistically, there really is no right or wrong way to go through a breakup. There are ways that will result in regrets years down the line, there are ways that teach you more about who you want to be (and who you never want to be again), and there are ways that feel better than others. 

A breakup is a time of rest, recovery, and recentering yourself. It’s going to be painful. I wish there was a way to turn off your emotions, turn off time, and turn off life for a bit, but there aren’t. No matter how hard it is, you have to keep going.

There will be days when all you can do is cry. There will be days when you don’t even think about your ex at all. And there will be days where you’ll experience every emotion humanly possible within the span of an hour. 

But, eventually, there will be days when you look back, feel terrible for the person who was going through that, but find joy in the life you’ve built as a result of that time. You may even find yourself expressing gratitude to the person who put you through that. Who knows, you may even be recalling those heart-wrenching memories to the person who put you through that. 

Things will get better. You’ll pick up all your pieces, and rebuild yourself into someone stronger, happier, and more resilient than before.

The right love will find you. And it will never leave you feeling like this. 

But, in the meantime, crash out a little bit. You’ve earned it. 

With love,

The Winky Peach