PicoBlog

My boyfriend of five years just broke up with me. I really don’t see how I’m going to make it through this. I’m torn between desperation to get him back, even though he was verbally abusive, and rage at the way he has ended things—and the fact that he thinks he’s good enough to break up with me.

I really don’t know what to do, or what even to ask, but can you please tell me how I can get through this?

During the worst breakup I ever went through, I was fully convinced that no one had ever experienced the intensity of grief I was facing. My boyfriend of almost 7 years broke up with me suddenly, moving out of our shared house, leaving behind our dogs, our myriad of other animals, and the life I thought we were building.

In hindsight, it was the best gift he ever gave me. I married my husband just a few years later, and almost everything good in my life is directly attributable to the end of that relationship. We’re friends now, too, after a very long no-contact period, and are both able to reflect honestly on how things unfolded. I wish the desperate, nearly suicidal me of then could see my life now.

I’ve had other bad breakups over the years, too. I’ve learned that breakups follow a very predictable pattern, and that understanding the shape of a breakup is key to getting through them. Learning to survive them is the key ingredient for building a better, more feminist life.

So what do breakups have to do with feminism, marriage, and motherhood?

Absolutely everything.

People stay in bad relationships for numerous reasons, but if there aren’t kids and there’s no significant abuse, chief among these reasons is love. Fear of the pain of a breakup—or going back when the pain of a breakup gets too bad—is what gets people into bad marriages, convinces them to have children in those marriages, and even when they exit bad marriages, convinces them to jump into future bad marriages.

By the time a woman is trapped in a shitty relationship, it may be too late to repair the damage. Leaving ranges from extremely hard to deadly. Family courts are biased against women. And the trauma a woman may suffer before she finally gets the courage to leave can haunt her for the rest of her life.

Those of us who are concerned about anti-mother misogyny need to be reaching out to people who have not yet become mothers. Encouraging women to survive and thrive after a breakup is key to helping them leave behind bad relationships. And if you’re going through a breakup after getting out of a bad marriage, getting free is even more important; you’ve already been trapped once, and don’t deserve to go through it again.

Everyone who ever goes through an unwanted breakup hopes it’s not for real. If things have gotten so bad that one of you wants to break up, though, the relationship is broken. It doesn’t feel like it right now, but getting out of the relationship is good for both of you.

Time spent ruminating on getting your ex back, on how you’ll never love someone again, on anything that causes you to look backward, will only delay your healing.

I am so sorry for the pain you are in. Grief can feel unbearable. You don’t deserve this pain. Pain, though, can also be transformative. It may be the only force powerful enough to certain types of change.

Allow this pain to do the work of transforming you into a better, stronger, wiser version of yourself.

Some simple affirmations can help you when you inevitably spiral into obsessing over your loss:

• Focus on three behaviors your former partner exhibited that you will never accept in another partner. This can be a powerful counter to ruminating on your partner’s apparently good qualities.

• “Someone who loved me the way I deserve would never [list at least two problematic behaviors.]”

• “I deserve a future that was better than the past, and now I can have it.”

• “In the future, I’ll look back on this time as the time that everything changed for the better.”

Everyone ever in the world will tell you that a rebound is a terrible idea, for two reasons: 1) It exploits the person upon whom you are rebounding; 2) It can cause confusions about your feelings, enabling you to transfer your feelings from your ex onto the rebound, without ever actually healing.

Don’t do this. Instead, consider a casual or friends with benefits relationship, and be clear about what you’re doing. The benefit of a rebound is that it gives you something fun to do, and serves as an antidote to loneliness. This makes it a lot easier to resist your ex, especially in the earliest, most painful days of your breakup.

You absolutely must know that it’s a rebound. If you jump immediately into a fully fledged relationship or think you’re in love, it’s time to slow your roll.

A breakup is sort of like a prolonged illness. You’re going to feel sad for a long time, and that makes it hard to care for yourself. Make self-care as automatic as possible by developing a daily routine—ideally one that is different from the one you once had with your partner. I have more advice here on building a daily routine.

Your life is changing radically. You might as well think about how you’re living, and then cultivate a life (and routine) you love.

Boredom is your enemy during a breakup. That’s when you’re going to call your ex. I know you want to stay home and cry. But doing so is not going to make you feel better. You need to fill your time as much as possible. Some tips:

• Try remaking your space to reflect who you are now, and who you’re trying to become.

• Reconnect with old friends. They’re a worthy distraction and an antidote to depression and anxiety.

• Pick up a new hobby—perhaps one your ex hated.

• Ask loved ones to check in on you and encourage you to get out of the house.

When my long-term boyfriend broke up with me, everyone told me to go no-contact. But we had built a life together! It had been six years! How could I possibly excise him from my life? It seemed brutal, impossible, an act of deep hopelessness.

But my life didn’t get better until this is what I did.

A breakup is a lot like withdrawal from drugs (and there are similarities biochemically, too). The solution to withdrawal is to continue to avoid the drug, to ride it out. The same is true of a breakup. Every act of contact resets the clock, reactivates your addiction, and makes you feel worse.

Start with a small goal. “I’m not going to contact him for 24 hours.” Then build steadily on these successes. Remind yourself that every hour you spend not talking to him is an investment in the future self who will no longer want to talk to him. You’re shortening the journey from here to there by ending contact.

The weeks following a breakup are actually not the time to think about what you did wrong. Getting through the early, most intense phase depends on a bit of demonization. You have to separate yourself from him, and from the relationship. Don’t be afraid to hate him. There’s nothing wrong with this (as long as you don’t do anything to harm him, of course).

Anger feels better than sadness and desperation. So get mad. Then get glad that that asshole is gone.

Looking at your own role in the breakdown of your relationship is painful. When you’re raw and suffering, it can easily lead to a spiral of self-blame that undermines no contact and subverts growth.

The time to begin reflecting on your role—ideally with the support of a great feminist therapist—is after the shock wears off, when you begin feeling like you can cope again.

There’s no pain quite like a bad breakup. But you can and will survive.

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