Breakups Are Tougher When You Don’t Hate Your Ex
Breakups are tough, but I’ve been thinking that maybe bad breakups get more hate than is deserved.
Bad breakups are miserable, but there’s also an easiness that comes with a breakup where you hate your ex because… well, you get to just hate them.
It’s just a simpler psychological dance you get to do when you can remind yourself of all the ways a person sucks, and have the freedom to hate them. There’s nothing but bad blood so you don’t have to feel guilty cutting them out of your life.
But when you don’t hate your ex? When your ex is a wonderful person? Top tier trash breakup experience. It’s a lot more difficult to make the sacrifice of giving up a person whose role in your life you value.
A good ex-boyfriend of mine once had the “this breakup is final” conversation. He told me that he’d felt he was in a perfect relationship with a perfect person, but it “just wasn’t cutting it.”
I heard it and immediately thought to myself wow, can’t really argue with that; can’t really even be mad at that. And all things considered, he’d been a pretty great boyfriend. There isn’t much bad I could say about the guy; and there is nothing bad I would say.
So how do you deal with not being able to hate your ex?
It comes down to just remembering that you did everything you could and it is what it is. If it had been meant to be it would’ve been, and there’s no real getting around that truth.
Anxiety and just genuinely missing a person can make anything hard. But in a breakup you didn’t want, there’s only so much you can be upset or anxious about because it’s done and it’s utterly out of your control. You have no other option but to just move on without them. So there’s no real reason to delay that process for yourself.
I get it; easier said than done. You don’t hate them, you might even still love them, so instead of fixating on the bad memories like you usually do, you fixate on the good. It’s easier to let go of a person who brought you pain, than the person who made you happiest. But remembering this simple fact makes it easier to let go of those memories or the need to make more: You simply can’t do that shit. It’s not even an option available to you It’s above you now.
They may truly have been the best significant other you ever had. But that doesn’t make them the best you’ll ever get. Trust that the universe has better for you than someone that doesn’t want you.
When I realise a man doesn’t love me and/or doesn’t want to be with me, I prefer to just tell myself that, painful as it is; rather than be filled with dread and anxiety because I’m trying not to accept that. At least once I’ve accepted his feelings and his choices, I can come to terms with the fact that I am neither able to nor should I want to try to change his mind.
There’s nothing stopping you from keeping your good exes in your life if you still want them there. Exes can be friends. But if you know that the reason you really want them in your life is that you’re hoping to make fetch happen, let it go. And when you feel anxious that you gave up too early, remind yourself that it was already over. If they wanted to be with you they would be. And no amount of time you spend clinging to them hoping they change their mind will do the trick.
Leaving them in your past is not about hating them, and it’s not about denigrating the relationship you had either. It’s just about recognising what no longer serves you and moving on. It’s about recognising that you deserve more.