Break-ups can be way worse than you’d ever imagine

In dealing with a break-up, especially one as catastrophic as a schism from a long-term beloved, fraught with over-dramatic issue and unhealthy back and forth, one woman such as myself would expect the entire world to rally about her in a supportive web of love with a desire to console and assist.

Honestly, I thought once I was brave enough to end things that had long been supremely poisonous to both sides of the union, everyone would show me unequivocal love and support, and nothing but my relationship status would change. I believed my life, my friend group, and my entire systemic balance would remain unchanged, and I would deal with my break-up surrounded by the same friends that would continue to perceive me as they always had. This proved to be, surprisingly and maybe wrongly so, utterly incorrect.

When I recently broke up with my first love and only boyfriend of four years and decided that it would be a once and for all ending, no returns or shenanigans about it,  everything changed. Although I was wrong not to expect so, many people I also loved were confused, hurt, and sometimes even angry, leaving me to deal with the ending of an era coupled with a loneliness I was not ready for. I felt like the way people looked at me changed; I began to be tiptoed around, perhaps with the intentions so as not to hurt my feelings or bring up something painful, yet I still felt like a fool. I felt, in a time where I needed the most support and understanding, that I was lost.

Many women can relate to the pressure to stick with someone they have been with for an extraordinarily long time, both from family and society.  For some reason, the length of time, and not the quality of happiness, matters when it comes to “giving up” or “quitting” in terms of love and staying.

I never thought I would feel like a failure when I ended my long-term relationship; when I first made the decision, I felt brave and proud, because I knew I would finally hold fast, unlike the too many times before when I confusedly returned in a haze of sadness and insecurity. It was the best and most healthy decision, of this I was sure, yet I still felt palpable judgment. It was almost as if I was seen as weak for leaving, that I was ditching what I had put so much time and effort into. It was wrong to do to my significant other and, something I had not even considered, my friend group. I was ruining everything, causing awkwardness, just to make myself happy. I wasn’t brave, no. I was selfish, weak, and someone who finds it easy to just walk away. I never expected to feel judgment for something I was doing to end unhappiness on both sides, and I never thought I would be expected to stay. I knew I couldn’t undo my decision, due entirely to the fact that it was the right one, but I also knew I had to accept not everyone would see it that way.

I realized as time went on that perhaps I was putting a lot of these thoughts into my own head, maybe out of my own guilt for leaving something that was so central and important to my life. I also knew that people saw my significant other and I as a perfect couple, an entity that had to be mourned and lost on their way to acceptance.

Yet, I had to come to terms with my own decision, and disregard what anyone else might possibly think or vocalize to me. Others’ opinions did not matter, be it their judgments, their support, their grief or their joy. It matters what I, and what women everywhere going through similar endings, think about themselves, and what is best to further their own journey as human beings. I had to be okay with my decision, and I had to be secure that it was correct, no matter what others believed to be true. Opinions will always be rampant, and things will always change, something I am still struggling to be okay with, yet the most beautiful outcomes result from a changing of scenery.

Now, I can see things clearly, and much more beautifully than when I was lost.