The reality of breakups

When the girlfriend called to give me the news that she no longer was my girlfriend, I felt as if I had died.

Coming to terms with the fact that you and her will no longer be riding towards the sunset for all eternity is a harsh morsel to digest. There would be no marriage, no little house in which we'd live in, no growing old with them, no kids with the names we fantasized about many times. It is tough, after nearly seven years, to realize that your plans will not come to fruition. But that is life. Harsh, but true.

You also have to come to terms with the reasons why she's leaving you. And for as horrible as those may be, you have to be able to face them and take responsibility for the things you have done. If possible, learn from them, fix them and improve yourself. For yourself, not for her, because she will no longer be yours.

While not all breakups happen for the same reasons or in the same way, mine falls under the category of doing something wrong, not realizing the messages my girlfriend was trying to send my way to help me improve, until finally, too tired to deal with me, she decided it was best to end the relationship.

It is painful. It will be painful for a long time. But all things considered I have been very lucky, for while I may have lost her as a girlfriend, she has never left me as a friend. Breaking up with me was perhaps the biggest sign of the love she truly has for me.

No, I haven't gone mad, let me explain.

Getting mad, hating the person, speaking evil about them behind their backs will accomplish nothing. You will not learn from your mistakes and you will ruin all the wonderful things you have shared together. I owe her much of my improvements in life, my perspectives, to face and learn about the ideals of a person from a different culture, a different vision of life and a different approach to things. She helped question many of the decisions I made and turned me out to be a better person. And yet, I could've destroyed all of that with a few words spoken in anger.

While being on the receiving end of the break-up is perhaps among the toughest things to face in life, believe me, the person initiating it is not having any fun either. It truly takes balls to be able to build up the courage of ending a relationship.

I can only admire her and respect her for her ability to do so and tell me in complete honesty what it was that was tormenting her. She could've made excuses or given me a sweet lie. But she said things as they were and I am grateful. Without her truth and honesty, I would not have understood. And without understanding, I could not fix and improve myself.

And to even remotely expect that she should've gone through the relationship despite the problems would be unfair not only to me, but especially to her. In a relationship with no happyness there can't be any love. And the pain I experience now would pale in comparison down the road. Perhaps we may not even have remained friends.

But a break-up remains tough. The alarm still went off the next morning and I still had to get up and go to work and ride a subway full of people unaware of the burden I was carrying. With the risk of sounding like a masochist, enjoy the pain. It is not often that you feel such a surge of emotions in life and you can learn quite a bit from these states of mind.

Nothing lasts forever in life. Not even relationships. While your vision and logic will be overly fogged by the pain and delusion of the break-up, don't see it as something necessarely bad. All things happen for a reason, even if you are the reason. Learn from what happened, especially if you were the reason it happened.

The hardest part in a break-up when you are the catalyst of its ending, is to come to terms with yourself. Denial is easy, facing the reality is hard. But if you can take a stand and accept your faults and do something about them, you will grow into a much better person in the future.

A door may close, but many will open.

Goatboy will always cherish his former goatgirl.
But the world is full of fluffier ones.

In Addendum

There have been some interesting responses written to this article, since I wrote it. I feel it necessary to explain a few things to perhaps make the reader a little more clear as to where I was coming from, at the time.

The girlfriend to whom this article refers to, broke up with me for the simple reason that she had found someone better with whom she was having "extra curriculum activities." All while dating me. The gentlemen in question was an airline pilot, driving an expensive car whom enjoyed taking her to a variety of classy places to drink and eat. He dressed well and was never short on cash.

(Later, it turns out, the guy turned out not to be such a good catch after all--having no job, using daddy's money, car and already having a girlfriend--which could lead to the explanation of almost two years of phone calls, visits and e-mails from her that I had to endure in an attempt to win back something from me.)

As for the break up reasons, my faults happened to be a lack of job, a lack of a title and career, no money, dressing like a slob and being fat. On top of that, I was accused of sitting at home, doing nothing, rather than actively looking for a job, after my lay-off.

At the time, I didn't argue any of these statements. The only thing that registered was that she was leaving me. When everything around you is falling apart, and the woman you love is the sole pillar of stability you have, the moment she says it is over, there is quite a turmoil occurring within you. The details don't really matter.

Never mind the fact that I was not fat nor a slob. Never mind the fact that I had been actively looking for a job. Or the fact that I took the first job I found in order to manage things best I could, rather than let myself go. Yes, I had no money, but when she was having job difficulties and had no cash, I didn't leave her. I was by her side, helping her go through the rather difficult process.

Unfortunately, when the grass is greener on the other side, it doesn't matter what I was doing, I was just not "green" enough.

Many of the people who knew us and the reasons behind the break-up, felt this article was too nice towards her. Mostly because I hardly painted her with any of the things she said, like the famous line "I don't want to date someone who makes less than me." Or any mention of the pilot, or what happened behind my back. After seven years, however, it is hard to build hate for someone. You can't believe they'd do something like that to you, despite people telling you otherwise.

Even when she was actively spreaking shit about me, or would call me out of the blue, swearing because she thought I had done something against her, I was still shocked that her and the person I had been with for so long, were the same. It didn't compute.

I left the article as-is, since when I wrote it, that's what I was thinking. A broken heart makes for a foggy mind and impaired vision of the facts around us.

For sure I can say that as time goes by, things do get better and clarity kicks back in. The tough part is just getting there.

leandro
Toronto, May 21^st., 2005