When a relationship ends, we can sometimes be too quick to move on. Unfortunately, doing so will often trigger all sorts of future unhealthy patterns of behaviour, and whilst all situations are different and we cannot generalise, the person leaving will (more often than not) have completed the grieving process, especially if there has been issues for a while. It is actually the completion of that cycle that will trigger the decision to go.
The leavers will therefore be seen to move on quite quickly, as most of the emotions will have been processed over time and the grieving phase completed. The person who was ‘left’ however, will be feeling resentful and often wondering how that’s possible. The thoughts that cross their mind are likely to be along the lines of ‘why are they so happy so quickly and I’m left here to pick up the pieces?’ or start to assume various things like ‘they must have been having an affair’…
The truth is that they are quite simply done. And they have probably been done for quite a while, whilst the other person is now in a state of shock and having to deal with all of the heartache and questions that the split has brought.
I cannot stress enough how important it is to deal with these overwhelming emotions, as well as the pain and complete lack of understanding that the situation brings. The way you handle this and deal with it will impact your entire life and your future happiness, so you really need to get it right to save yourself more heartache later on in life. This is because you are basically seeding what your new relationships will be like, and if you don’t deal with the emotional baggage and start to be bitter and resentful, as opposed to objectively looking at the part you played in the break up, the future will be a lot harder than it needs to be. It is always difficult to accept that we have some responsibility in the break up, as it’s not always obvious and the last person we want to blame and look at is ourselves…
So unfortunately, instead of facing up to what happened, most people will try to move on quickly. This is mainly because they crave the companionship that a relationship brings, they feel the loneliness more than at any other time and just want to be loved. However, embarking on a love quest at this stage is possibly the worst thing you could do as you will not attract the right kind of partner, and as a result, feel even more alone, misunderstood and lonely.
Before moving on, you need to complete the grieving process. It’s a cliché and you might try to speed it up but the only way to make it better (and quicker) is to allow yourself to feel the emotions and understand what went wrong, what you both could have done differently and what signs you could have picked up or acted on at the time.
Only once you have gone through the denial, anger, bargaining and depressed stages of a breakup, will you be able to reach acceptance and ready to move on. Before you do, you will need to go to a place where you become comfortable in your own skin and aren’t looking to others to make your life better. You will need to learn who you are and have become because of what you’ve leant from your previous experience. Then, you will wake up one day and it will all fall into place…
