How Breakups Feel When It Was Meant To End
Gettyimages.com/Cropped shot of a young woman giving her boyfriend the silent treatment after a fight
Whenever someone breaks off a relationship, there is always that lingering question: “Did I do the right thing?” Breaking up is a big decision. When you’re still together, even if things are really bad, you still feel hope of salvaging things. And nobody will judge you for trying to salvage things (for the most part). But once you break up, should you decide later you want to try again, you know you’ll feel a little ashamed. So when you finally call it quits, you really want to be sure it’s the right thing. The way you feel in the days immediately following the breakup will tell you a lot about whether or not you made the right decision. Even if the days before the breakup were emotionally draining and felt like a never-ending hell, you could be amazed at how your entire disposition can change just 12 hours after ending a bad relationship. Here is how a breakup feels when it was meant to end.
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You feel newly driven
You suddenly have a head full of steam regarding your career. All of these ideas come rushing to the surface of your mind about how you can get your business more exposure, how you can get that promotion, how to finally finish that book you’ve been working on, or whatever it is you need to do to keep striving towards your goals. These ideas have been hiding, because bad relationships stifle creativity.
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It’s hard to cry much
You could feel like you’re cry-constipated. You feel like you should cry, but no matter how hard you push your face, no tears come out. If there’s really nothing to be sad about—if this was a win rather than a loss—there won’t be tears. In fact, you probably already cried too much during the relationship, so you’re all out of tears.
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You want to be social
You thought you’d want to hole up, but you want to be social! You want to see everyone! You want to make an appearance at every event to which you’re invited. You’re so excited to bump into friends on the street. You don’t want to go home at night when the party’s over; you want to keep talking and engaging and connecting with people. That’s probably because you were in a bad relationship that made you close up before. You were too consumed by your relationship to enjoy human interaction, and now you’re making up for lost time.
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You want to flirt!
Oh do you ever! The world feels like your oyster and that oyster is filled with adorable men. Where did all these adorable men come from? Were they here the whole time!? If you were meant to be with the ex, you’d just be comparing everyone to him and finding him to be the winner. But instead, everyone else looks immeasurably better than your ex.
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You wake up excited to take on the day
You wake up full of energy. That’s not how people feel when they end things with someone they were meant to be with. If you wake up bright eyed and bushy-tailed, so excited to see what the day holds, you were absolutely meant to leave that recent ex-boyfriend behind. You know you have a new perspective on life now—rose-colored glasses—and you can’t wait to take it for a spin.
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You want to shop
Well duh—to get outfits for all the socializing and flirting you want to do! You also feel, on some level, that you deserve to treat yourself for making a difficult but correct decision. And you want your exterior to reflect your interior, which feels amazing.
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You want to exercise
Again, you want your exterior to match your interior. You really feel right now that you deserve the best. You feel like a total boss, you have all this new-found energy, you want to look as good as you feel and so of course you want to get in shape.
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You feel strong
You don’t feel like the shell of a person you thought you would. Nope. Because you did a very difficult thing. You ended a relationship that was bad for you. Do you know how many people don’t have the strength to do that? Do you know how many people just marry the wrong person, for fear of ending things? You escaped that. You are one of the few very special and strong people.
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You feel wise
You also got here by learning a lot about yourself, about humans in general, and about relationships. Through some rather painful experiences, you gathered extremely valuable lessons that you know will make the rest of life a lot easier to navigate.
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You know something good is around the corner
With all this new wisdom and strength, you know you won’t wind up in a relationship like that again. You know the next relationship will be so much better—possibly even the relationship. The one. You have the tools to find it now.
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You’re thinking about the future
You aren’t thinking about the past, brooding over fights, reminiscing about the good times and wishing you could have it back. You’re thinking about the future. Your imagination is running wild with all of the things you can do now, places you can visit and people you might meet.
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You have some thank you’s to give out
You realize you have some friends who’ve been trying to guide you to this place the entire time. You look back and see how many hints people dropped—hints to say, “This relationship is wrong for you.” You understand that those hints made their way into your subconscious and helped you get here. You need to thank those people.
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You have some apologizing to do
Then there are people who dropped hints, but didn’t receive such a warm reception from you. You were angry at them. You weren’t ready to listen to them. You need to go apologize to them because they only wanted what was best for you and clearly, they were right.
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You don’t feel anger towards the ex
There’s no need or even space for anger when it was meant to end. You’re too busy feeling grateful for your new freedom and excited about your future. You don’t want anger muddying any of that.
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You feel a little silly
You see now, in retrospect, what a bad relationship it was. You can’t believe you ever let some of the things that happened slide. You feel rather silly for defending that relationship for as long as you did.
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