What was I supposed to do after falling in love, and then realising he isn’t the one?
For the first time ever I’d experienced the intensity of love and affection. I’d been excited, in awe and frustrated all in the same day. I’d gone through all the motions, met the family and fell deeper and deeper, but then this feeling started to creep into my gut that it might not last forever.
Some manage to sit with that feeling and settle because there’s no real reason to crush the person who used to mean so much to you, but when it came creeping through my door I couldn’t let it eat me- I had to run.
Every year I feel so different from the one before and the gap gapes even wider when you grow alongside
someone.
Welcome through the side door, my first love.
Nothing happened, but we broke up. Nothing happened, but I felt like I needed to grow and evolve away from him. Nothing had changed, apart from me and him but not in the same place or at the same time.
One morning on a park bench I made that decision, but as I stared that person in the face who I definitely still loved, I was terrified about what’s going to happen. I was so surprised that I had plucked up the courage, but I couldn’t imagine staying in a place where I shouldn’t be.
I couldn’t shake off the feeling that it wasn’t going to last and you would know if he was the one- right? Our ability to break up with someone stems from the situational factors that a person has been brought up in.
Simon James, psychologist, said: “The attachments we create when we are young and dependent is crucial to how we end up developing and if we have those core people around in times of distress and to help us survive more often than not we have strong secure attachment style vs if you didn’t.
“If we feel we did not have people around us that we trusted at a young age, we may then have someone close to us. There is a particular pattern of those who may have felt previously as if it was you against the world to you and another and the safety is something people can hold on to out of fear a lot of the time.”
This feels like it rings true for me as my confidence to leave wasn’t stunted by the need to stick around. I could confidently walk away when he no longer met my requirements.
However those romance novels I’ve been reading since I was 15 obviously haven’t paid off because I have no idea how to feel now.
The hardest thing was telling my friends and family, because we’d been together since we were kids so I needed my list of reasons why I made the savage decision, but I didn’t know what to say because nothing actually happened.
Mum couldn’t understand and I think it may be a generational thing. That’s what she tells me, because she feels bad that she told me from being a child that ‘if it’s not broken, don’t fix it’, and she is right. It wasn’t this shattered glass ending where everyone’s bleeding and sore, it was more he didn’t listen and I couldn’t speak. It was just that I had grown and so had he.
“What do you mean by a lightning strike?
“The grass is greener where you water it, darling.”
I just couldn’t be convinced by my mum this time.
Maybe that’s where she’s wrong because I thought I would know and I don’t. It’s just a shame he’s such a nice boy because if something awful would have happened it would be more of an excuse to break it off.
“I just hoped he would cheat on me to give me a reason to leave. The guilt ate at me and that’s why after it all ended, I kept going back for a couple of months.” 21-year-old Mollie who bravely ended it after a 3- year relationship called it quits when she had that panging feeling in her gut but found it harder without those reasons we hear so often of a toxic break up.
Why do we need a million reasons and our mothers approval to cut ties with a boy who does not meet our standards anymore? Mollie felt the pressure of going back to him to please others, and stayed on and off with him months after the initial break up.
Simon explained the difficulty of not going back to a partner: “It’s very difficult to switch on and off our feelings just because we decide on a particular day to step away and go separate ways.
When you break up with someone, it doesn’t mean those residues of love and friendship go away, they linger for a long time, arguably for a lifetime and those emotions are very strong and powerful.
“From a cognitive standpoint, what we do know is that emotions drive our behaviour and so do thoughts. They all interplay with one another because in the short term, acting on them makes it go away.
On reflection, we almost went back, maybe picked up the phone a couple of times and made losing the love that was once there harder for both parties.
It’s important to remember the damage that may be created and the healing process that may be prolonged through acting out of impulse when you miss that person that used to be yours. I know that all too well, and so does Mollie.
“We have to acknowledge change and being terrified is ok, and being lonely and sad is too. And your mum’s perspective on settling might be different to your ‘I need to move forwards’ attitude, but that doesn’t mean you’re irrational and impulsive.
“My two favourite and most called words of the year.” Mollie reflected on the turmoil of her first
heartbreak.
Beth fell in love at 18, at the same time as all of her friends. He gave her attention, wanted to take her on dates and commit. Knowing now that, actually, that is the bare minimum people should expect when in a relationship makes her now roll her eyes as she tells me the best qualities he possessed that once infatuated her.
But last year, when Tom broke up with her, she was utterly shattered. It brought a year of her tearfully begging him to take her back. She didn’t quite understand that he just didn’t want to be with her, there was no reason and that’s what made it harder for her to accept.
I was on one side of it and Beth was on the other. Her heart was broken and I broke someones, but seeing how it had affected her for almost a year was eye-opening for someone who walked away in the knowledge they had the power whilst she felt he had turned the lights off and took hers with him.
Beth too kept going back for some months afterwards. He had taken the steps to end the relationship, but kept her hanging on as he also found it easier to still see her around whilst he slowly exited from her life.
It makes absolute sense why she allowed him to hang around. She knew nothing had really happened, so couldn’t have a reason not to like him or enforce the space he had initiated when he took the label of their long-term relationship.
After a year of grieving, begging and crying he had finally told her everything she wanted to hear. They sat in the car parked up outside her parents house. He looked her in the eyes and wanted to re commit. Something just clicked and she realised that she had grieved it all, finally gone through the motions and came out the other side.
She no longer wanted to hang around or give her love to a guy who ‘wasn’t too sure’.
If my mind had a fire and I could take one piece of advice for my future heartbreaks it would be what Beth said: “It’s ok if you don’t want to be with someone, no one has to have cheated or broken your heart for them to decide to leave and that’s ok. But if you’re going to leave, make sure you take all your bags in one trip.”
That’s the biggest learning curve about break ups I’ve noticed. No one needs to be the bad guy, not permanently. It’s always someone who has to make the call and do that brave thing if you know it isn’t right, but you don’t have to hate them or even keep loving them for that matter.
People are allowed to make that decision and you are allowed to grieve, and still laugh and cry, but know that you’re going to be ok and Beth was a huge example of someone not realising she was allowed to do any of those things when he left.
So, what was I supposed to do after falling in love and then realising he wasn’t the one? It seems everyone innately reacts differently and that’s ok. It’s ok if you’ve planted the seeds and want to water the grass and it’s also ok if you want to cut your losses early.
Feel your feelings, breathe and remember- you’re in control of your life.
Expert Insight: Simon James
A clinical psychologist working under the NHS, specialising in mental health.
