When Love Ends Abruptly

WHEN LOVE ENDS ABRUPTLY

Have you been in a relationship where everything is going smoothly and suddenly without warning your partner calls you up and tell you it is over? Or have you heard about weddings that have been called off right before the bride walks down the aisle leaning on her father’s arm? Well if it has not happened to you or you have not heard about it before, it is fine, but know that such things do happen. A partner in a relationship can wake up one day and throw away all the things they have worked for together with the other partner for various reasons. Some reasons could be acceptable, while some could be totally ridiculous, but people still do it anyway. So, the question is, what do you do when that happens – when love ends abruptly?

First, you need to realize that when you are the one that is left holding the short end of the stick in a loving relationship especially when you have lots of hope and expectation concerning the relationship; You will feel an indescribable amount of emotional pain if your partner suddenly walks up to you, telling you things are no longer the same or they are suddenly now in love with someone else. And the emotional pain won’t just go away even if you decide to ignore it. And if you are a guy, some of your friends might even tell you to move on to another babe as there are so many of them around, they might even call you a fool for falling in love in the first place. But know that if you really love someone and you lose them, hiding your pain behind a pretentious smile will result to you dying emotionally and gradually too. It doesn’t matter if you’ve seen people who hide their pains behind a smile, people who seem calm and unruffled like a duck gliding along the surface of a pond, while underneath they’re paddling like mad just to stay afloat; it is not right for you to just ignore your emotional pain. So, what do you do?

Well, after the initial emotional pain, the immediate next feeling especially when the person who is walking away is not giving any impression about looking back is grief. Now, grief is the normal and natural reaction to loss of any kind. Grieving is not just OK, it’s necessary; even if we have been socialized to believe that grieving, especially when we are heartbroken is abnormal and unnatural. Because there are many options around us that we can choose from without any stress. But I tell you, when you love and lost someone, it doesn’t work that easy.

We know that everyone processes grief differently, but here are four recognized patterns of grief especially when love ends abruptly.

• SHOCK: You might feel immobilized, numb or frozen when you initially hear your relationship is ending.

• DENIAL: You might find yourself saying “This is not happening, it has to be a nightmare” some people may even try to sleep so that when they wake up, it would all just be a dream. Because they are not yet able to accept the reality of the events around them.

• ANGER: You might think about the commitment and the investment you have poured in the relationship and in your partner. You might remember all the good times and endless promises from your partner. You might even think of all the time and resources you have committed into the relationship, or how you have turned other potential and even better dates away because of this person; and you are blindsided by the breakup because the loss is unexpected. Then your feelings might be intense and you feel like killing someone or killing yourself just like that dude I read about in Ogun State, who stabbed himself to death because his girlfriend left him.

• DEPRESSION: If you are a sensitive person like me, you may feel a range of sadness, from misery to excruciating pain. You might even have problems getting out of bed because you suddenly find no purpose in anything anymore, and you find no reason to move into a new day any longer.

But, after all said and done, you will still have to come to a place of acceptance – a place where you accept the loss; and accept that it happened. You may not like it or agree with it, but you have to learn to live with things as they are, and find other ways to fill your life until you are able to move on. The journey of dealing with emotional pain is not a straight line; there is no set schedule or timetable. And most times, it is like a curvy mountain road with switchbacks.

If you want to heal and move on with your life quickly, you have to accept that you cannot change someone else’s feelings. You can want or pray or beg for someone to change their feelings toward you, but in the end – it is completely up to them, not up to you, as you cannot control anyone’s actions or feelings other than your own.  The best thing to do is to conserve your energy and your dignity as you move forward through the process in front of you.

Don’t blame yourself for everything and don’t take everything extremely personally, especially if the person does not tell you what you have done wrong or where you have gone wrong. Realize that bad things simply happen, often to very good people. And the faster you divorce yourself from taking it personally, the faster you will recover both mentally and emotionally. Stay safe.