My Thoughts on Getting Over a Bad Breakup

Recently, I have had a lot of friends who are either getting married or broke up with someone, and they have all wanted advice on their situation.  I will post about breakups first, and hopefully I will get to the marriage advice later this week.  Breakups are a very tender topic for me, and it just breaks my heart knowing that someone else has to go through one. I'm not sure how many of you know, but my freshman year of college I was basically engaged to someone. It's a very long and complicated story, but it didn't work out.  I'm fine with people asking me how I got through it because if my experience can help them with what they are going through, I can handle the pain that comes with talking about it.  I heard a quote a few months after my breakup started that said something I have never forgotten.  I don't know the exact words, but it basically said that one good thing about going through a bad experience is that if someone you love later on in your life goes through the same thing, you will understand what they are going through.  You will be able to help them through it because you already went through it.  I remember thinking if someday one of my kids goes through something like this, it will all be worth it if I can somehow lessen their pain by sharing what I learned when I went through it.  That was probably the only thing that kept me going during that time.  I still apply that quote to every hard trial that I go through in life.

I have felt like I should write a post about this for a few months now, but I have been putting it off because it's still painful for me to think about that experience.  It sucks that it is still painful, but at the same time it doesn't.  I always want to feel pain when I think of that experience because I will always be able to empathize better with people if I do.  At the same time, though, I only think about it when someone asks me about it. 

I don't care to go into the details because they don't matter.  A serious breakup is hard no matter what the circumstances.  I think I will simply explain how I felt and then how I dealt with my feelings in order to move on in my life.  

SHOCK. The first thing I ever felt was shock.  Depending on your circumstances, you might not have this emotion.  For me, everything was going great until one day I heard him telling someone else that he didn't want to marry me after all.  He hadn't mentioned anything to me about having second thoughts, and he didn't know I had heard him.  I remember sitting on my bed just staring at the wall for a few hours after that happened.  I was just so shocked that I couldn't think; I couldn't feel anything.  I didn't even realize that so much time had passed, and I had missed one of my classes.  When my roommate came home and asked if I was ok, I felt like I was pulled out of my shock.  I had a sudden rush of emotions, and I just cried for hours.  I felt shocked a lot the next few months, but it wasn't ever as bad as that first time.  

DENIAL.  Even though it was obvious to everyone else that we wouldn't be getting married, I never really believed it.  I never told my family what was going on because I didn't believe that it was happening.  Even when we officially "broke up", we told each other that it wasn't real and that we were still together.  I still honestly believed that we would be getting married up until the very end of the 5 months.  I tried to deny that things weren't going to work out because it was too painful to even think of the possibility of it not happening.  I tried to protect myself, but I ended up just prolonging the pain.  I wish I hadn't done that.

THE PAIN.  I can honestly say I have never been in so much pain in my entire life.  I cried more in those 5 months than anything else.  I cried every day in the shower.  I cried during my classes.  I cried when I walked home from class and saw a couple holding hands or a car that had "Just Married" written on it.  I cried when I got home from class.  I cried when I tried to go to bed.  I cried when I woke up and realized that what I had just experienced in my dreams was so much better than reality.  I just couldn't get rid of the pain.

A FEELING OF LOSS.  It was obviously hard when I moved to Utah because I only got to see him every weekend when he would come visit me.  Then when things started going downhill, he would only visit every other week and then once a month, and finally not at all.  I missed him so much, and I missed being able to talk to him whenever I wanted to.  I also missed what I thought my future was going to be.  When he said he didn't want to marry me, I felt like my future had been ripped away from me, and there was nothing left.  All of our plans of being together forever were completely gone.  Our dream house that we had talked about building, the names of our kids that we were going to have, where we were going to live, everything.  It had just disappeared.  I didn't even know where I would be going to school the next semester.  Another thing that really hurt was that I lost his family.  I completely fell in love with his family because we spent so much time with them when we were in Idaho.  I had sleepovers with his younger sister, I went shopping with his mom, I babysat his nieces.  They already felt like a part of my family, and instead of just losing him, I lost all of them.  That was really hard.

I know there were a lot of other things that I felt, but those were the main things.  This is starting to get long so I want to focus on how I dealt with all of it.  

PRAYER.  I would never have gotten through this experience without prayer.  I prayed all day long, every day.  It hurt way too much not to be talking to my Heavenly Father at every moment.  Even through all the pain, I always knew that I had someone who was watching out for me.  I always felt the the love and comfort that comes with prayer.  Sometimes I would simply talk to Him to thank Him for that small flicker of joy that I got to experience that day. Sometimes I would beg Him to just take a little bit of the pain away.  Whatever I was feeling, I was always praying about it.

A FRIEND.  No one should go through something like this alone.  I lived with my best friend in the whole world, and I always talked to her about what was going on.  I didn't tell anyone else, but I had to tell someone.  When it got too hard for me to handle, she always knew what to say or do to help.  I never could have gotten through it without her.  

STAY BUSY.  The best thing that helped to lessen the pain was keeping myself and my mind busy.  Thankfully, I had a very social apartment.  We were always busy doing fun things when I wasn't in class or at work.  I remember one specific Friday that I have never forgotten.  I hadn't talked to the guy for 5 days straight (which hadn't ever happened yet), and it was the hardest week so far.  That Friday night I was hanging out with my roommates and some of the boys in our ward.  I remember saying to myself, "This isn't so bad.  This is almost fun.  There is life after breaking up with him!"  It was a big eye-opener for me.  I felt like I could actually rebuild my life and plan a new future for myself, even if that future was just the next semester.  When I didn't keep my mind and schedule busy, I would end up sitting on my bed, crying.  I would get super depressed, and it was so hard to come out of it.  It was definitely a lot easier to just never think about it and try to move on.

STAY AWAY.  Once you break up with the person, try to stay away from them as much as you can.  Lucky for me, the guy was in another state!  Don't hang out with them, don't talk to them, and don't look at them.  Yeah, for normal break ups, its ok to be friends afterwards.  Something serious, though, DON'T DO IT!!!  You will never be able to forget about him and get over him.  If you have to move to a different apartment, do it.  It will be so worth it.  This is extremely hard.  All I wanted to do was see him and talk to him.  It got to the point that my friends had to force me to not talk to him.  They would take my phone away from me for the night or even my computer.  It forced me to spend my time making new friends instead of waiting every moment for him to call or text.  You won't want to do this, but I promise you, you will start feeling better sooner the sooner you stop seeing him.

TOSS IT.  You have those things that he gave you or that remind you of him that you can't bear to get rid of.  GET RID OF IT.  I had some roommates who were also going through breakups at one point, and they encouraged me to get rid of his things with them.  It was actually pretty fun.  We made these little dart guns and shot them at our favorite pictures of us with our boy, and we burned any love letters or cards that they had given us.  It may sound dramatic, but it was easier than just throwing them away.  Plus, once they are burned to ashes they are gone forever.  There is no changing your mind and getting stuff out of the trash.  I probably should mention that it's great to do that with pictures and letters or a stuffed animal that they gave you as a gift, but if it is something that is actually theirs that they will want back, you should give it back.  You still need to respect their stuff, especially if it is important to them.  Also, if they gave you an engagement ring, give it back.  Don't sell it and use the money for yourself.  They bought it, and they should be the one to decide what to do with it.  It was really hard for me to let go of my ring (not because I wanted the money, I just wanted the ring), but I knew that it was right to give it back to him.  He had also bought me a phone on his plan, and I returned that.  Don't be a jerk.  Give it back.

FORGIVE/APOLOGIZE.  Whether you need to forgive the other person or yourself, you need to do it.  It was very hard for me to forgive him, but I felt so much better after I did.  I was finally able to move on and not get mad or hurt any time I heard about him or saw him.  It doesn't matter if they are sorry or if they even apologize, but you need to forgive them.  If you did something you wish you hadn't done, learn from your mistake, forgive yourself, and move on.  Don't continue beating yourself up about it.  You won't ever fully move on without forgiveness.  He actually came and apologized to me for everything a year and a half later, and I was very grateful for that.  It was very nice of him to do that, but after he did, I realized that I wasn't even mad at him anymore because I had already forgiven him.  I'm sure it helped him more than it helped me.  If you feel you need to apologize for something, do it.  Even if they don't accept your apologize or say that you don't need to apologize, do it.  You will feel much better.

STOP TALKING ABOUT IT.  Every apartment that I lived in after that experience, my roommates always wanted to know what happened when the found out about him.  Every time I retold the story with the details, I got angry at him, and I had to go through the pain of forgiving him again every single time.  It's ok to give small details or say that it just didn't work out, but replaying everything he did or you did is just going to upset you.  When someone asks for advice or if you feel like you should share something with them in order to help them with what they are going through then go for it. I've noticed that when I mention details for those reasons, I don't end up angry because I'm not focused on myself.  I'm focused on helping someone else.   

A lot of these things are really hard to do.  I either had other people force me to do these things because I couldn't do it myself, or I forced myself.  I had to treat myself like a child and force myself to do these things because I knew that it would be better for myself in the long run.  Sometimes you just have to do what's best for yourself no matter how your emotions are telling you to act.  

I hope these suggestions will help someone with what they are going through.  Since I went through this experience, I have had friends go through the same thing.  I have seen them put these things into action, and I have seen them do the opposite.  The outcome is always the same.  If you work hard on moving on, you will eventually realize that you have moved on without noticing.  If you give in to your emotions, it will be so much harder and so much more painful to move on.  You may be hurting right now, but I promise that pain will go away if you take the right steps to move on.  I know some people who went through something like this who still aren't over it 10 years later because they chose to stay mad and angry.  Please don't do that to yourself.  If you want to talk to me more about my experience and other things that I did to help myself, feel free to ask.  I hope these tips have helped; if you have some that I haven't mentioned, feel free to comment!!