First thread as a single person!

[vpavelock]

When I take a moment to reflect on the whole coping process, I kind of find it comical.
First stage for me was: Independence! I was happy and felt liberated even.
Second stage: Anger, "How did I lose my virginity that meant so much to me, to him?" "WHY DID HE PROPOSE?" etc.
Third Stage: The BREAK DOWN Stage completely awful, couldn't look at a single thing without crying. NO SLEEP STAGE.
Fourth Stage: Independence part 2! No longer feeling guilty about studying in Spain spring next yr, no longer making after college plans for two, traveling is sounding more realistic. I just got hired as a tutor at my college! I've been keeping busy with friends, Invisible Children, and hanging with some guys! :P I went to the counseling center today and the only thing that made me tear up was the idea of not talking to him, even as friends for a whole month. I'm definitely progressing. Took a nice walk to send out a book I sold on amazon, take some shots with my new incredible camera, and go grocery shopping. I just feel great today, because I finally got some sleep last night.


This whole thing has been far from easy. Have any of you been through a big break up? What were your stages? How did YOU cope?

And a shout out to everyone one here, thanks for making me feel like I didn't need to leave.

[LadyMarchHare]

Second wind hit your sail at last, eh? I'm glad.

It's technically not a relationship breakup, but I had a HUGE falling out with a friend a little over a year ago which shattered me pretty bad. I'd known her for 6 years and she was a year younger than me, we were very close but as the years progressed she became more social offline while I was being introverted due to many, at the time, undiagnosed problems. We still talked, but not about our days or anything, we just kept up with the one hobby we still had in common and I acted pretty badly when she wasn't online (think being clingy, but without the "omg i wuv u" part) and would start fights with her about leaving me alone. Basically she was the one person who was a constant in my life and I was scared to death to lose her to her 'real' friends. Her freshman year of college she stopped coming online for days at a time, sometimes a week or two and I'd be hysterical. But we were trying to make it work so she talked about her college life and I tried listening. When she started falling for this guy I thought sounded like one of those one-night stand skeezeballs I gave my opinion and she instantly quit talking to me. I finally messaged her on FB, unfortunately I left two messages, one a decent "what did I do wrong?" and the other pretty nasty. She responded to the second and told me, long story short, I was a monster and I had never acted like a friend and only used her (God knew what she was implying, I still don't) and some other stuff that was a real punch in the gut. I cried for weeks, I bribed friends to message her because she had blocked me everywhere, but to no avail. It was really shattering to have someone whose company you felt your sanity depend on say you were a monster.

After a month I grew a bit bitter, shrugged off her absence, and moved on with a lesson learned the hard way. Back then I never saw the flaw in my actions and she had never said a thing until the last time she talked to me, so for 6 years I was mistreating someone without knowing it. Now I'm highly conscious of what I do and say, especially with my SO. I didn't love this girl and I treated her like property, I'd hate to see what adding love to that dangerous mix would produce. There are days I wish I could contact her and say that I'm sorry for what I did, but not to mend the friendship as I realize it died long before she cut the cord.

[Silencedsongs]

Truthfully, I've never had someone break up with me - I've always done the breaking-up part. The worst was with my ex-fiance. He had come to me and said he was offered a way to make money by selling drugs. He smoked weed, and I was aware of it. I didn't like it, but I knew about that before I got into a relationship with him. I never said anything negative about it, and never once threw the bitch card over it. Except, when he wanted to start dealing. I politely informed him that he could do whatever he wanted, but if that was the path he was headed on - it would be without me. He argued, and said I had no right to try and manipulate him. There wouldn't be any trouble, blah blahblah blahblah. He obviously didn't believe what I said. So, I left him.

'How could he have chosen drugs over me?!' The one phrase the sparked the depression and severe anger stages. My problem is that I would hold everything in, and one night after drinking too much - I became a blubbering idiot. I was crying all over the place, my last depression stage. After that release, I was free and happy. It also helps when his friends thought he was an idiot and screwed up. Final stage after several anger and depression stages, independence and time to enjoy life!

[agentholli]

The worse would be my marriage.
The first coping stages happened when I was still married.
Then came anger...cause he was cheating..
Then came hatred...there were a lot of things to hate him for
Then came feeling sorry for him....i still feel sorry for him, he made some choices that he is paying for, and he is paying hard for them.

Then the next big break up would be the one I just had. He is the first one to break up with me. I have usually done the breaking up. So this time its different, although I was to a point that I was ready to break it off with him, but I am still in the anger stage I think. I am mad at how he did it. I have been sad inbetween there as well. But I haven't really cried over him, not like I did when i broke it off before with him. I just know its the right thing to do this time. It was never going to work out with him. But im still angry about the way he did it.

[MrsExPrez]

I am going through a breakup right now.. I have no idea what stage I am at. Maybe the trying to pretend it never happened stage..


i always took my breakups pretty hard. But the breakup before this with my 2nd boyfriend I handled surprisingly well. I cried and cried like a baby, but then I had a friend stay at my house with me every single night for the following like 2 weeks. I was never alone. You would think most people would want to be alone, but not me. It seemed to help me a lot actually. To be surrounded by love.

..Maybe I should try doing that again.

[OliveOyl]

hey, im glad you are in a good place right now. I did go through a big/difficult breakup in November09 through April10... the reason it lasted so long is that we were broken up but he kept stringing me along, telling me he loved me, and keeping me at arms reach. It was awful, really. But, it wasn't until I just couldn't take anything anymore, I felt like a zombie walking around, and I had an up and coming study abroad trip planned for June10...and the guy actually left for Mexico in April10, so I kind of took that as my escape route! I said when you leave, please dont call me, please do not email me, you are beyond evil, you make my life miserable, and I just dont want to go through it anymore. So, of course you swarmed me with attention, which normally I would've just melted over, but I also went to therapy because I wasnt handling all of the stress well enough and needed someone to talk to... so I was working on understanding that I am "worth it" in terms of having a boyfriend who adores me for who i am, who is willing to accept me for all I am and all I am not, and will not treat me like an option. So, as hard as it was, I completely cut off communication, I kept receiving emails and cried a lot, but...it was amazing. I left to my trip to mexico, had the time of my life, and, most importantly, met my current SO on my trip, who is everything I have ever wanted, and treats me like a princess, which is just amazing, and to think almost a year ago I never thought it was possible to be treated so well... and worst, I thought I never deserved it. But I totally know I deserve it, and so does he! so I definitely treat him like my prince

[sabby64]

I never really had stages like that, but for a month after my bad break up with my ex I couldn't get out of bed. I quit my job, never ate, lost 15 pounds and cried every day. After that month I finally found the courage to face the world without him, and well... That's when I met Brandon ^^; Heh heh... I was pretty okay without him at that point so I was definitely past rebound point, and hey, it all worked out in the end!!

[Rugger]

I've been through it once before. My ex broke up with my after of being together a year. He had abused and manipulated me to the point that I thought no one else was ever going to love me because I was worthless. It took me a year to get over him. For the first month or so, I was a zombie. I rarely ate. I cried myself to sleep every night. I dropped to 103. It got better when I started my summer job and then worse again when I went back to school, because my "best" friends were still friends with him. I had to leave hanging out with them so he could come over. Finally the summer after my junior year, it just clicked. I felt like me again. I dated casually until I found my SO my senior year of college.

[vpavelock]

[QUOTE=MrsExPrez;104919]I am going through a breakup right now.. I have no idea what stage I am at. Maybe the trying to pretend it never happened stage..

I think this may also be the stage I'm at right now as well :/

[NikkiP]

This is going to sound so lame but I can honestly say that my worst breakup happened when I was 17 years old. We had been dating since I was almost 15 and he was almost 17... Just over two years. It took me almost that long to recover. I went through a pretty ridiculous depression and then when I thought I was ready to be in a relationship, I continued to sabotage anyone who would attempt to get close to me for another two years.

We broke up probably 7 years ago and it still sent me into full panic mode when I got his facebook request two years ago. I was like "Okay lady, you can do this. Just accept him and never speak to him. He doesn't need to know anything." Well, he happened to be home from work that day and was on facebook chat and messaged me as soon as I accepted him. Couldn't breath. It was horrible. I forced myself to talk to him and ended up regaining an amazing friendship out of it although sometimes there is definitely some uncomfortable nostalgia and we have gone through those phases of getting dangerously close etc!

I'm glad that you're on the looking up side of things.

[vpavelock]

[QUOTE=NikkiP;105047]This is going to sound so lame but I can honestly say that my worst breakup happened when I was 17 years old.


Not lame to me! I'm only 18! I really hope it doesn't take me that long, but it is going to take a while to feel good again.

[Mizpah]

My worst break-up would probably be my three year relationship with my ex-fiance. He was crazy (I thought it was just an act since he wasn't like that with me...it wasn't), and quite callous but not with me until we'd been together about a year. He proposed in quite possibly the worst way, but being eighteen (read: naive, desiring husband/family, escape from the Alcatraz my home had become, etc etc) accepted. He started treating me worse and worse, and slowly my world started to collapse. I no longer had my passions, wasn't doing as well in school and stuck around at community instead of going to one of the universities that had accepted me because of his emotional blackmail, my home life became worse because of him, and I started to lose friends. I didn't see how he was breaking me down, and alienating me from all my loved ones. He admitted toward the end that he lied about pretty much everything, especially about wanting kids and confessed he might be asexual. I finally woke up to this three months before our "wedding" and I just knew what I had to do. I couldn't use him as an escape, I couldn't stay with him out of fear that I wouldn't find someone else. I was miserable and I knew that was not how it was supposed to be. I went to see him, and I started to lose my nerve and called for a break, but we both knew what it was. I instantly was relieved, happy, felt free. I didn't have an emotional moment when I learned he instantly started hanging out with his ex who I had always felt uncomfortable about even though he swore he had no feelings for. That passed, and the happiness returned. I went a little boy crazy, but three months later and just two days after I would have been married to my horrible, liar of an ex, I met my husband.

The stages for me: Realization, Ending It, Independence and Happiness, Slight Upset, Boy Craziness, Mellowing Off and Finding Myself, Self-Discovery.
His: Couldn't Care Less, Suicidal Mess, Stalkery, All Around Nuts (lost 60 pounds, stopped eating, appeared outside my classroom, had my childhood doll buckled in his passenger seat when he appeared at my school, told me he had decided that he DID want to have sex and that if I got pregnant he'd raise the baby...um, no on both counts), "Changed" Man (of course, he wasn't), Anger, Resentment, Revenge (it didn't work).

[lucybelle]

Worst break up was when I was 18 (yes just a baby). It came out of NO WHERE. And my ex never really gave me any closure. He told me he wanted to break up so "we could still be friends". WTF? Though I moved on after about a month (yes it took that long) I didn't get over him until about a year later. Crazy right? Well he was right to break up with me. He's a druggie loser now without a job, degree, or any money and I wouldn't want to hang out with that kind of trash.

anyways...

[xopookie]

I am going through a breakup right now.. I have no idea what stage I am at. Maybe the trying to pretend it never happened stage..


i always took my breakups pretty hard. But the breakup before this with my 2nd boyfriend I handled surprisingly well. I cried and cried like a baby, but then I had a friend stay at my house with me every single night for the following like 2 weeks. I was never alone. You would think most people would want to be alone, but not me. It seemed to help me a lot actually. To be surrounded by love.

..Maybe I should try doing that again.

^That's a great friend!! Wow, from reading all these stories you guys are incredibly strong people to get over a break up. But I'm glad you guys realize the stages and are over it.

[vpavelock]

So I guess you can say this is my boy crazy stage. The other day a made out with a guy, cuddled and watched the nanny. He wanted to hang again tonight but I decided to study instead, but we'll be hanging out this weekend. Today I walked back from band (all the way across campus) to our hall with this guy that I've been a little interested in. We just talked a lot after talking all through band, and we've been seeing each other a lot lately because we realized we live on the same floor. He's transferring after the semester (definitely, so not getting too close.) Then the one guy from my high school that goes to my college has been texting me a lot. We're hanging out one or two days this weekend, and he seems rather interested, and I can't lie I'm pretty interested in him as well. We went to the same preschool, I met him later on again because we both refereed soccer, then we had classes together in middle school and high school, and now we're at the same college. Also this guy that I never met, (he's one of my ex bf's (2 ex's ago) frat brothers) talks to me a lot, and he told me that he liked me today. I'm not really looking for something like that, but he's a great guy and a real comfort to talk to one the phone. I guess you can say I'm exploring my options right now and it feels good. Going to NYC this weekend, going to a party or two at school here, hanging out with 2 guys, and spending time catching up on work.