Living and Loving beyond Heartbreak

Time to put on those Big lady pants, we’re gonna get a bit intense…

If you’ve been a serious relationship that perhaps lasted a number of years before ending, you know that heartache is real pain.

Many years ago, I announced a dissolved relationship in front of some relatives. My Uncle decided to coin in and share that a break-up is one of the worst pains you could ever experience. You go to bed and wake up asking yourself if the break-up was just a bad dream, then you cry until you are covered in tears and ‘runny nose fluid’ and you may even lose weight because you have no appetite. You can no longer listen to love songs, you can’t venture in certain locations that held sentimental value and you keep checking your phone, only to toss it away. That pretty much summed it up.

Back then, I remember many well-intentioned individuals telling me that I would get over it with time and I remember resenting hearing that. It’s true, no one fully comprehends your ambivalent feelings of betrayal, anger, hurt coupled with longing and missing the person……but all in all, it’s true you CAN get over the pain…and move on.

During that time, a friend advised me to look at the movie “500 Days of Summer”. It communicated a most poignant message that was pivotal in helping me properly dissect my emotions. It was a challenge to properly reframe the relationship for the reality of what it was and not what I wanted it to have been. With the heartache, sometimes we hurt because we consider the loss of the good things without the healthy balance of acknowledging the bad. I had to go back in my memory and imagine the ex’s facial expressions and recognise his growing loss of enthusiasm when seeing me. I went back and ‘saw’ things I had overlooked, the growing unhappiness, the growing distrust, the growing sensation of feeling ‘stuck’ and the growing misunderstandings. I was finally willing to accept the whole reality.

I had been guilty of reminiscing the good memories, idealised future plans and ambitions of a life together. Worse, I felt like he ‘owed’ me something for all the years and emotional investments. This I learned is an enemy of truly becoming free. I forgave him for everything and I forgave myself for wanting to hold on to resentment….and kept doing it over and over again.  I allowed myself to mourn the death of a future that would never happen and then I started a gratitude journal. I started being thankful for little things, baby steps, air, potable water, a warm bed, another day, family members, friends, etc. Gratitude became instrumental in healing.

I am convinced that God truly worked everything for my good. My husband far exceeds what I could have ever conceived in my expectations of a husband. I realised that we can limit or restrict our happiness by the lies we tell ourselves. You CAN love again…..

A life without true forgiveness only keeps us in the cage and away from the reality that there are good people who can be trusted and that true love grows over time.