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The pain that follows the end of any relationship can be hugely aggravated by our sense that the reason they ended it was because they discovered the truth about us: that we are miserable, awful, ugly wretches. But that’s highly unlikely to be true – and says more about our psyches than it does about reality. The pain of the end of love can be mitigated by exploring how we feel about ourselves.
They’ve gone – and what we need most of all to understand is why? What is striking is that, despite what friends and well-meaning acquaintances tell us, we already know. It is us. We firmly and naturally assume that the explanation is primarily to do with us and our miserable failings. They’ve gone because we weren’t good enough. They got to know us better than almost anyone has ever done – and then, inevitably, felt horrified by the truth. It’s not the relationship that failed: we failed.
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Photo: Screenshot