I Broke up With the Same Man Twice

I haven’t met a single person who loves the ‘break-up day’.

Nor have I met anyone who has it on their list of favorite past times.

‘I enjoy walking on the beach, playing tennis and breaking up with people.’

It doesn’t happen.

So when I broke up with the same person twice, it felt the like the worse kind of Deja Vu’s.

I didn’t foresee that break-up day would happen again. I didn’t plan to break-up a second time. No one realized we had completed a dress rehearsal for the big show.

If I knew were heading for Break-up Day 2.0, I may have thought twice about restarting the relationship.

So what happens when you break up with the same person twice?

Most people find it surprising I dated my ex, Anthony, two times over. Once for a year and a half, the other time for three years. The concept of moving past the pain of the first disastrous relationship miffs the most romantic people.

Many have questioned why I went back for more. What happened to regain trust? But never so many questions about the big day itself.

‘What was it like the day you broke up again?’

There is this strange obsession with what Break-Up Day 2.0 was like. Some wish they could have been a fly on the wall. Surely the rematch would trump the first bout, they muse.

Everyone wants to know if there were chairs thrown, tears flowing, or a bottle of champagne popped. Was it easier the second time around? Did it hurt more?

Or was it the best thing that ever happened?

The Anticipation For Break Up Day 2.0 Was Easier Than Expected

The day before I knew I had to end it with Anthony, I spent the day crying. Flooded with tears. I couldn’t reconcile what I knew was right with having to deliver the news.

I had foolishly cheated on him and wasn’t planning to hide it. I wondered if we could work through it and recover our relationship after my infidelity.

Yet, I couldn’t see a way to work through it. I wanted to cower in my guilt and end the heartbreak. His and mine. Our compounding issues, our pain, were leading to this moment. And the night before, and the morning of, anxiety-riddled my body.

The second time we broke up, I fixed myself a vodka soda and watched a movie, waiting for him to come home. We’d already spoken about ‘the conversation’ on the phone. Our meeting was a mere break-up formality.

I had even packed some of my bags before he arrived. I was more impatient about getting the conversation over with so I could meet one of my girlfriends for dinner. The anticipation was like any other day.

Completely forgettable.

The Events Compare To War And Peace

The first time we sat down and had ‘the talk’ about our relationship, it sucked. There is no other way to describe the heartbreak of that night. It was like going to war.

We sat in my kitchen, on opposite sides of the room, and laid out our demise. He cried, then I cried, and we walked away as emotional messes. I remember eating an entire packet of chocolate biscuits five minutes after he left my house.

I hated every second of that day.

However, the second break up was joyous. The event was a relief rather than a tragedy. We both knew the relationship was ending and neither one of us wanted to save it.

When there is no fight to make a relationship work, it results in little emotion usually projected on break-up day. This was true for me.

There were no tears. No emotional eating. In fact, I danced around the room the moment we parted ways. I was finally at peace.

The Declaration Of Our Breakup Was Less Eventful

Every person in my mobile phone Rolodex received a tearful phone call the first time we broke up. I felt like I needed to make the news known, so I could get the support and care I needed.

Being a little younger too, years younger compared to our second break-up day, I thought I needed to be public about the split.

It was my duty to keep everyone up to date; I figured.

The second time we broke up, I realized that it had been days before I told my family or most of my friends.

Life was moving quickly after the split. I moved out of our shared home. I was working full time whilst packing and unpacking. I didn’t have the time or energy to tell people.

But I didn’t care either. I didn’t need the emotional support, and I didn’t need to grieve with supportive shoulders to cry on. I needed to live my life, a quality I was missing during our relationship. You could say I was enjoying my freedom.

The Recovery Gets Easier

In the months following our first break up, I slept with a slew of men I didn’t like. I got fired from my job. I humiliated myself in front of all of my friends with my intoxicated antics.

I was a mess.

Most of my friends sided with him, and I felt extremely alone. And the friends that didn’t side with him were the ones who were happy to see him gone from my life. It didn’t make them very sympathetic to my pain.

I had to rebuild myself, remind myself why I was walking the earth and what life meant to me. It took me eight months to stop looking for someone to replace him and to live my life.

But there was always that niggling feeling, the ‘what if’ lingering in the air like a foul smell.

The second break up was easier for me than it was for him. I knew this life without him was right, but I think he wrestled with where I would fit in now we weren’t a couple.

The joys of dating twice mean friends entwine, and you’re a part of each other’s lives deeply. In breaking up with him, I didn’t know I would break up with all his friends too. Especially with the women in his life that I called sisters.

He Was Angrier After 2.0

My ex had his own ways of dealing with break-ups. He loved the ‘block’ method, where you delete phone numbers and remove each other from social media. I expected this from our first break up. But as our second break up day was so resolute, almost anticlimactic, I assumed we could remain friends.

No such luck. He became bitter, angry, worse than I’d ever seen him before. It surprised me. He wanted to break up with me as much as I wanted to break up with him.

My ex couldn’t handle me hanging around anymore. I was too happy, too confident and too influential in his world. His friends listened to me, valued me. He thought I would destroy his ability to find happiness.

With one word to his inner circle, I was shut out from our mutual friends.

However, as I knew our break-up was the right thing for me, losing those people didn’t seem so tough. Unlike the first time.

If they wanted to side with him, it was their loss. I wanted us to keep the friendship we built. I felt were all adults and could live harmoniously together. But you can’t have your cake and eat it too, apparently.

No Wants To Break-up Twice

Breaking up once is bad enough, let alone going through it twice with the same person.

If you’re willing to date someone for a second time, you need to enter the relationship with the realization that you may have to go through the same pain again.

You may have to live through the awful break up again. It could be better or worse.

And you need to live with the reality there is no re-do this time. Because once you’ve broken up twice, there’s rarely a third time.

No one wants to do that day again.

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This post was previously published on Medium.com.

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