The Truth About Break-Ups

Grace’s phone lit up; She stared at the words as they formed on her screen. Sitting on her best friend’s couch, Grace knew the message would not be good. Breaking up with a man she loved for almost three years, it would never be a seamless experience.

“When are you moving out?”

She texted back quickly, “I thought we could talk about this tomorrow?”

“You know I’m keeping the dog,” he replied in haste.

The dog, a golden doodle named Charlie, was a gift to Grace. Grace had come home on the evening of her birthday one day in September a year earlier to a cute puppy with curly red hair. But now, as their relationship came to an end, so did her access to her puppy Charlie. Grace’s eyes welled with tears as she asked in response to the text,

“You won’t even give me a chance to discuss this with you in person first?”

. . .

Generosity is an essential part of all relationships. Anyone willing to keep the things you love from you — frankly don’t deserve access to your heart. How bittersweet is the freedom from a dying relationship? The trade-in value on freedom is typically rung-up at a hefty price. The challenge in most break-ups is the emotional constraints placed on our logic. We get emotionally flooded and lose sight of the person we once loved so fiercely.

Our pain instinctually brings in a flood of emotions ranging from contempt, resentment, anger, sadness, and even a sense of psychological rejection. We do not operate with generosity or kindness when introduced to pain. No, usually in pain, we move toward the fight, flight, or freeze scenario as our ancestors did. In this case, Grace’s new ex-boyfriend was in fight-mode and willing to take what he believed was his to feel whole again.

Break-ups are not pretty, but they are authentic experiences we can all relate to. Like dropping a beautiful glass bowl, we watch it shatter to the floor in dismay. We clean up the mess with the hopes that one day we will find another bowl just as great, again.

. . .

My only wish is that people moving toward uncomfortable truths would be more gentle with one another. What I have come to know from three pretty substantial, interwoven, life break-ups, is that the truth is one of the elements closest to love that we all share the burden of. And at the pivotal moment, like Grace, we find no permanence to exist in the love we share, telling a partner this discovery is a painful nonetheless required confession we must absolve. To waste someone’s time believing permanence exists when we know otherwise, is unjust in the realm of love.

We find truth sometimes is freeing, yet, other times, it can harm and harden the hearts of many people we never intended to. In times of fact, we must learn as a society to be both gentle and generous with one another. Generous as we would if they were not walking away. Generous in our understanding that this may not be easy for them to wrestle with either. Ample in our forgiveness of human imperfections. When we feel our instinctual urge, like Grace’s partner to inflict pain, we must realize that by giving us the truth, even when it hurts, we are giving love. Pain in break-ups will always be felt on both sides to some extent, so be gentle. Be gentle with the responses we take to pain. Be considerate in taking when another pulls away. Be gentle with the words we use when measuring the burden of our own heart’s journey. In love and truth, all we can do is be gentle and be generous as it relates to our experience in love or the loss of.

While Grace’s ex-boyfriend may feel whole for a moment when taking back his gift. Later, that fleeting feeling of revenge will dissolve, and all that will be left is a dog a man gave to a girl many moons ago. Be generous in forgiveness; be gentle when meeting new versions of ourselves.

—

This post was previously published on Hello, Love and is republished here with permission from the author.
—

***