Every breakup is different. They can render you into the fetal position in bed with a box of tissues and endless chocolate bars, wondering who to call. But you don’t want to see anyone, you don’t want to explain. You don’t even have the energy to process what is happening. You feel alone, and that feels overwhelming.
Even the most independent of us are afraid of being alone. And while breakups can be a beautiful rebirth; the start of a new chapter; the reawakening of your sense of self; they also make you feel really alone.
It’s important to remember that we all feel this way, at different stages of our lives. These painful moments of change allow us to grow and find strength within ourselves that we may have forgotten existed.
Everything we know about love and romance and the breakdown of relationships is one big cliche, because the cliches are true: breakups suck and love hurts and sometimes you just need a martini and your best friend.
Below, three people dish on how they moved on after the biggest breakups of their life so far. Their journeys are different, but their words are powerful. Perhaps their journeys can help you, if you’re struggling to see the light at the end of the bad breakup tunnel.
“I am the self-appointed queen of break ups” – Bree, 23
I’ve carried myself through breakup after breakup, by returning to the same motto every time: my gut will always, always tell me where I need to be, and that I can deeply and truly trust myself.
The first thing I do after a breakup is make sure I feel, and feel heard. I spend a solid week doing as much crying, sad-song-car-karaoke and reflection as I can. I try not to let any of it stay inside cause I know it’ll fester and turn sour; instead, I try my best to let myself feel, however loud or ugly that looks.
The next stage I begin is what I call ‘the reclamation’. Taking back the things I shared with that person and making them mine again. In the past this has meant taking myself to the movies because that was OUR thing; it then became MY thing, something I share with myself alone. I find a new pasta recipe to replace the one we made together. I go to that Vietnamese restaurant with my friends instead of him. I take myself on a solo journalling date to that wine bar we always went to, and I sit at the bar, instead of the corner booth we shared. I pay respect to those memories, but overwrite them with my own.
Then it’s time to change up my hair (it’s a cliche because it works), wear ONLY outfits that make me feel super hot and powerful, and find a soundtrack to empower myself again. I do a lot of writing and reflecting during this time to reconnect with the parts of myself that I might have lost sight of. I remind myself that I’m all I’ll truly ever need and learn to rely on myself again.
If all else fails, kitchen martinis with a best friend while blasting Hilary Duff or Nelly Furtado is basically free therapy.
“I moved back to my favourite place on Earth, without him” Lyndsey, 41
After my engagement ended I felt like a failure. We were the first of our friends to get engaged but the only ones to not make it down the aisle. A lot of our problems had stemmed from the fact that, ultimately, we wanted different things.
He had moved to New York for me so I could pursue my dreams but then I moved back to Sydney for him after he was unable to get a visa and a job which meant we both had a level of resentment bubbling under the surface.
For me, moving back to New York after we split helped in so many ways. For one, there was the distance — no chance of bumping into each other at the local pub. For another, it was a distraction as I threw myself into re-establishing myself personally and professionally.
However, the biggest way it helped me was that it allowed me to reclaim myself. I had given up on a bunch of my goals and dreams, including living in NYC, for someone whose own goals were not aligned with mine and I’d lost myself in the process. Moving back to my favourite place on earth, vigorously pursuing my career and allowing myself the opportunity to be unattached gave me the perspective to see that, as much as I had loved him, we would never have lasted the long haul as our needs were so different.
Finding success in my professional life also eased the feeling of feeling like a failure in my romantic one. Knowing that helped to heal the heartache of losing a partner and best friend and, eventually, led me to my meeting my soulmate with whom I now have a gorgeous son.
“The turning point was in Paris” – Al, 30
Solo travel helped me to remember who I truly was, after the breakdown of my first long-term relationship. Throughout the five years that we were together, I had lost so much of myself. I was trying to be someone that I wasn’t in order for it to work.
When we broke up, I did a month alone across Europe and it really forced me to just be with myself and rely on myself. I think that sometimes you need to take yourself out of your daily routine and away from everything that is familiar, to remember that you can be strong and okay on your own.
It’s cliche but I did truly find who I was again.
I just found a sense of worth, really. I realised that I must’ve started to doubt myself somewhere along the way; probably because I wasn’t being true to myself. I invested so much, put so much of myself into that person and those years, that it felt like my entire sense of self depended on it. We’d built a house together, you know?
Travelling alone just helped me to realise that I deserved to live and be happy and try again for love and all things wonderful. The turning point was in Paris, really. It’s the city of love! I hit a low point there because it’s that city you want to be in and be in love. But I realised, in that low, that I would love again and a weight lifted off my chest. I felt like I was open. Like I was alive.
