Breakup Advice

Today, we have a question from a reader who finds herself having been passed over for another woman – an event that has happened to her before and that, thus, has left her feeling devastated.

She writes:

I just turned 50. A year ago I decided to explore online dating after 10 years devoted to being a single mom. Still in the midst of coping with a painful rejection from a man I met there with whom I had a lot in common, but who decided there was ‘no chemistry’ after we explored a friendship (and was sexually impotent with me), I messaged another man who appeared to have similar values and interests. He responded very strongly that he was captivated by my profile and picture, and that he was soon moving to my city for a new job.

We chatted and emailed for 2 weeks. He was up front telling me that he was just out of a long term relationship and had some dates that went very well with another woman who lived here on a previous trip, but he wanted to meet me, too. ( I have always been skeptical of too much interest right away from men who don’t even know me yet, but he was incredibly romantic and charming and we just clicked even before we met.) We met/had our 1st date the day he moved here.

For 6 weeks he showed me everything I’ve never had in a man, and have been missing out on. Kind, attentive, respectful, passionate wonderful in bed, liked me for things I want to be liked for. I trusted him and started opening up with him in ways I have never before. Then I noticed him getting distant, and asked him if we needed to take a break, was he seeing/needed to see other people? (It was then I found out that he had been seeing the other woman he had mentioned all along, and he felt himself in a huge dilemma because he couldn’t be so close to 2 at once. He acknowledged that we were on the verge of an exclusive relationship. I felt like I was on an episode of the TV show “The Bachelor.” He chose the other woman, but indicated the he was ambivalent suggesting that we give it some time, see how we feel, he never has actually dated much (married for 14 years before his recent relationship) and needed to date. He said he felt dirty being involved with 2 women at such a level.

I was shellshocked, and incredibly sad. He was very kind and empathetic and apologized for hurting me. That only made it worse, because it showed his quality. I knew it was probably final, but hoped maybe in the future he’d come back. 3 weeks later, I impulsively initiated an online chat, he said he had been thinking of me, we talked on the phone briefly, and the next night I found flowers at my door that he had brought himself with a card that only said “I hope you’re doing well”. I emailed him a few days later that I missed him. He responded in a joking way. I then talked to him and was rather angry telling him the flowers were an ambiguous message and was there something unfinished between us or not? He said he didn’t mean to be ambiguous and “No”, but texted me a few days later wishing me well on a community event I was coordinating.

I feel like a fool, he was only being kind after he broke up with me, have been crying for 6 weeks now, am miserably depressed, think about him constantly, and check to see if he’s on the online dating site. He is. I can’t stop hoping there is still a possibility for us.

I am in despair about ever having a relationship. I am 50. I have had 2 other painful experiences in my life where men I was involved with have explicitly chosen another woman over me, and I know that is why this is so hard, in addition to the loneliness of the past 10 years. I am told I am very physically attractive, and young looking, and I get tons of online dating interest, but I can only think of him. It was only a 2 month relationship. What’s wrong with me to feel this pain so intensely? I have even started smoking again. Help.

And our response:

Hello and thanks for sharing your story. First of all, I’m very sorry to hear about this painful situation.

Here is my take on it and I don’t think it will surprise you. I think it’s something that you know but maybe just need to hear from another party to reinforce for you.

This man sounds like an honest man. He was up front about the fact that he was just out of a marriage and seeing other people in addition to you. He is in an exploration phase, unsure of even who he himself is at the moment, much less what he wants. I think that explains the sense of confusion around all of it. That confusion makes it difficult and can lead to people ending up hurt. But he was genuine enough to share this up front.

My sense is that being a caring person he really does feel badly about anyone getting hurt. But there was no simple way for that to be avoided. By being open with everyone involved (at least that’s what I’m gathering from your story) he did what he was responsible to do. Other than that it just sounds like a situation where it isn’t possible for everyone to win.

But, in the end, I feel like this is one of those situations where your best move is the same regardless of what is going on with him. Whether there is any hope of him coming back to you or not, in both cases it seems in your best interest to back off from the situation. Pressuring him would only make you seem less attractive and the other woman more attractive so it would probably diminish any hope that existed. And if he is sincere in telling you that there is actually not any chance of getting back together, then it would be a waste of energy.

If you needed to, I wouldn’t find it too much to simply prepare one last letter letting him know that you are interested and do want to be with him, but have to move on for now. After that I wouldn’t contact him anymore – certainly not in the foreseeable future until you were far past this pain.

At that point the focus becomes you and the terrible abandonment/inferiority that this is stirring up for you again. There are no magic words that I can say to fix that. But it does help to understand where those feelings come from. You mentioned having felt these feelings stirred up in earlier relationships where someone was chosen over you. Quite possibly this feeling of being passed over for someone else – of being “less than” – goes back even further.

The silver lining of these feelings is they can help us trace back to events that we have forgotten and not resolved and sometimes at least get some understanding if not resolution.

Sometimes I think these unearthings of painful feelings end up serving as nothing more than a strengthening phase. You can get through this hurt. It is almost a form of withdrawal. And if you take it day by day and work through it rather than run from it, it will pass in time leaving you even more resilient.

Some find it helpful as this withdrawal-like phase is going on to read books like those we recommend that validate those feelings and keep them aware of what is real and what is being magnified by the unresolved emotions reawakened from the past. Some find it helpful just to keep busy and distract so as to survive another day not going back to the source until they are strong enough to face the pain itself. And this can always be a good time to find a good therapist to help you through it.

I think this sets the stage for how to respond. If you (or anyone reading this) have any follow-up questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Here are some interesting quotes about breakups that we’ve seen on different websites and pulled together conveniently for you here.

Some of them put breakups into context. Some are quotes about moving on.

Each of the breakup quotes is linked to the page where we found it so that you can explore further to find more related quotes.

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“I don’t miss him, I miss who I thought he was.” – Unknown

– from LovesAGame’s 10 Positive Break Up Quotes And What We Can Learn From Them

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“Breakups aren’t always meant for makeups. Sometimes, they’re meant for wakeups.”

– from Christi Hampton’s Break ups Pinterest page

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“The worst feeling is not being lonely. It’s being forgotten by someone you could not forget.”

– from LoveQuotes1’s Tumblr

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“Nothing hurts more than realizing they meant everything to you, but you meant nothing to them.” – Unknown

– from Sad Break Up Quotes’ Top 50 Breakup Quotes of All Time

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“Passion is always a mystery and unaccountable, and unfortunately there is no doubt that life does not spare its purest children; often it is just the most deserving people who cannot help loving those that destroy them.” – Gertrude by Herman Hesse

– from Flavorwire’s 30 Literary Breakup Quotes

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“I don’t hate you. I’m just disappointed you turned into everything you said you’d never be.”

– from Caley Horan’s BreakUp Quotes Pinterest page

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“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”

– Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet

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“Time is only a healer if you use the time to heal.” – Marina Pearson

– from Five Break Up Quotes To Get You Through A Relationship Breakdown on the Huffington Post

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“If you are going through hell keep going.” – Winston Churchill

– from Five Break Up Quotes To Get You Through A Relationship Breakdown on the Huffington Post

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“Some people think that it’s holding on that makes one strong; sometimes it’s letting go.”

– from Best Breakup Quotes and Sayings

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“Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment.” – Rita Mae Brown

– from BrokenHeartedGirl.com’s Breakup Quotes

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If you like these, you might also like Quotes on Relationships or Some of the Best Marriage Advice Quotes from Around the Web.

Do you know of any great quotes about breakups? Let us know about them in the comments. What are your favorites?

Many people ask how to fix a relationship. But there is no one single answer because there are so many different types of relationship problems.

We can start by dividing troubled relationships into two categories, however.

• Category 1: Relationships where both partners are interesting in fixing relationship problems
• Category 2: Relationships where one partner wants to fix the relationship and the other does not or is indifferent

Let’s start with the second category. If your relationship falls in this category and you’re reading this article, we can assume you are the partner that wants to know how to fix your relationship because you’re the one interested in doing so. Your partner is distant and does not seem willing to be active in the healing process.

In this situation, you first have to accept the frustrating reality that you cannot force another person to care no matter how strongly you care. You may be unable to persuade this person to participate in fixing the relationship.

However, even in that case, the best thing you can do is work on yourself. If you improve yourself, your partner may start to take notice. This is especially true because those who wish to fix relationships are often the partners that crave closeness while their partners crave space. As you begin to focus more on yourself, your partner will start to feel the breathing room and may relax and eventually seek a little more closeness.

Even in the worst case scenario where your partner never takes an interest again, you can end the relationship already on the path to becoming a stronger person by yourself and in future relationships.

But there are ways you might be able to encourage your partner to join in healing the relationship. One of the most important is to consider what their biggest fears in the relationship are and working to assuage them. Many times, the more distant partner fears engulfment or being overwhelmed by attention and demands on them. If you communicate to your partner that you understand their need for space and prove to them that you can respect it, then you may have more leverage to ask for them to participate in fixing the relationship when you are together.

There are few more frustrating situations to be in than to be in a relationship that you sincerely wish to fix and in which you are putting forth effort to do so with a partner who is unwilling to do his or her part. The bottom line is that you can only work on yourself, express your willingness to respect your partner’s space within reason and then ask them to please participate in the healing process. At that point you simply have to accept that other people make their choices and those choices have consequences. If you’ve done the best you can, then you can hold your head up high regardless of the outcome.

Now let’s consider the first category, in which both partners want to fix the relationship. In this case, it is all about communication and exploration. First you need to communicate to try to zero in on and define what the key problem is. There are many classic problems in relationships that usually stem from some dichotomy where the partners each fall on opposite sides.

We’ve already mentioned one such dichotomy in which one partner values closeness and the other space. Here are some other dichotomies that might be at play in your relationship trouble:

• Wanting to go out more vs. stay in more
• Wanting to spend money freely vs. save frugally
• Wanting to analyze situations more vs. make spontaneous choices
• Wanting things scheduled vs. wanting to play it by ear
• Wanting strict rigid values vs. wanting tolerance and free thinking

Are any of these what has you at odds? If not, talk together about what difference really lies at the heart of your conflict.

Once you have the problem well-defined, then work to become conscious of where this difference began.

Some of these differences have to do with innate temperaments that cannot easily be changed. In that case, you should try to find ways to compromise so neither partner’s preference takes precedence all of the time.

Others of these differences are not innate, but were picked up in the course of your development. They may stem from the values of your families or from rebelling against those values. Try to become conscious of the path that led to these characteristics that are currently at odds. Can you remember the earliest instance of feeling that way? Tell each other your stories and you might find yourself gaining a great deal of compassion and compromising more naturally.

Regardless of the other details of your relationship difficulty, there are two recommendations that are just about always worthwhile.

1. Whether alone or as a couple, find the best relationship therapist you can.
2. Read, alone or together, Getting the Love You Want and the Getting the Love You Want Workbook. These books will bring you tremendous insight and offer you powerful tools that you can use by yourselves or along with a therapist. They will also help you in figuring out what kind of therapist would be most helpful to you.

Fixing a relationship can be a very complex, but rewarding, endeavor. Let us know in the comments section what you think about this topic. What approaches have worked or not worked for you in trying to figure out how to fix a relationship?