The aftermath of a breakup is a time of reckoning.
You reflect on everything you’ve said to each other in the weeks and months leading up to the end. You look at the pictures on your camera roll. Were those smiles genuine or fake?
You can tell what you were thinking at every photo. You remember the arguments before each family event, every outing. You remember the passive-aggressive comments as you got dressed, and the verbal blows you exchanged in the car on the way over, only to pose as the perfect couple once you arrived at your destination, murderous thoughts going through your mind as you grinned at the camera.
You can only imagine what your ex was thinking.
You reread old text messages, looking for clues as to what exactly went wrong. You find new meaning in old, overused emojis and derive new conclusions from a lack or an excess of punctuation.
You talk it over with your friends, debating all possible ways things could have turned out differently. If only he listened to you more. If only she wasn’t so needy. If only he were more romantic. If she would only relax.
If only he wasn’t such a momma’s boy. If only she wasn’t so spoiled.
And on and on you go until you feel a burning desire to reach out to your ex and have just one more talk, one more deep conversation that might help you figure out exactly what they meant back then and what they’re thinking right now.
You don’t want to try again, you just need to know what they’re thinking. You need to know why they said that thing that one time, and what they understood about the point you were making when you talked to the time before last.
If only you knew what they were thinking, you believe, you might find the closure you’re so desperately looking for.
But don’t reach out to them. Not again.
Because you’ve done it before. You had the same conversation one hundred times and you couldn’t find common ground. Having the 101st conversation will not change anything.
Your desire to understand is covering up a much deeper need: maintaining a connection that is already over.
You believe you’re pursuing a noble cause. You’re trying to make sense of something that happened to you and which, understandably, shook you to the core. But in reality, you’re having trouble letting go. You’re refusing to finish the last chapter and close the book, so you drag the story on and on and on.
Trying to understand what exactly happened is, to an extent, a productive exercise. But there comes a time when it becomes too much and you have to let go, especially if you feel like you’re reenacting the same script over and over and not getting anywhere. When all you can say to each other are slight variations of the same theme, with no changes in substance and no changes of perspective, it’s time to either see a therapist or call it quits.
There comes a moment where one conversation has to be the last. There comes a moment where you have to admit that trying to understand your ex is only an excuse you created to keep yourself connected to the past and not do the work of moving on.
There comes a moment where you tell yourself you’ll never understand every single thought that went through your ex’s head when you were together and that’s ok. You don’t need to know everything to find meaning in what you experienced or to move on.
Great read with valuable advice! I've often found myself feeling stuck, dwelling on past relationships and what went wrong, holding onto silly grudges that prevented me from enjoying the present!