The aftermath of a painful breakup….what men don’t know.

My best friend and her boyfriend broke up on Thursday. Their relationship was one that was passionate and intense…and completely dysfunctional. Never a dull moment with those two, ya know. They would break up and get back together, break up and get back together, break up and get back together. When they fought it was intense and when they loved it was intense. Something always kept them coming back to each other.

Anyway, she changed her cell number. She said that’s it, she’s done. Now he can’t contact her, now when her phone rings she won’t be running for it thinking it’s him. Now she can start to heal and get on with her life. She came over this weekend and I was so proud of her. She had started reading this book “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff”. She was talking about the plans and goals and things that she was doing with her kids and how he just wasn’t the one for her because he wasn’t interested in being a part of a family unit and was basically too selfish to even be in a relationship with her.

Then Saturday night I get a hysterical voice message from her saying she caved and called him (blocked) and now she knows he with someone else. I asked her how does she know he’s with someone else? She said because when she was talking to him, trying to get him to understand her point of view, he was saying he doesn’t care. I asked her how that means that he’s with someone else. She said she just ASSumed. Yea. So I talk her down, reminding her of how fabulous she is and that he’s probably missing her so much he can’t even begin to look for another woman, how he loves her just as much as she loves him, but that she needs to get herself straight and maybe when she’s on that road then she’ll realize that he’s not the one for her.

Cool. Right?

First thing this morning she texts me asking me if she should text him with her new number in case he has an emergency and needs to get a hold of her. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Girlfriend, what emergency could he possibly have that he would call her instead of his family for? She was once again hysterical. She was bargaining with herself, playing games with herself, and basically not being honest with herself.

And how do I know? Because I've been there. I let my emotions control my common sense. I remember the feeling of horror I would get, the weight on my chest, the upset stomach, the uncontrollable tears, the see-saw between self-confidence and self-doubt. I remember texting him because I was too scared to pick up the phone but I just wanted to know that he cared. And any attention was better than no attention. I remember praying and begging the Universe for this man that I love so much to pay attention to me. I remember waking up and first thing thinking about him. I remember thinking about this man 1000+ times a day. I remember being devastated and practically paralyzed thinking that I would never be in his arms again or see him smile or kiss him or smell him. And I remember being devastated and practically paralyzed thinking that I was going to be miserable for the rest of my life if I stayed with him and continued on that on-again, off-again roller coaster of emotions that gave me constant heartburn.

Men are so quick to say how they are different than women, yet why do they expect us to deal with things the way they do? When we love someone so much and we’re faced with the thought of losing them or staying with them and things being awful forever, it destroys us. We cry. We yell. We beg and plead and make bargains and do what it takes to keep them. We lose ourselves. We lose all common sense and we lose the ability to think rationally. We stop talking to our friends because we’re sick and tired of hearing them bad mouth this man we love and we’re sick of talking about it because we’re sick of hearing ourselves talk about it. We make excuses for our men because we love them so much and to bad talk them makes us look like we have poor judgment.

And then we reach a point where we just shut down. We do whatever it takes to get through it. We refuse to talk about it because talking about it puts it in our head and if it’s in our head then we have to deal with it. And we’re not ready to deal with it yet. So we ignore it.

Sounds crazy right? We’re not. And that’s the thing. I spent so long thinking there was something wrong with me and that I’m the only person in the world who has ever acted like this. But the funny thing is, the only ones I hear calling women crazy ARE MEN. Tell your story to another woman, and she’ll more than likely cry with you. She’ll know how to get you through it because she was there at some point in her life.

So are we crazy? No. We’re just in love and we’re hurting and we’re torn and confused and we’re scared. But crazy? No.