Dealing With A Breakup: Things That Are Acceptable When You’ve Broken Your Own Heart

If you told me four years ago that me and the chap I was dating would one day go our separate ways, I would have called you all sorts of parental- guidance-required-profanities and wouldn’t have liked you very much.

Yet here I am sitting on the floor of an (albeit rather beautiful) unlived-in rental property, at 35, childless, ringless, partnerless, my whole world upside down and inside out and my very nervous nervous system buzzing a different kind of buzz to when we shared our first kiss underneath a bus shelter 365 days X 4 ago.

I won’t go into details. Okay, I will go into some. I never imagined something that, on ‘paper’, seemed great would conclude like this. He loved me, I loved him, but for many reasons, I felt like I couldn't grow in the relationship. And though I consider myself quite lucky there wasn’t any infidelity, bad bust ups or financial eff-ups, there was a misalignment and some deep-rooted patterns within both of us that we couldn’t see while we were in it. I also struggled as a childless  step-parent too, perhaps another topic for another time. And, though I made an awesome step-mum, the role for me felt cagey and uncomfortable. The more time goes on, the more I realise that this dynamic wasn’t the core reason for my upping and going, rather it intensified the dynamic. 

Gosh, breakups are horrendous, aren’t they? Eugh, the grief for someone who is still living. Grief for what could have been, for a story that never got its ending. Or rather the ending you imagined. You know when you’re watching a crime series and you’re absolutely 110% certain it was the person who looked like the ultimate crime commit-er? You could see it in their eyes, you could hear it in their voice, they just had that look about them. But the final episode reveals that the murderer was in fact the timid looking “wouldn’t say boo to a goose” neighbour who reported the crime in the first place.

Okay, slightly morbid an analogy, but I’ve got a heartbreak hangover and crime documentaries are a go to these days on solo Saturday nights. Compassion only for myself here though, as binging Netflix is much better than hinge hook-ups and bankruptcy through bougie trips to Bali or extreme glow-ups that leave you unrecognisable. (Admittedly, I have considered all three but have only followed through on the latter, via an extortionate monthly direct debit to straighten my teeth as if aligners will help straighten out other areas of my life).

Admittedly I’m not out the other side yet - not properly - but I think I’ve made it past the brutal beginning. Holy crap, that was brutal. Made much more so than my intrinsic tendency to listen to really sad music to deepen my melancholy. If you want to cry, listen to Alice Boman. But if you want to really cry to the point where you’re not sure what is snot and what is saliva, whether those noises are coming from you or an ill seal, mouth wide, red faced like a toddler who’s been told no, listen to ‘Everything Reminds Me of You’ by Alice Boman. I am certain that will be my top on my non-shareable Spotify wrapped this year, for sure. And don’t say I didn’t warn you.

So, three months in. And not necessarily any ‘easier’ than month one. In fact, it seems tougher. Now that the dust has settled and the adrenaline of moving house has too, along with the fizzling out of post break up transactional chat, a couple of disagreements thrown in there about dating app catch-outs and who bought the bedroom rug. 

But in the spirit of heartbreak honesty, I kept a note. A list of the things I did, felt, said. Some are silly. Some tender. Some are admittedly a bit mad. All of them...necessary.

So here it is - some of the nonsense and navigation I have experienced along the way (thus far!)

Things that are acceptable when you’ve broken your own heart

• Mini Magnums for breakfast.

• Another two... because they are only mini.

• Spending your “saving-up-for-a-house’’ pot on vibey Instagram furniture for your new bachelorette pad.

• Splashing out on a dining table with four chairs, and never using it because a) it’s just you, and b) you’re not really cooking right now (he cooked, and you’re grieving his tuscan chicken dish).

• A cheeky glass of red at midday on a Sunday (in a mug, just in case the DPD driver knocks with your gridworthy and optimistic dining furniture.

• Deleting Instagram to resist posting the new furniture - or watching his newly active story feed. (He never used to post… And now Strava tells me he’s ran 12 miles… HE NEVER USED TO POST ON STRAVA BEFORE. IS HE DOING THE GLOW UP THING?).

• Sneaking back on to view said story and immediately deleting the app again.

• Feeling absolutely mental.

• Deciding you do need a social fix after all, but Facebook is for boomers, so you spiral on TikTok instead. Your new algorithm is dismissive avoidants, adult attachment styles, and "if you love them, let them go".

• Telling yourself you’ll go for a run tomorrow... then not.

• Ordering a shit load of supplements because you’re not really cooking at the moment, that was more his thing and there aren’t many veggies in the ready meals you keep getting from the local offy. Wondering if it’s counterproductive to take them with a glass of wine?

• Convincing yourself that no one will ever love you like that again.

• Intuitively tapping into the creeping suspicion that he already has moved on.

• Finding out through better than Sherlock detective skills (and maybe a touch of social media stalking) that he has.

• Stalking her instagram and cursing at her blonde hair, pretty face and stupid fucking sausage dog.

• Feeling absolutely mental.

• Making a fake Hinge profile to 1) find him on there and 2) scope the current dating pool.

• Realising the said pool looks like a lukewarm stew of beige and bios that say "just ask me".

• Deleting Hinge because it. Was. bloody. Terrifying.

• Feeling weird and teary in your new but unfamiliar local tesco.

• Hearing a man’s voice that sounds kind. Imagining his hand grazing yours as you reach for the bananas, only to see his beautiful wife and adorable baby in the trolley beside him.

• Thinking no one will ever love you like he did.

• Comparing yourself to your fellow thirty somethings, either married, childrened, or long term boyfriended.

• Deciding to go to a friend’s wedding reception because you’re a strong, independent woman who looks excellent in a jumpsuit and dark under-eye circles.

• Getting completely sloshed, swigging left over table wine and sending him a message the following morning. Yeah,let’s not talk about that.

• Booking into a silent retreat and spending a week with very sad, single menopausal women who found it difficult to be silent, and then feeling weird that maybe they were a reflection of a future you.

• Being recommended a new and ‘different’ dating app, then deleting it again.

• Listening to Alice Boman on repeat.

• Having an okay day until you’re reminded by your iPhone’s “on this day” of the first picture you took together on the third date.

• Season changing, clocks going back, darker colder nights and no one to keep you warm but the dressing gown that he bought you.

• And the slippers he bought you for Christmas.

• “Everything reminds me of you’’ still on repeat.

• Learning to be with the uncertainty of it all because the constant spiralling is getting you absolutely no where, and the sadness is making your frown lines intensify, and you can’t pay out for botox because you’ve already been charmed by the SmileWhite team member who told you that you are going to look perfect with straighter teeth. Thanks Adam.

• Trying to find Adam on Facebook

• Deleting Facebook

And I think that brings us pretty much up to date. Sorry. No fancy, life-changing advice here. No miracle cure for heartbreak. No "five steps to move on fast." You just have to go through it. Perhaps the point of this ramble isn’t to offer false hope to the heartbreakee, but to offer them time, space to be weird for a bit, something to relate to in a world where we are so quick to fix and offer advice we don’t take ourselves.

There are a million podcasts and books out there telling you how to get over someone, how to move on, how to manifest a healed heart. And sure, there are things that do help (wedding reception table wine ain’t one of 'em). But really? You have to sit with it. The mess and melancholic mayhem that comes when you’re no longer tethered to someone you once thought would always be there.

Heartbreak is grief. The death of something that is still living. The mourning of someone still around. It’s non-linear and we move through it, with set backs and a whole lot of heartache along the way. What it is not, is a wound we fix. A “pop a plaster over the top” or “take a tablet twice daily with food” (or wine) with. 

That’s why there are so many books, poems, playlists and, now, TikToks (take it from me) dedicated to one of the most universal agonies. 

So yes, go ahead. Eat Mini Magnums for breakfast. Have a cry in Tesco. Curse the love songs on the radio and lose your mind, just for a while. Be with the meaninglessness of life for a bit, the blandness of it all, without someone by your side trying to make sense of it all with. But, maybe alongside all of that, also just try being by your own side for a while, trying to make sense of it all.

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Written by Chelsea Branch

You can find more of her writing here.