Dear Anna,
I just ended a 7-year relationship with my BFF/partner. Next month we had a trip booked for our anniversary. The day she broke up with me was also the day she became someone else's partner. She told me she wanted us to be friends. She said everything will remain the same, that I am still important and dear to her, and that we should go ahead with the anniversary trip.
I have no idea how this is going to work out, how it can remain the same when she got herself another partner. I told her it is really hard for me to be able to carry on seeing her, and worst of all is that we have a lot of mutual friends. I still love her and definitely want her back but I know there's no turning back.
I have been thinking a lot that the best solution for me to move on is to cut ties with her, but each time I think about it, I just curl up and cry. Should I be — Selfless Or Selfish?
Dear SOS,
Please, please, please do not go on that trip with her! If your tickets are nonrefundable, consider taking a friend with you, or even going alone. Your ex might complain if she paid for part of it, but she owes you AT LEAST this much courtesy.
As to your other question, it’s not selfish to want some distance after a breakup. Indeed, for many people, it’s critical, and an act of self-care to do so. Please take all the time and space you need in order to feel OK again.
And not to, you know, assume how your ex is feeling or anything, but I’d venture a guess that this whole process is going a lot more smoothly for her because she jumped immediately into another relationship. It’s easy to say, “Let’s be pals! Nothing will change!” when you’re not the one reeling from the horrible stew and suck of getting your heart ripped out. (If it makes you feel a teensy bit better, she will feel it eventually. Very few of us, sociopaths excepting, can walk away from a 7-year relationship completely unscathed and without any repercussions. You can stave off the pain for a little while, but emotions are like water: Dam it up all you want, but it’s gotta go somewhere. And it will.)
So. Yes. Sever those ties, SOS. It’ll hurt worse for the first little bit (a few months, likely) to not have her in your life, but then, slowly and surely, it won’t smart as much. You probably won’t even notice for a while, because the healing will be so infinitesimal. Then one day, you’ll wake up and not think of her at all. Then later, you’ll go whole days without wondering what she’s doing. Then later, you’ll look in the mirror and say, “I haven’t cried in days.” You’ll smile without reason. You’ll build a monument to your former life with your former love and salute it from the distant shores of your current, beautiful present.
“I want to feel what I feel,” as the incredible writer Toni Morrison once said. “Even if it’s not happiness.” She was talking about not doing drugs, but I think it applies just as easily to love, which can be a far more potent opiate.
PS: Really, don’t go on that trip with her.
