Here Are The Emotional Phases You Can Expect After Being Dumped
I woke up on July 4th to the most glorious holiday of the year: a day that honors the country I adore, celebrated with barbecue and a night sky filled with a panoply of gorgeous, exploding colors. Nothing could sour the Fourth of July for me on this wondrous occasion – or at least, so I thought.
As I logged into Facebook and scrolled down the page, I read the following chilling sentence: “Jennifer ***** is engaged to Matt ****”. After dating some guy for just ten months, my ex-girlfriend is getting married.
The engagement took me by surprise, to say the least. Within moments of learning the shocking news, I would begin to experience a series of feelings echoing the Kübler-Ross model of grieving, used to explain the emotional stages human beings often endure after losing a loved one to death.
The following is a play-by-play of what I went through – and some advice on how to handle each stage, should your ex- get engaged, too.
Denial
“This can’t be right. Someone must have hacked into her Facebook account and Photoshopped a diamond ring on her left ring finger…”
Denial is a defense mechanism we use to avoid facing a painful reality. Although it’s completely natural, you must realize that it’s a fleeting mirage of sorts. Don’t allow the trauma to confuse you, and instead focus your energy on not being ruined by the potentially destructive wave to follow…
Anger
“This is messed up: how the hell could she get engaged to someone so quickly after dating me? He’s not even good looking! … Alright, maybe a little good looking – but come on!”
Anger is healthy in small doses… and as long as it’s not directed at anyone else. Being angry by yourself allows you to air out the frustration of not having control of a situation that’s mostly out of your control.
Bargaining
“Hey, 50% of all marriages end in divorce. Let ‘em have a few years together. They’ll eventually realize it’s not working and then she and I can work it out! Man, that was a close one”.
Bargaining will never result in a realistic outcome, but it is a vital step in your recovery. This optimistic segment of the process is the only one that affords you a reprieve from negative emotions – albeit, momentarily.
Depression
“I lost out on my only chance at true love. And I can’t deal with knowing that the greatest day in her life was also my worst. I’m fragile and my heart is broken. I’m never dating again!”
Sadness is perhaps the longest and healthiest step in your road to recovery. Depression certifies that your feelings were real and that the person you are “mourning” indeed held a special place in your heart. Though painful, it’s what defines us as living beings. When you finally overcome your depression, life can only get better!
Acceptance
“She loves him and he loves her. They are supposed to be together – Who am I to stand in the way of their happiness? The reality is that we are just not as compatible as I thought.”
A well-matched couple should never be questioning the validity of the relationship. Jennifer and I often weren’t certain if we should be together, and that’s why we didn’t end up that way. You must accept the fact that someone else fits with your ex- better than you could so you can move on and be able to fully commit yourself to someone new. Barring a tear in the space-time continuum, we can only live in the present and for the future – and an “ex-” is, by definition, someone you dated in the past.
Bottom Line
Today, I am over her. But I still make a conscious effort not to look at her Facebook profile. I have difficulty knowing that someone who left me in the dust feeling so unhappy found the ultimate happiness before I did.
But in reality, it’s not as though she actually leveraged my sadness for her own bliss. And now I’m sure that I’ll know when I find my soulmate. When that happens, it will be unbearable to look at my ex- ‘s Facebook profile merely because I can’t stand annoying baby pictures – not because the baby is hers.
