8.02 | Is there a healthful way to get past the pain of a broken heart?

[Harley Quinn]

Is there a healthful way to get past the pain of a broken heart?

In this workshop we would like you all to discuss the pain of breaking up and the difference between a healthy and unhealthy reaction to the pain.

Please share your thoughts.

To catalyze this discussion we will quickly explores some points made by Susan Piver, author of The Wisdom of a Broken Heart.

"It's very important to differentiate between 'healthy' and 'painless," says Piver, "I think people look for a way to end things without feeling bad, and that, of course, is impossible."

What is unhealthy is trying to escape the discomfort.

Piver identifies three typical heartbreak escape routes:

• Not fully facing your soon-to-be-ex, by breaking up via text message or announcing over dinner that you wish to break up and then cutting off contact completely.

• Blaming him or her as a way of letting yourself off the hook. "I had to break up with him when I learned he had debt, wore lifts, lacked ambition, would never become a vegetarian might be reasons you decide not be with someone" Piver says. "Own your own wish to end the relationship; don't put it off on some inadequacy of theirs", she advises.

• "Doing something wacky, such as being unfaithful, drinking heavily or taking drugs, not showing up to meet the parents, or otherwise forcing your significant other to break up with you.  Although it may be uncomfortable," Piver says,"the honest route is the healthful route."

Who Holds the Power?

What often comes into play in breakup is the balance of power in a relationship. Who's got the upper hand? The person who leaves is viewed as the one with the power. That leaves the other party mystified and befuddled. Quite often the person who senses his partner is about to end the relationship often threatens to leave first as a bluff to see if the other party still cares. The injured party enters a hellish limbo.

Is This Really It?

Many of us want to accept that it is really over, but then we think that perhaps our ex is hiding their feelings, and that if we could do something to extract them, we could put things back together.  Adding to this discomfort is the series of breakups that often precede the final breakup, which leaves both parties wondering if the current breakup is really the final parting.

Contact or No Contact

While wrestling with the finality, there is always the nagging desire to contact the other party.  Maintain a respectful distance, one expert says.  "Give yourself time to re-establish yourself as an individual," according to Michele Many, a licensed clinical social worker and assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center. "Don't go through someone else to try to get information about your ex. And never put family or friends in the middle."  

In most cases, if you are seeking out your ex, it's is an indication that you have unfinished emotional business.

If you happen to cross paths and you manage the situation with little upset or emotion, it's a sign that you may have made the transition in a healthful way.  

But be prepared that the other party may not be in the same place. Have an exit plan. You can't do the processing for them any more than they can do it for you.  

Piver says you should also be aware that sometimes the ex wants to continue the dialog, not so much to process it in a constructive way, but to cling to the relationship.

The parties involved need to determine if it's best to keep talking or cut the ties.

"One way to figure this out", Piver says, "is to hold a good intention. If your intention is to honor your own heart and what you know to be true, and to prevent more pain in the long run for both of you, your words will land in a particular way. If you have the very same conversation, but with the intention of faulting or blaming the other person, the conversation will have a different tone. The impact is therefore different." "Show your true feelings without expecting the other person to respond in any particular way,." Piver says. "If you're sad, cry. If you're upset, express it. If you already feel distant, don't pretend you don't."

Friends?

Its often said that if you share friends - enjoy your friends as you did before -- it usually self-selects out.

Its generally agreed upon that we should face our own heartbreak, even if we are the one ending the relationship. Allow ourselves to grieve. Grief is a profound teacher. This is a growth process rather than a death. It is the idea of a gift within a crisis.

The hard question is, Are we looking for an easy way out - and hurting ourselves in the process?



GOOD BREAK-UP GUIDELINES

Change your habits. Don't go to the same places you and your ex visited on a regular basis. It's even a good time to plan a getaway or vacation.

Call on someone you know and trust to monitor you if you are concerned about veering into extremes.

Give yourself the time to explore interests that you did not explore in the past because it interfered with your relationship.

Avoid self-medication of any kind (food, drugs, alcohol, smoking, etc.).

Focus on good nutrition and regular exercise. When you feel better physically, you feel better mentally.

Resist the urge to leap into another relationship. Being able to be happy with yourself is a prerequisite to being happy with someone else.

Source: Social worker Michele Many

[Mutt]

Hi Harley Quinn,

otherwise forcing your significant other to break up with you.  Although it may be uncomfortable," Piver says,"the honest route is the healthful route."

This is still something that needs addressing after my breakup with a pwBPD i found myself in a difficult situation because of not communicating my needs and not asserting myself.

I hung unto the r/s with my exuBPDw and I didn’t want to be the one to end the r/s I didn’t force her I did keep quiet hoping that she was going to end the r/s, this same pattern repeated in a r/s with another person after the breakup with my exuBPDw.

I can’t pin point exactly what the issue is i know that i worry about hurting the other person’s feelings that’s a problem because I’m sacrificing my own feelings and well being by not saying anything it makes things worse by leading the other person on. I agree about being honest it may be really difficult but you’ll get over the part sooner instead of dragging things out and making it life difficult than it needs to be.

I’m just speaking for myself when I say this maybe there’s some passive aggressiveness there but there’s definitely some avoidance issues.

Resist the urge to leap into another relationship. Being able to be happy with yourself is a prerequisite to being happy with someone else.

I don’t know if I agree with this 100% although I did believe in it at one point I’m going to assume that the context that the professor wrote it in means a really bad break up?

Let’s take the person out of the equation and look at your support network often but not always family and friends don’t know what to say, I’m not blaming them for this I think that is a more general mentality but family and friends may encourage you to get back on the horse, to get over and move on by starting a new r/s.

I recall reading an article and the writer was married for several years and her H had passed a week and and a half after he passed friends were encouraging her to get back on the horse she didn’t m but she didn’t have time to process the grief this wasn’t a breakup this was a tragic event. Their hearts are in the right place but why do we think that we have bounce back as quickly as humanly possible the pain hurts but your healing that’s why it hurts.

I found myself in a new r/s quickly after my last one was over because my gf ended it and was happy to not get back into a r/s with me I had taken a long break from r/s’s  four years the break up was not as difficult as my exuBPDw my self esteem was better I didn’t think that I had anything to learn this time because I had taken such a long break the last time to work through everything.

My exgf didn’t like seeing me moving on quickly because to her it meant that the r/s didn’t mean as much to me she wasn’t ready to see me move on that being said she chose to breakup and didn’t want to get back together when I wanted to. I’m saying that i think it depends on the situation as every situation is unique.

[Lucky Jim]

Hey HQ, Great topic!  In my view the first step towards recovery is to allow the painful feelings.  Don't deny them.  Don't judge them as good or bad.  Just acknowledge and observe your emotions.

Studies suggest that repressed feelings continue to smolder and can be a source of physical problems, e.g., back pain, as well as mental health problems, e.g., depression.

LuckyJim

[MeandThee29]

It recently occurred to me that I was wanting some sort of resolution/closure when that may never happen.

It was a big step for me to accept the ambiguity that way. Some months back, a friend who has known me since childhood commented that I needed to work on letting go of the past and accepting my present situation as it is. I can't make my husband get help or agree to return to work on things. I only can work on my responses now. And nothing positive may be down the road, and that's OK.

Hard lessons!

[Drs204]

My xgfwBPD did the breaking up. A month later had a new BF. She couldn't even tell me. She just blocked me on FB one day. It was 2 days later when I found out when a friend told me.

I texted her then saying I knew about the new BF. She told me she had met him the week before so was not cheating on me. She also stated "I found him when I was single, what a crime... ."

It was one of the last texts ever from her. I have not heard anything in 4 months now.

I was trying to tell her it is not healthy to jump into something so soon but she blocked me anyway so is not hearing it. Not that she cares. I think she more enjoys the beginning of a r/s rather than once it is developed.

This is definitely hard to put behind me.  I am getting back into things I have not had time for when in the r/s with her; more hiking and adventuring again like I used to. Things like that.
 
I have good days and bad days where I think about her a lot still. I think it is better for me to think about the bad things, the stonewalling, the impulsiveness, the blaming, and stuff that that rather than the good times. I need to find reasons to move on; this includes moving on from a broken heart. I did care about her, despite what I know now as BPD.

These things take time. It was a 2 year r/s and we became very close and connected. I expect to be 6 months to a year before I can honestly say I have moved on, or get to the point where I say I can move on.

Certainly going to take me more than the month it took her. Though thinking about that makes me sad as perhaps she never really loved me anyway. Or maybe she did but in her own messed-up way?

[Turkish]

To quote James T. Kirk: "I need my pain!"

I took that with me regarding my FOO over 30 years ago, maybe not the best way of dealing with it. 

What about the ex who telegraphed from the beginning wanting too be BFFs because we had kids? 6 years out and in still feeling it,  the pain of a broken family and an ex whom I see views it like "this is what it is and let's be a family just the same." I'd like nothing more than to never see her or talk to her ever again,  yet given kids, unrealistic. 

I've come to accept for the sake of our kids,  but honestly,  I don't know how to let go of the anger (hurt).

[Cromwell]

Hi Harley Quinn, thought provoking material thanks.

there is no such thing as a broken heart.

These emotions are entrenched in the mind, take ownership and control of them and this is the route out of the dilemma.

The main reason I left was that I didnt think she was worth getting a heart condition over due to the stress.

Id like to re-iterate this point to anyone who cares to listen, health trumps - or in my opinion - should - trump being in any relationship, we owe it to ourselves first and foremost.

Ok my perspective isnt very romantic and I admit up front I wouldnt be good at writing a novel, but part of getting better for me was to dilute out the dreaminess and get back to some fundamentals; the relationship made me ill, once I entrenched that in my mind, the decision making process to leave and not try again was straightforward.

Broken heart? Past relationships; Sure, the normal variant, ie, a bit of healthy emotional crying into a bucket of icecream for a few days and missing someone until you get over it.

This cant be anywhere close in comparison - ie; it wasnt heart break where the traditional and generalised rules have much practical help - it was a mind bending tortourous torment that needed over a year just to get back on my feet again.

All this stuff is great advice, except, stuff like "be honest" etc, it would have had a paradoxical effect in this BPD relationship, its not just that I couldnt be honest towards a dishonest person living in psychosis, a pathological liar - it is that for some people in this life they dont want to hear, and cant handle the truth regardless. My ex was one of those kind.

I was using an ECG today, and found it funny and interesting to see how the person using it blood pressure raised by 10 when they had to answer an uncomfortable question.

I would  - not - like to have seen some sort of chart about how my blood pressure was during 3 years of that chaos. If anyone else is in such a relationship, id recommend getting one of those watches that measure heart rate and chart what happens.