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Once a relationship ends, you begin the difficult task of accepting that it's over. It doesn't matter whether the breakup was a mutual decision, you inititiated the breakup, or your parnter intitiated the breakup. Unless everyone is absolutely miserable in the relationship, everyone has trouble accepting that it's over, and getting on with their life.
When my long-term relationship ended, I had a great deal of difficulty accepting that it was over. My partner inititiated the breakup, and I had no idea it was coming. My first reaction was disbelief. This couldn't be happening to me. When I accepted the fact that it was happening to me, I was miserable. I'd been happy, and suddenly I was being dumped. There I was, suddenly single, and I didn't really understand what had happened.
I spent several weeks trying to figure out what happened. I placed the blame for the failure of the relationship everywhere. It was my fault. It was his fault. It was society's fault, for making people think monogamy was the only sign of real love. Finally I accepted that no one thing or person was responsible. There were problems. The relationship was flawed, not perfect. We'd both outgrown it, and it was time to move on.
Suddenly, things started looking better. Instead of thinking, "I'm single," and wanting to run screaming, I began thinking, "I'm single," and looking forward to rediscovering myself. I had a chance to change the things in my life that I wasn't happy with. And I could do it without having to consider anyone else, and the impact those changes might have on them.
I realized that the reasons the relationship ended were no longer important. It was part of the past, and it was over. I stopped regretting that it ended. I started thinking of the end of the relationship as the beginning to a new chapter of my life. And all the pain I'd been feeling over the breakup ended. I started feeling good about myself. I started to believe that I could be happy again. And I started being happy.
Right now, I'm going through a period of rediscovery. It's a good thing, and I'm having fun with it. I'm re-evaluating my life, and changing the parts I'm not happy with. I wouldn't have thought this a month ago, but this breakup was one of the best things that's happened to me in years. Being able to let go and accept that the relationship was over has made that possible.
It's nice to be able to look back at the last ten years without feeling pain. I can remember the good times without wondering when everything started to fall apart. I can think of my ex-SO as someone I once loved, and think that maybe someday soon we'll manage to be friends again, instead of wanting to shut him entirely out of my life. I can accept that he's no longer the person I thought I knew so well, and that he didn't betray me deliberately. He was unhappy, and to paraphrase what I said on another page, my happiness shouldn't come at the cost of his.
Now it's time to rediscover myself, reinvent the parts I don't like, and see who I turn out to be....
