Shaking Off The Year of the Bad Relationship, Part 3: Is It For the Best?

Breakups are painful, even when you’re the one who decides to end the relationship. After spending so much time with someone who was special to you, not to mention opening your heart and sharing your inner-most self, of course you’re going to feel sadness and a deep sense of loss.

Eventually, your heart will heal and you’ll begin to feel ready to move on. In most cases that is, but what about when you don’t? What if there’s someone you just can’t seem to let go of? Even though time has passed and life goes on, they keep returning to your thoughts and you find yourself missing them. Are these normal emotions or could it be your heart and mind signaling you that you’ve made a mistake?

This question came from someone on the Relationship Lessons page on Facebook: I recently stopped dating someone for 3 months. Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing as I am missing him a little. How do you know when you rightfully end a relationship/dating situation?

In order to know for sure, you need to look at the big-picture reasons why your relationship ended. It’s a fact that women are nurturers by nature. Women instinctively look for the best in people and try to do their part to bring it out. Women want to love and be loved, so it’s very common for a woman to meet a man and get into a committed relationship with him without even really knowing the real person. Instead of seeing him for who he is, she idealizes him and sees the “perfect” man she wants to see. Incompatibilities are ignored, flaws are buried, and red flags are dismissed. But when the relationship continues on and gets deeper, problems start to arise, expectations are not met, and needs are not fulfilled. Rather than a rewarding partnership, the relationship begins to feel like an uphill battle until eventually it breaks apart.

Another possible scenario is that you and your ex really were compatible in the beginning. The more you got to know them, the more you realized they were someone you wanted to spend your time, and possibly your life with. Then at some point things took a turn…differences surfaced, conflicts arose that you couldn’t seem to settle through communication, maybe you just drifted apart without much explanation, or maybe there was a betrayal involved. Whether it was sudden and unexpected or long and drawn-out, your relationship came to an end, which brings us to where you are right now.

So, considering the two scenarios I just outlined, think about your relationship and ask yourself:

• Is it possible that I was in love with the IDEA of my ex rather than my ex himself?
• Could I have idealized them to be the perfect person, even though I had nagging doubts and fears that bubbled underneath the surface of my conscience?
• Could it be that I now see him or her for who they truly are: NOT the right one for me, which means our breakup is for the best?

 If those questions don’t seem to fit, then ask yourself:

• Is it possible that our relationship evolved in a direction that was no longer healthy or meeting my needs?
• Did we simply grow apart and now need different things from a relationship?
• Or were there circumstances beyond my control – like an infidelity, mistreatment, or lack of communication from my ex, that indicate I am better off without them in my life?

Give these questions some thought, and then spend some time reflecting on the REALITY of your relationship. Now that you have some distance and perspective, if you can see that they really are a good person with whom you were compatible and happy with only minor circumstances or issues that you’re willing to work through, it might be worthwhile to give it another try. Only you can know this for sure. But, be warned, if any of the following deal breakers were present in your relationship, DO NOT attempt to get back together with them:

• They have a history of, or has shown a tendency toward, ANY kind of mental, emotional, physical abuse.
• They have anger issues (with or without the abuse).
• They're emotionally unavailable...I care about you but I don’t love you, or I could never marry you, or I don’t know what love is, or I never want to get serious.
• They don’t respect you
• You don’t feel any physical chemistry with them.
• You’re hopelessly incompatible with one another (you want kids someday, he
  never does, or you want to marry a Christian but they're Catholic, etc…)

Follow me on Facebook and Twitter:
facebook.com/min.randle
facebook.com/relationshiplessons
twitter.com/delvinrandle