8 Things You Learn When A Breakup Is Your Fault

Flickr / Jenny Kristina Nilsson
Flickr / Jenny Kristina Nilsson

1. This was most likely preventable.

If you are reading this, it is all your fault. Let’s just get that out there. You messed up. You hurt someone else. You were selfish. This is not a pity party about how you are human and “humans make mistakes.” You need to swallow the largest pill ever…your pride. Admit to yourself that you got careless and began to take things for granted. So, here you are and the one person you thought would always put up with your crap, mood swings, morning breath and games is gone.

2. Survival is not living.

Saying you can’t live without this person is not entirely realistic. You can survive without them. You still go to bed and wake up. You still shower and brush your teeth. You still go to work. You still laugh with friends. You continue to breathe. However, surviving is not living. Surviving one day to the next, just getting through each moment, where seconds can seem like hours, is not “living.” Losing the love of your life by your own hands and mistakes, takes all the joy out of living for quite some time.

3. Regret will become your new best friend.

You will never be able to explain to anyone what the hell you were thinking when you dropped the ball. You will try to put into words how much of a fool you were, and how you would do anything to take it all back, but no one will fully understand or even believe you. Especially the person who matters the most: the one you let go. You will experience sleepless nights and long, drawn out days.

4. Life is short and irreversible.

80 years at best is the amount of time we get here on this planet. Love who you love. Stay committed to who you love. Be true and honest with the person you love. People are not expendable and you will never meet a carbon copy of this person ever again. Think twice and act accordingly because there are no guarantees. Life doesn’t stop for you to make up your mind or clean up your messes; it ticks on – forward, so pay close attention to whose life you want to become a permanent fixture in or you will wake up one day and wonder where they are instead of seeing them there laying in bed with you.

5. A million people cannot replace one not being there.

You do not need the entire world to love you if you have one really special human being who loves you unconditionally. People love attention. People love knowing they are on other’s minds. Yet, at the end of the day, you will feel that pang of loneliness. When you build a life with someone, it can become a bit routine. Please never confuse routine and comfortable with “boring.” That’s when you will lose sight of how important this relationship is and you will lose it.

6. You can’t avoid the past.

Trying to ignore the past does not erase the landmarks you want to wish away. Remember, memory lane is not a physical street you can avoid—it lives inside of you. Driving 20 minutes out of your way does nothing in your attempt to leave memories behind in your rearview mirror. So simply, if you can help it, don’t lose them to begin with and they can be sitting in the passenger seat next to you.

7. It may be too late.

This is the harshest of truths. You may have hurt your relationship beyond repair. Trust is the most precarious thing in the world, and it truly is an uphill battle when trying to repair what was broken. You can try and try, and they just might not be able to ever look at you the same. You will no doubt never be able to look at yourself the same.

8. You will have to forgive yourself one day.

If you do not reconcile, after trying everything in your power to rectify all mistakes, from groveling to counseling, you must learn to accept that all is lost in regards to that relationship. You will hurt. You will cry. You might even hate yourself for some time. “What if’s” will haunt you. But you will have to move on, and you will have to allow them to move on and find happiness again as well. When you do start dating again, hopefully you do not make the same mistakes twice. I don’t think you will. I have learned that when you lose someone dear to you, you learn the most powerful lesson of all: You don’t always get do-overs. Sometimes all you have is one shot to get it all right.

Alicia Cook is a writer and award-winning activist living in Newark, New Jersey.

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