It’s Not Your Fault That You Didn’t See Your Breakup Coming

“Why didn’t I see it coming?!”

“I really thought he/she loved me – how do I know this won’t happen to me all over again?”

“Why did I let this person do this to me?”

…are just a few things that can go round and round in our heads following a breakup where the other person did things that we just didn’t expect or see coming.

We question whether we’re as good a judge of character as we thought, whether we’re always going to be floored when it comes to love or wonder if it’s always just going to be a massive gamble!

I know I have been a bit of an huge over analyser in the past! I liked to know reasons and motivations behind someone’s behaviour. If I didn’t get them, I questioned my own judgement.

But when it comes to questioning why we didn’t see something coming and then find ourselves in this hell hole of a breakup, despite feeling floored, blindsided, stupid or naive, when we’re in it and in love with someone or infatuated with them (which is actually when our logical head gets most skewed!), we’re ALL in. We don’t think about this situation as we probably would with a friend, a co-worker or in any scenario which involves us using our non Valencia filtered brain.

The most frustration comes when we look back and see that all the OBVIOUS signs were there. Mixed signals, going hot and cold, wanting all of your attention and in a hot minute not answering to texts and making you feel like they’ve completely lost interest. Or maybe the red flags were all subtle but deep down you still knew they were there and ignored them because you both had SUCH a strong connection and that’s what matters, right?

But when you look back, you can see that you never really felt secure in this relationship. So if you felt that connection, what does that mean? That connection comes with the risk of heartbreak and completely flawed relationships? And how will you therefore EVER know if someone else is going to be a good match?

What we have to do in this situation is:

– Take a break from over analysing and beating ourselves up for not stopping this in its tracks and possibly still being in love/lust with an a**hole.
– Think about what we can learn to take from this moving forwards.

There are a few things to learn from going through this:

1) We don’t know what we don’t know. Love, lust and relationships can send us all kinds of crazy. If you’re easily capable of completely losing yourself in someone, then with a bit of perspective and self-control, this is 100% something you can avoid doing in the future.

2) Don’t confuse connection with intensity. If a relationship is intense with sparks and chemistry all over the shop one minute, then he/she pulls their magician trick and disappears or keeps going hot and cold on you, you don’t have connection with that person. You most likely are insanely attracted to them, are attracted to their story (or sad stories which pull you in) and you’re willing to accept the high of the attention they give you in the ‘hot’ moments without considering the lows.

Connection has to evolve and it happens when both people feel safe and secure in a relationship. There’s no mind games, attention push and pull and it’s not part of one of those up and down relationships that feels like an emotional rollercoaster.

What you have to do, is look at the (little and large) red flags you ignored and make a pact with yourself that you assert your boundaries and act on these next time.

You will also know how to spot an emotionally unavailable person quicker – confusing behaviour, mixed signals, expecting you to nurture their vulnerability or them using yours to their advantage, into you one moment, not so much the next – these are some of the key signs.

You can never predict what is going to happen in a relationship. You can’t predict what people are going to do. But, if you take the ‘one foot in, one foot out’ approach when it comes to dating new people and getting into a new relationship, this means that you don’t completely cut off people (and essentially become emotionally avoidant yourself) and instead, you just take the emotional investment early on down a few notches and don’t make this person the sole focus of your life.

So then, you have your head and heart in a more realistic place to see the true realities of this relationship and person. Your boundaries and deal breakers are in place and you will be in a much stronger position to spot the bad signs and walk away without having your heart ‘all in’.