Devastating Breakup Quotes

My therapist would later explain to me that “water seeks its own level” and that your partner’s flaws and issues usually go hand in hand with your own. A person chooses a partner with a similar degree of “brokenness” and does a dance of dysfunction where they both know the steps. Therefore, one person cannot be so much healthier than the other. Healthy people do not dance with unhealthy people.

Only consistent, unconditional love is good enough. I

The truth of relationship healthiness is that water seeks its own level. If you want to know what is missing in you, what unfinished business you have, what your inner struggles are, you need not look further than your partner. If you listen carefully and look closely, usually your choice of mates will tell you what you need to know about yourself. As you grow and change, your choice of mate continues to reflect what you still need to work on.

getting dumped is predictable, repetitive, and boring. They want to stay friends; they feel smothered; it's always them and it's never you; and afterward you're devastated and they're relieved; it's over for them and just starting for you.

I had to look at my entire life, figure out what had gone wrong, and fix it. To do that, I had to go down into the abyss and face the pain.

All my life I had looked for someone to love me into being normal.

Time does not heal all wounds. - Pain that is not faced does not go away.

Loss of a relationship is painful, but if you lose yourself in a relationship, when it ends, it's devastating, because you are lost.

The more I worked on myself and became healthier, the healthier the people in my life became. The better I treated myself, the better I was treated. As my self-confidence grew, I met people who were loving and there for me when they said they would be.

You’re with a girl. She’s brown-haired and side-swept. I imagine that she’s the kind of girl who can easily shop for jean shorts, and speaks kindly more often than not. She seems like the kind of girl who hates New York City because it wreaks havoc on her shoes (really she just thinks it’s a big and scary place), but once had the time of her life in Spain on a backpacking trip when she was 23. Her gaze is focused on the embracing couple as near strangers capable of judgement. She stands bolted next to you like you’re her anchor in the social storm. You two seem finely matched… but what do I know? (Nothing at all.) I accidentally saw a picture of you and it reminded me that I was dating a man rightfully shaking his fist at God, while trying to hold my hand with the other. I was reminded of how fiercely we tried to hold our relationship together, and how devastated and relieved we were in its destruction. There’s water under that bridge. I accidentally saw a picture of you. No big deal. I wrote about it.

After a breakup, you may also feel physically and mentally incapacitated in some way. You have trouble sleeping, or you sleep too much. You become accident-prone. You have trouble putting a sentence together. You feel scattered and overwhelmed by feelings. You may doubt your ability to function, and maybe your sanity. The emotions seem so big and so unmanageable that you may be afraid that expressing your feelings will result in complete loss of function. This is normal. Grieving causes confusion and disorganization, as well as disturbance in appetite and sleep patterns. It may disrupt even the most benign daily activities. Grief continually calls attention to itself, and being in disarray is one of those attention-getting devices. It is also a result of your mind’s attempt to reorder the world, because the one it knew, the one it was structured around, is now gone.

When I started to see my relationships as learning experiences, and inventoried them when they were over, they helped me to understand what still needed attention in my life.

Along the way I decided what would have once been unthinkable: that I would rather be alone than accept the unacceptable from anyone.

They say that when you are ready to learn, the teacher will appear. . . . Susan, you are the real deal. Thank you for being my teacher and my friend.

It reminded me of a bad breakup, when you wake up devastated the next morning and realize that the only person who could possibly offer you comfort is the one person you just agreed never to speak to again.

A person devolves his or her hardiness from the ark-like powers of love to create, protect, and destroy. When we are in love, we discover what we long to become, we also discover what we lack. When we are in love, we are empowered to seek out our destiny. When we lose at love, our confidence is devastated. In the wake of a breakup with a lover, we languish in solitude. Caught in the riptide of incompleteness, we suffer terribly.

he’s smiling, a slight, complicit smile, almost tender. This smile devastated me for a long time after, whenever I happened to look at this photograph. It upsets me even now as I write these lines and contemplate the image, resting on my desk, right next to my keyboard. Because now I know. I know that Thomas consented to this single picture only because he knew (had decided) that it was our last moment together. He smiled so that I could take his smile with me.

A person chooses a partner with a similar degree of “brokenness” and does a dance of dysfunction where they both know the steps. Therefore, one person cannot be so much healthier than the other. Healthy people do not dance with unhealthy people.

Time does not heal all wounds. If it did, there would be no unresolved grief and no hurt from long ago that still upsets you from time to time. Pain that is not faced does not go away, it stays inside and festers. If each time you have a loss you deny it, you will end up with a pile of unresolved grief, making each loss harder and harder to cope with. When people are afraid of being hurt, often because they have not dealt with their unresolved grief, their life becomes narrower, their fear becomes greater, and choices become more difficult to make. With unresolved grief running the show, it is difficult to get close to people and hard to trust anyone.

After my last relationship ended, I realized that I was only in a relationship because I thought people would think I was a loser if I wasn’t. Now that I’m doing what I want and building my own life, I realize I would like to spend some time—years, maybe—getting to know me. And it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about that.

convey musically in her songs. Nobody else had this. As for Lindsey, he was angry about everything. He blamed Fleetwood Mac and the pressures of being in the band for the breakup with Stevie. He told his girlfriend Carol he didn’t like Stevie, but he was still in love with her. Even decades later, he confessed to an interviewer: “I was devastated when she took off.

Whenever you are ruminating and obsessing about your ex and asking those questions, say to yourself, “Stop! It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter.” Because you know what? It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is what you are doing now and that is where your focus needs to be. Whenever you are in someone else’s head, no one is taking care of yours! Stop asking questions about your ex; start asking questions about you.

When you finally meet someone who loves you and respects you in words and actions, relationships take on a whole new meaning. Your life becomes bigger because the things you discovered about yourself in your alone time are still being honored and cared for and you have a partner to share your life with. Love accommodates you and all your interests and obligations. You’re not being asked to give anything up for love and someone is helping to support you while you support him or her. Real love, functional love, doesn’t cause you to lose people, places, things, health, sleep, or appetite. Real love does not demand, either actively or passively, that you give up your friends, hobbies, or interests. In fact, it encourages independence and being fulfilled by other people, places, and things. When you are a healthy and functional person, your healthy and functional mate trusts and supports you. Your partner does not purposefully or unwittingly engulf you.

To grow and change, you must acknowledge and express your feelings of hurt, anger, confusion, anxiety, and frustration. You must affirm yourself and think about you in a positive way. You must put your goals on paper. You must review your relationship and your role in it. You must get out and meet new people as well as spend productive time alone. This back-and-forth must be done every single day. All along the way, Getting Past Your Breakup will remind you to keep the balance.

The fact is, you need to accept that you have been with someone whose approach to life is simply incompatible with yours. Perhaps it was always evident that you thought in different ways, saw the world differently, and operated on irreconcilable levels, but you chose to ignore it or worked hard to correct it. You can’t ignore the dissimilar viewpoints any longer. Accept the fact that you think differently and let it go so you can find someone whose way of thinking is compatible with yours.

If you’re the person who is being asked to be friends, say no. If your ex is saying that he or she simply can’t be without you because you’re such a wonderful person, ask yourself this: Were you truly valued when you were together? Face it, your friends should treat you well, and if your ex has mistreated you, why would you want to count this person as a friend? Regardless of explanations and justifications, examine your ex’s behavior and ask yourself: Can you ever really trust a friend who would behave this badly toward you?

The pain of heartache often comes in unpredictable episodes of intense pain that come and go. These episodes are called grief “spasms”—you feel overwhelmed by your sense of sorrow. You may hurt physically and feel like you have the flu. Consumed by your own pain and situation,you feel disconnected to everyone else and life takes on a surreal, hazy quality. Stumbling through each day, you feel taxed by the most mundane tasks. All you can think about is how much you hurt. The intensity of your feelings may frighten you, but this is normal. You’re not losing control; you’re not going crazy. You are grieving.

You both have been through a trying time, and you must face that a break will do each of you a world of good. Now is the time to reassess where you’ve been and where you’re going, even if you’re going there together. You still need to take stock of yourself and the relationship so that you can figure out what went wrong and what needs to go right in the future. Until the communication ends, it is impossible to do that. Even if you do reconcile, the relationship you once knew has ended, so you must grieve the relationship that has passed and move on from what once was. Because if you do reconcile, it has to be different than it was before, or it will just fail. Again.

After a breakup, anger is an appropriate reaction. When something has been taken away, people feel angry. While feeling the anger is okay, acting on the anger is not. You can and should acknowledge your anger, own your anger, write about your anger, and talk about your anger. Eventually it will dissipate. What you should not do is act out or lash out in anger. That is not okay. If you try to repress your anger because you think that it is “unacceptable” or “bad” or “wrong,” it will manifest itself in other ways. Some people refuse to acknowledge anger, so they go through life taking it out on other people, irritated all the time, prone to bad moods, and generally being foul and bitter. These are all variations of unexpressed anger. If you have been going through life in an unexplained sour mood, you may have anger issues.

Relationships weren’t easy for me, and for the first few years my abandonment issues were in full force, but with each one I learned. When I started to see my relationships as learning experiences, and inventoried them when they were over, they helped me to understand what still needed attention in my life. Along the way I decided what would have once been unthinkable: that I would rather be alone than accept the unacceptable from anyone. Never again would I give up all that I am for a relationship . I was not willing to be ignored, called names, or remain low on the priority list. I was not willing to accept unacceptable behavior just to keep someone around. For years I had been afraid that no one would love me. Now I was sure that I would get what I settled for, so I would not settle for less than I deserved. I was slowly coming to believe that I deserved the best.

When you finally meet someone who loves you and respects you in words and actions, relationships take on a whole new meaning. Your life becomes bigger because the things you discovered about yourself in your alone time are still being honored and cared for and you have a partner to share your life with. Love accommodates you and all your interests and obligations. You’re not being asked to give anything up for love and someone is helping to support you while you support him or her. Real love, functional love, doesn’t cause you to lose people, places, things, health, sleep, or appetite. Real love does not demand, either actively or passively, that you give up your friends, hobbies, or interests. In fact, it encourages independence and being fulfilled by other people, places, and things. When you are a healthy and functional person, your healthy and functional mate trusts and supports you. Your partner does not purposefully or unwittingly engulf you. If you’re losing your friends, your family, or your children due to a relationship you’re in, you need to think about what is going on in this relationship. Don’t automatically blame your friends, family, and children. If your partner always wants you to choose him or her over others in your life, even if it’s not an explicit demand but always turns out that way, there is something wrong. Real love does not strip you of the things you love or the people you love, and real love does not make you choose. Real love encourages quality time alone with friends, family, and children. Being nurtured and loved by others makes a person fulfilled and, in turn, adds to the primary relationship.

So how are things going with Kavinsky?” Funny you should bring that up, Josh. ’Cause I’ve got my story locked and loaded. Peter and I had a fight via video chat this morning (in case Josh has noticed I haven’t left the house all weekend), and we broke up, and I’m devastated about the whole thing, because I’ve been in constant love with Peter Kavinsky since the seventh grade, but c’est la vie. “Actually, Peter and I broke up this morning.” I bite my lip and try to look sad. “It’s just, really hard, you know? After I liked him for so long and then finally he likes me back. But it’s just not meant to be. I don’t think he’s over his breakup yet. I think maybe Genevieve still has too strong a hold on him, so there’s no room in his heart for me.” Josh gives me a funny look. “That’s not what he was saying today at McCalls.” What in the world was Peter K. doing at a bookstore? He’s not the bookstore type. “What did he say?” I try to sound casual, but my heart is pounding so loudly I’m pretty sure Sadie can hear it. Josh keeps petting Sadie. “What did he say?” Now I’m just trying not to sound shrill. “Like, what was said exactly?” “When I was ringing him up, I asked him when you guys started going out, and he said recently. He said he really liked you.” What… I must look as shocked as I feel, because Josh straightens up and says, “Yeah, I was kind of surprised too.” “You were surprised that he would like me?” “Well, kind of. Kavinsky just isn’t the kind of guy who would date a girl like you.” When I stare back at him, sour and unsmiling, he quickly tries to backtrack. “I mean, because you’re not, you know…” “I’m not what? As pretty as Genevieve?” “No! That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m trying to say is, you’re like this sweet, innocent girl who likes to be at home with her family, and I don’t know, I guess Kavinsky doesn’t strike me as someone who would be into that.” Before he can say another word, I grab my phone out of my jacket pocket and say, “That’s Peter calling me right now, so I guess he does like homely girls.” “I didn’t say homely! I said you like to be at home!” “Later, Josh.” I speed walk away, dragging Sadie with me. Into my phone I say, “Oh hey, Peter.

All Hale Kate: Her story is as close to a real-life fairy tale as it gets. Born Catherine Elizabeth Middleton, the quiet, sporty girl next door from the small town of Bucklebury - not quite Cinderella, but certainly a "commoner" by blue bloods' standards - managed to enchant the most eligible bachelor in the world, Prince William, while they were university students 15 years ago. It wasn't long before everyone else fell in love with her, too. We ached for her as she waited patiently for a proposal through 10 years of friendship and romance (and one devastating breakup!), cheered along with about 300 million other TV viewers when she finally became a princess bride in 2011, and watched in awe as she proceeded to graciously but firmly drag the stuffy royal family into the 21st century. And though she never met her mother-in-law, the late, beloved, Princess Diana, Kate is now filling the huge void left not just in her husband's life but in the world's heart when the People's Princess died. The Duchess of Cambridge shares Di's knack for charming world leaders and the general public alike, and the same fierce devotion to her family above all else. She's a busy, modern mom who wears affordable clothes, does her own shopping and cooking, struggles with feelings of insecurity and totes her kids along to work (even if the job happens to involve globe-trotting official state visits) - all while wearing her signature L.K. Bennett 4 inch heels. And one day in the not-too-distance future, this woman who grew up in a modest brick home in the countryside - and seems so very much like on of us- will take on another impossibly huge role: queen of England.

Recounting how much I wanted the separation but then how I caved in and everything was now wrong, I howled, "Tell me what to do!

As I stared up at the ceiling, I began to realize that I held on to my dead marriage to avoid this parade of awful memories.

I was physically unable to move under the weight of the realization that I had no idea who I was or what I wanted.

Don’t ask for justifications for present or past behavior, or say how much you’ve been hurt. Yes, there are things you want this person to think about, but it’s not healthy for you to expend energy trying to convince someone who refuses to be convinced. Save yourself the trouble. Everyone will be happier in the end. If you let go of this person and your need to control or condemn, you will be free to find someone whose thinking is compatible with yours. As long as you hold on to this “wrongheaded” person, you will not find the person who is “rightheaded” enough for you. Let it go and save your energy for building your new life.

One of the reasons I became a grief therapist was that my own grief work healed me. I had been an emotional cripple all of my life. I was afraid of being hurt and afraid of being close—all because of my unresolved loss. Thinking back on the losses was akin to putting my hand on a hot stove. I would recoil every single time. But when the pile got to be too big, I had to give in and work through it. I had to look at all of my losses, feel them, heal them, and then move on. Each time I did that, I became a more confident person, a more alive person. I started to heal and experience true happiness for the first time. I became a grief therapist to help others heal their broken places and experience the joy that is life once you heal your unresolved loss. Almost every client I have ever worked with resisted acknowledging his or her grief and working through the loss after a breakup. At first the process seems very difficult, because you have to face your true feelings head on. For a time it seems easier to ignore it, but when you ignore loss after loss, it takes an emotional toll that exacts a very high price.

At first you may feel shock or disbelief that a loss has occurred or an inability to recognize that it was really a loss. You know you’re hurt, but you want to repress it, suppress it, ignore it, or deny it. Some people can do just that, but it’s healthier to recognize that you’ve sustained a loss. Keep in mind that even if you know it was for the best, you’ve still had a loss. What have you lost? At the very least you’ve lost the time, energy, and emotion you put into the relationship. You’ve also lost the hopes and dreams that you had in the beginning. You’ve lost the identity of the couple, and you may have lost mutual friends or family members of your ex’s that you liked.

When you are asking why, when, how questions or trying to figure out how he or she could do what was done or how you can change into the person he or she will love, tell yourself, “It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter.” Yes, three times is the charm with this particular mantra. Whenever you are ruminating and obsessing about your ex and asking those questions, say to yourself, “Stop! It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter.” Because you know what? It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is what you are doing now and that is where your focus needs to be. Whenever you are in someone else’s head, no one is taking care of yours! Stop asking questions about your ex; start asking questions about you.

Stop worrying about what is wrong with you. While there might be things about you that need improvement, that doesn’t mean that you are not a lovable, worthwhile person. In fact, it takes a lovable, worthwhile person to become willing to grow and get better.

Learning that “water seeks its own level,” I was able to understand what issues needed attention by observing the people I was attracting and attracted to. It gave me the understanding that I could control what happened in my life and in my relationships. So many times I would think I was ready for “the one” and then get involved with someone with glaring issues. By looking at his issues, I was able to figure out what still needed work in my life and go back to the drawing board. Sometimes it was frustrating, but my goal was to improve myself to the point where I was ready and able to have a healthy relationship.

Several of my clients, students, and readers have come to realize that they spent all their adult lives in relationships in which they were only running from grief. One woman’s fear of loss was so chronic that, from the time she was a teenager, she never left a relationship until she had started a new one. She said, “I thought I would die if I had to be alone, so I kept going from one man to another without a single day alone.” When she was in her thirties, a man she had been seeing for a few years suddenly left her and she didn’t have a new relationship on the horizon. The breakup was traumatic, and she fell apart because she finally had to grieve all the relationships she had never grieved before. It was a distressing time, but once she worked through her losses and found the strength and courage to put together a new life, she was surprised to find that being on her own was wonderful. Grieving her relationships not only didn’t kill her, but set her free in a way she never could have predicted during those years spent running from one relationship to another.

The first thing to know is that grief is not a straight line. It doesn’t happen in “stages,” as is commonly thought; it happens in phases. The first phase is shock or disbelief; the middle phase is one of review, relinquishment, and great emotion; and the final phase is reorganization, integration, and acceptance.

When we met, I had been devastated after a brutal breakup with a boy who had owned my heart since I was five years old. Nico had broken my heart so thoroughly that I wasn’t sure it would ever work properly again. Michael helped me see that life would continue even if Nico wasn’t by my side. Once I was able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, a platonic dynamic had been established between us. I cherished our friendship and had no desire to risk losing it. Michael was the one good thing that came from that time period.

The ex was not someone I would have had a successful relationship with, yet I cried over him all night.

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers. M. SCOTT PECK

I was still waiting for someone else to end my uncertainty.

The only problem was that I hadn't ever stood up for myself and I wasn't sure I could do it.

Setting boundaries and limits became a priority in my life and changed everything for the better.

Learning that "water seeks its own level," I was able to understand what issues needed attention by observing the people I was attracting and attracted to.

When you ignore loss after loss, it takes an emotional toll that exacts a very high price.

Make peace with the peace. It means your life is working.

that good relationships make your life larger instead of smaller.

Goal setting works best when you have long-term goals and short-term goals in different areas of your life. Of course, you’re not going to have goals in every area, but you want to choose enough different ones to sustain your interest. Some examples of goal areas are Family relationships and your home; Humanist, volunteer, philanthropy, ethical; Social, cultural, travel, entertainment; Finances, career, education; Physical, diet, exercise; and Fun.

Dear Nick, I Know we made this decision together. I know we both thought it would be less painful to break up before the distance did it for us. I really believed it was the right thing to do: that it wouldn't hurt as much this way. But I can't imagine anything could be harder than this. And I don't think I'm OK. I came back from New York and I was so devastated I shut myself away from my best friends, and now they've shut themselves away from me too. I've done everything I can to feel happy again. I've been to Morocco and ridden on camels and danced in the desert: I've chased my inner star. I've thrown myself into modelling and done whatever it takes to make new Friends at school so I'm not alone, even though I don't really understand them most of the time and I don't think they understand me either. I'm trying so hard to move on without you. But I'm not, Nick. I'm not moving anywhere. All the things I wrote in the last letter... they weren't true. Or they were, but it wasn't what I really meant. I was hiding behind Facts and figures because I didn't Know how to say this: Every day you're changing, you're growing, you're living, you're out there being you, and the only thing staying the same is me. I'm still here, holding on to you. Stuck in the past. Trapped in it. Burying myself in it. Drowning in it. And I don't know what to do to make it better. I miss you, Nick. I've missed you every day, every hour and every second since you've been gone. And I miss the bit of me you took with you. Harriet xxx

try to acknowledge that chances are good that the relationship isn’t coming back, and perhaps it’s time to move on from the fantasy that it might. Acknowledge that it’s not coming back. Not now. Maybe not ever.

You want to tell yourself that you are a certain way, not that you will eventually be that way. Avoid can and could or would. These words suggest that you could be a certain way if you wanted to, but you might not want to. Just because you can be something doesn’t mean that you are. The idea is to train the subconscious to think of you in terms of what you are (what you want to be), not what you can be.

crash your boundaries.

Just because an experience has ended doesn’t mean it’s over. We store unfinished and unresolved emotional experiences within our bodies. Cognitively, we often find that we are stunted by the time in our lives in which we were damaged or traumatized. We got scared, we never got over the fear, and as a result, we stopped growing. Often what we don’t realize is that the experiences that hurt us most aren’t usually the ones that we are indifferent about: There is something within them that we deeply wanted or still desire. We weren’t broken by a breakup; we were broken by wanting love that wasn’t right for us. We weren’t devastated by a loss; we were devastated because we wanted, so badly, for that person or thing to remain in our lives.

Starting A Web Designing Project Is Like Getting Into A Relationship. Everything Looks Good In The Start, But Things Get Complicated With Time... And The Breakup (Final Bill) is Devastating...

Along the way I decided what would have once been unthinkable: that I would rather be alone than accept the unacceptable from anyone. Never again would I give up all that I am for a relationship . I was not willing to be ignored, called names, or remain low on the priority list. I was not willing to accept unacceptable behavior just to keep someone around. For years I had been afraid that no one would love me. Now I was sure that I would get what I settled for, so I would not settle for less than I deserved. I was slowly coming to believe that I deserved the best.

You must dare to go learn, grow, and evolve through an emotionally devastating breakup rather than being the victim of it because it is a part of your relationship life, not a life sentence.

Your insecurities may take over; you may feel unattractive or dread that you will be alone the rest of your life. You may begin to doubt the soundness of your decisions and plans. Maybe you’ve always wanted to go back to school, take up a new hobby, or move somewhere else, but suddenly this feels self-indulgent and ridiculous. Your self-esteem may plummet as you become immobilized by indecision. You may backpedal on your plans for a new life because it’s terrifying to venture forth to unfamiliar places. The push to a new relationship or the pull back to the old one—or just sitting and waiting until something comes along—may begin to take hold. Getting into another relationship or losing your resolve to change your life is not going to make anything better—it’s just a temporary panacea. In fact, a new relationship will probably be like the last one because you haven’t learned anything, nor have you worked through the pain of the breakup. Putting your hopes and dreams on hold will not extinguish them; it will just fill you with regret at the end of the next relationship that you didn’t get going on them sooner. Right now, the best thing to do is to meet this challenge head on, work through your grief, make those plans, and change your life.

I’ve lived long enough to know, both personally and professionally, that there are seasons of life. As my father used to say, you take the good with the bad. From divorce and painful breakups to the deaths of loved ones to surviving abuse to professional and financial failures to serious illness—there are many ways that a life can fall, many variations of grief, and many forms that devastation can take. But one thing that makes suffering bearable is love. Love not only makes a crisis endurable; it makes it transformable. For where there is love, miracles happen. Love changes people, and when people are changed we change the world around us.

I had a breakup that devastated me. My first love. It was the worst thing I could have imagined. Looking back, it’s one of the best things that ever happened to me. The relationship was long over, it was my insecurities that were desperately hanging on.