If We’re Never Angry With Our Exes, Do We Ever Really Get Over Them?
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“He cried in public 5 times.” Andrea said, sitting in a daze at the end of the bed.
The ex-boyfriend who cheated on her after six years of dating had come crawling back. Desperate to reclaim her at a restaurant on the Upper West Side, he finally broke down when she said she had moved on.
I sat in silence as Andrea recounted the experience, still in her black dress and heels from dinner. Becca who sat next to me on the bed interjected, “Okay, so there’s no part of you that wants to run after him and get back together?”
After thinking for a moment Andrea replied, “No. He hurt me so badly that I could never, ever be with him again. I cried every night for months.” But she seemed happy in a bittersweet kind of way. She wasn’t torn up about the ex-boyfriend who finally showed the love she was looking for all those years. She was just, done.
As I walked home that night, I thought about the relationships of my past. A year ago, I had fallen for someone more than I ever had before. After two months he broke up with me and I don’t think I ever cried so much over someone in my life. But as I boarded the N train back to Queens, I wasn’t thinking about him. I was thinking about the ex-boyfriend whose heart I had broken nearly six years ago in college.
In truth, ever since I ended things with him, I’ve wondered if I made the right choice. He’s been long gone now—married to the perfect woman and recently a new father. But I can’t stop myself from constantly noticing random strangers who look like him.
No matter how many years have gone by, he’s always resurfacing in my thoughts, making me wonder, “Did I ever really get over him?”
Going through the stages of grief, post-breakup.
I know that sounds ridiculous because I was the one who broke up with him. At the time I just didn’t feel strongly enough for him, so I ended it. He was crushed, I was relieved. He went through the stages of grief to get over me, I didn’t.
After I got dumped more recently, I Googled, “How long does it take to get over someone” and found multiple articles on the psychological process one goes through after a breakup. As I read, I could pinpoint exactly where I was (and had been) in the seven stages!
During the first couple of weeks after the breakup, a small part of me thought we’d get back together (hello, denial). Yet, the stage that seemed to propel me toward healing the most was anger.
Suzanne Lachmann Psy.D, describes the anger stage on Psychology Today, “When you’re able to access anger, the experience can actually be empowering—because at the very least there are shades of remembering you matter too, of feeling justified in realizing that you deserve more from a relationship.”
When I began feeling angry at the guy who hurt me most recently, it was a like a fog being lifted and the illusion I had of him was shattered. The butterflies and excitement I felt for him vanished and I was left with anger and then finally, forgiveness. He was a flawed human being and I realized I deserved better and moved on.
Blinded by hormones.
It appears as though I was blinded by “love” or at least infatuation in that relationship, which is apparently a real thing. Using brain scans, scientists have been able to map out the chemical changes that occur in the brain. Your brain’s frontal cortex actually shuts down when you fall for someone, causing you to “suspend all criticism and doubt.”
What’s more, when you’re attracted to someone, your body is flooded with dopamine which has a drug-like effect. Naturally, that clouds judgement and encourages you to associate the person you love/like with positive emotions every time you get a hit of dopamine.
Unsurprisingly, when that person breaks up with you, you’re forced to go through withdrawal from dopamine. According to Licensed psychologist Dr. Wyatt Fisher, “When a couple goes through a breakup, the brain experiences massive withdrawal symptoms almost identical to a heroin addict quitting cold turkey.”
This all plays into the seven stages of breakup grief. Going through withdrawal allows you to see things more clearly and finally respond to the pain of someone you loved/liked hurting you, and you can then access the appropriate emotion—anger. Every stage in the grieving process is important, but I think anger is particularly valuable for really getting over someone.
Anger ≠ Hate.
Now, I’m sure plenty of people would argue that hating your ex is actually a sign of not being over them, but I’m not talking harboring ill-will or hatred. Sometimes anger means standing up for yourself in the same way you’d be angry for a friend or family member who was treated poorly.
Not a vindictive anger, but an anger that comes from recognizing your worth and maintaining a high personal standard for relationships. A brief phase of anger pushes you to get to the next stage of acceptance, which ultimately leads to acceptance and forgiveness. This allows you to have peace that the relationship just wasn’t right.
Being dumped vs. being the dumper.
So what happens when you don’t go through that phase of anger post-breakup? Do you ever really get over that person? When you break up with a good person who didn’t hurt you, you skip that anger phase post-breakup—in fact, you may not go through the grieving process at all. So while you may carry on with your life, you might look back every so often and wonder, “Can I do better than him?” or “Did I make a mistake?”
Me and my college ex probably just weren’t a good match. And it probably was the right decision to break up all those years ago. But I’m not sure if I’ll ever really “get over” him, simply because he never gave me a reason to get over him. He was good to me, loved me, and would’ve done anything for me. But, even though he was good, I followed my gut and ended it. I didn’t love him equally in return and I knew he deserved someone who did.
Stage 8: Selfless Love.
The seven stages of grief (find them here) can help you get over someone, but the real path to healing is ultimately desiring what is best for your ex—whether you broke up with them or they broke up with you. Perhaps the final eighth stage of breakup grief is the selfless love God calls us all to (regardless of relationship status): willing the good of the other, no matter what. And in that sense, you continue loving your ex in a real way, long after the breakup.
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