Smile Because It Happened

MasksGetting over a broken relationship is never easy. You torture yourself with “what if”s, analyse the signs you should have seen, and wonder if you will ever trust again.

And then of course there is the emotional pain that never seems to go away. The unbearable loneliness you feel during the long dark nights is followed by the numb emptiness when you wake up in the morning, and you’re not sure which is worse.

Creative Commons License photo credit: Racchio

The kindliness of friends both cheers and annoys, because you appreciate their support and yet know that they cannot understand what you’re going through.

I’m not here to give any answers, just to share something that helped me once, that may help others now. I’m hoping especially that it will help one of my readers who is walking the rough road to recovery now.

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.

- Theodor Seuss Geisel

1. It’s over

This is the reality you struggle to accept. Disbelief and denial are a natural part of the grieving process. Your mind knows the facts, but your emotions take time to catch up. It’s not just the person you have to let go of, it’s also your hopes and dreams for a future that seemed bright and certain.

Two thoughts help me to accept the end of a relationship.

a. Let go for now

In the early days of a break-up, there is always a small, unspoken hope that somehow you’ll patch things up and get back together again. You cling on to this hope, and that makes it very hard to let go completely and start healing.

Logic can help a little here. You either get back together or you don’t. If you don’t then you might as well let go right now. And if you do, then you might as well relax now and wait for things to unfold. Either way, you should just get on with life in the meantime.

b. Let go in the end

Understand that this goodbye would have come anyway. Even if you had married and lived happily ever after, one of you will someday die before the other. The pain of goodbye will come at some point, so saying it now just gets it over with sooner. You may find this a bizarre thought, but it works like a charm for me.

A variant of this thought is that if you had continued in the relationship, you would still have to let go of some of your dreams and hopes. No person will ever be all you want them to be. There will be hurts and disappointments, and you would still have to let go of expectations that you hold dear.

Life is a process of letting go. Treat this painful period as practice. Let go of that niggling hope and start the grieving process.

2. Don’t cry

To stop crying you have to cry a lot first, unfortunately. If you’re not the crying type, then maybe you’re the exercising type. Or the drinking type. There are many forms of release and you will have to find a way to purge the demons.

This is a period to do rather than think. You can reflect later. For now your job is to just keep moving, just keep living day to day. At this stage you will need patience. Some say the grieving period is roughly one month for every year of your relationship. I’m not sure emotions obey the laws of mathematics though. Let the healing happen at your own pace.

Basically you have to cry until you stop crying, simplistic as this sounds. For me it was running. I ran everyday for months until one day as I was pounding the track, I realised that I wasn’t running to work off negative energy anymore but because I enjoyed it and wanted to. In that moment, I knew I had healed.

You will know when the sun comes out for you too, as it invariably will.

3. It happened

Once you have healed, you will be able to look back on the relationship with some objectivity. This is the time to reflect. If you have the habit of journalling, read through your journal to remember how things were for you when they happened. See the relationship for what it meant to you when it happened, rather than through your decidedly dark-tinted glasses now.

If you have not been journalling, it may be worth taking a notebook and writing down all the events you remember. Write them down as factually as you can, detailing the places you went to, the people you hung out with, the exact words you said to each other. Remember especially the fun times, the encouraging words, all the little things that affirmed you.

This is important because the fact that these things are not happening now does not change the fact that they happened. Try to recall these experiences not with regret and yearning for more, but for gratitude that you had them at all.

Some people have not ever had the blessing of having been loved, and nobody has ever had your particular experiences. These memories are yours and no one else’s, and they are yours forever. Treasure them, and whisper a word of thanks to the universe for sending them your way. If you can bring yourself to, nod a brief ‘thank you’ to your ex as well.

Be grateful that all of that happened and made you who you are today.

4. Smile

My wise mother used to say that you can let a bad experience make you bitter or better. True enough, I find that those who go through painful break-ups usually end up in one of two camps.

The first group builds a wall of fear around themselves, promising that no one will ever hurt them this way again. They develop a hard shell and plod through life carrying this burden like a tortoise, and wonder why nobody wants to hug them. They sigh when a friend enters a relationship, shaking their head and warning that love is not what it’s cut out to be.

The other group gains strength from knowing that if they recovered once, they can recover again. This allows them to push fear aside and dare to once again love like it’s never going to hurt. Their willingness to be vulnerable endears them to others. They still childishly believe in love and encourage others to do the same.

You have to decide which camp to join. There is no right or wrong here. Maybe you can do what I did and join each camp for a little while to see which you prefer.

I love this phrase which is the title of another blog post:
At the end? Write yourself a new beginning. While that post is primarily about finances, the principle applies to relationships as well, since the writer herself just went through a divorce after a long-term marriage.

So smile because the end of every chapter in your life is the beginning of a new one, and the next chapter could be even better. Smile with gratitude for the past, appreciation of the present, and anticipation of the future.

To the reader I wrote this post for: This is my way of crying with you, and I hope that soon I will be able to smile with you too.



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Posted by Daphne | October 21, 2008 | in Love Much


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12 Responses to “Smile Because It Happened”

  1. catalyst
    October 21st, 2008 @ 9:43 am

    Daphne.

    As I read through this, my eyes couldn’t help but get a bit wet. I’m out of words… Thank you. I know this will resonate with anyone who has gone through a break up.

    Letting her go has been the most difficult thing I’ve had to do in my life, even after I found out. Still, I know for many years we had something really amazing, and I will never forget. In time, I will forgive her. I did wish her the best, and I meant it. I will keep my promises.

    First heart break – I guess I had it coming to me eventually :) I don’t think there are any short cuts, but to take it one step at a time.

    Thanks again Daphne.

  2. Daphne Lim
    October 21st, 2008 @ 12:39 pm

    Catalyst, my heart goes out to you. I’m not sure what else to say. You know where to find me if you need a listening ear.

  3. Donna Freedman
    October 23rd, 2008 @ 1:26 pm

    Dear Daphne,
    Thank you for your kind words, and for linking to my article.
    In my case, I was the one who initiated the divorce. I have to say that now I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I’m doing things I simply could not have imagined as possible, such as going back to college to finish my degree (I’ll be 51 in December) and writing a personal finance blog.
    Real life is SO much better than the movies.

    Donna Freedmans last blog post..Now there’s a place to confess about overspending

  4. Daphne Lim
    October 24th, 2008 @ 12:10 pm

    Hi Donna,

    Hats off to you! It’s wonderful to see someone living life to the full the way you are doing. It takes courage to change directions at any age, and I certainly hope that when I’ve faced with the same fork in the road, I will choose my path with as much joy and gratitude as you have.

  5. Kelly
    June 15th, 2009 @ 8:17 am

    Thank you, this is helping me with my situation and even though I still have hope that me and my boyfriend are gonna get back together one day, I’m slowly recovering. I especially liked the “These memories are yours and no one else’s, and they are yours forever.” part. I always think about the good times we had together and I smile, I use to cry about them before but I just smile now.

  6. Daphne
    June 16th, 2009 @ 11:27 am

    Hi Kelly,

    Welcome, and I appreciate your personal sharing. I totally know the feeling of clinging onto the hope that you’ll get back with your boyfriend. That feeling and I are old friends! I’m happy that you are able to smile at the memory. It’s such a simple life-changing perspective – that we have not lost something, but gained something through the experience. I also find that every relationship is better than the last, so you have a lot to look forward to!

  7. Kim
    June 24th, 2009 @ 1:27 pm

    I think that you apply some of these lessons to life in general, not just relationships. Leaving behind a job, a bad situation, anything that involves change.

  8. Daphne
    June 24th, 2009 @ 8:26 pm

    Kim,

    Very true. Especially these days, we can apply this to losing a job. Easier said than done, yet so powerful to be able to give thanks for the years we had the job, instead of mourning its loss now. Well said.

  9. Jigger
    November 17th, 2009 @ 10:14 pm

    I just want her back.
    Enough crying.

    Too bad she ‘loves’ elsewhere very easily.

    Good article anyway :)

  10. Daphne
    November 19th, 2009 @ 4:12 pm

    Jigger,

    I’ve been there and wanted someone back badly too. Lots of crying as well. Hope things turn out for the best for you in time. Thanks for your kind comment even though you’re going through a difficult time now.

  11. Caroline
    January 8th, 2010 @ 8:35 pm

    … all i can say is thanks Daphne!

    my breakup happened last night, we both cried because its nothing personal between us but unfortunate timing and external pressures and stress, which make the relationship impossible at the moment. i’m hopeful that maybe somewhere down the line our paths will cross again… and i’m happy to say, as much as my heart is broken, i decided to choose ‘better’ over ‘bitter’. I’m creating an album of photographs of our best memories together and i will give a copy to him for his birthday next month.

    love to all in the same boat.

  12. Daphne
    January 8th, 2010 @ 9:57 pm

    Oh Caroline, I’m sorry to hear about your break-up. It’s never easy, and at the same time the sun always comes up again. Hang in there, and maybe one day in hindsight, even if it’s years later, you may look back and appreciate the good that will come of this. The album of memories sounds like a wonderful keepsake… no matter what, you will always have had those times.

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