How Smart Women Survive Heartbreak
This post was inspired by Amber Rose; beautiful, career driven, successful. She met the man of her dreams online, had a baby, got married and now a year later going through a divorce trying to survive heartbreak. She made a comment on Twitter this past weekend saying that she felt like she lost her best friend, and that the mornings are the hardest part in all of the pain. When I came across her tweets yesterday my heart sunk for her.
Being in that exact same position not too long ago, I thought to myself, “wow no one is immune from this. Even the most beautiful woman can be unlucky in love.”
I am a two year- post “bad romance” survivor, and it’s a wonder that I made it out. At a certain point we start to think that we reach the proverbial high ground and can not be touched by the storm- that simply is not true. My only regret is that I wish I had experienced deep love bka deep insanity at an earlier age. I am 35, unwed, childless, and the subject of concern amongst the older generation in my family. The thought that something may be wrong with me, and/or a lesbian has crossed a few family members minds. Nothing is wrong except failure to look at the clock and see that time is running down not up. I am a normal girl (whatever that means) that put all her eggs into the basket marked “succeed in business”. Fast forward to now… I ran the race successfully only to get cross the finish line and realize I ran the race alone. So while most of my peers are married, with kids, wishing they had my freedom- I am looking at them wishing I had their family structure. I invested all my time into the guy that had commitment issues. Five years ago he worked best with my demanding schedule- now he is married to someone else. *Inserts heart break here*
As women we can be smart, accomplished, a true leader, beautiful… but be completely blind-sided by love. I spent years living on a prayer with him, and two months crying in bed post heart break. Anytime someone would call me up and ask about him, I would just ball my eyes out. Yup, a grown woman with her own “everything”, took it all the way back to grade school and was completely reduced to a bucket of tears. The more I tried to save face, the more I lost control. I, too, lashed out on twitter. Thank God I worked for myself at the time, and didn’t have to go into a job because it was a combination of shock, betrayal, depression that had me to the point where I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror. I was ashamed that I allowed myself to stay in that position with a man who checked out long before he chose to marry someone else. It hurt even more because I paid tribute with my heart to someone who is not capable of love.
In the months since I have spent a lot of time thinking. I separated what I chose not to acknowledge and what I allowed, from the things he lied about. He was my addiction, and I was his addiction in regards him not being able to let go of his favorite toy. We were the true definition of toxic. The person, whom I loved above everything was really my worst enemy and what’s really sad is he is reading every word of this post.
So how do smart women survive heartbreak?
1. We allow the hurt to run its course without becoming obsessive. The reason why I use the term obsessive is because when you’ve been made a fool of, you spend hours combing over all the instances where you ignored the warning signs. This is the point where a lot of men have lost their lives at the hands of a scorned lover. SO! I say to you ladies don’t go off the deep end. Jail time ain’t worth it… ask Miss Sofia, loll.
2. It’s ok to cry it out! The more you keep it bottled up, the longer it takes for your heart to heal. There is no shame in crying. But on the flipside ask yourself did you spend more time crying than smiling during the relationship.
3. Friends: Allow them to come in and be your rock. Real friends will hurt along with you, but keep you from showing up at his house attempting to stab him to death.
4. In your moments of weakness when you contemplate taking him back- remind yourself of all the bad things. The worst thing you can do is go back into the relationship after you’ve hit rock bottom. It is better to hurt now, than to postpone it for another day. The universe won’t present the next level, until you finish the current one.
5. Your heart remembers what it wants to; your brain remembers what it needs to.
6. Instead of focusing on the time wasted on the wrong one, think about the time saved finding the right one. The good news is no one will ever burn you in the same way twice as long as you remove the lesson from the wreckage. It’s sort of like food poisoning; you can’t get sick off the same oyster because your system repels it. Any person that reminds you of your ex will stand out like rotten garbage.
7. I was so used to saying I love you every time I heard his name- it took some adjustment in also associating him with hurt and loss. The love didn’t just switch off, but the hurt did switch on… and there lays the feelings of hate. Find your way past hate to get to the healing portion of your life.
8. AGAIN! Don’t do anything to get arrested. This was a struggle for me.
9. Don’t make permanent decisions such as hairstyles, tattoos, uhhh moving to another state (guilty) loll.
I wish I could say something to heal those of you going through it; all I can do is try and help ease the pain. My breakup wasn’t pretty, and the outcome is I haven’t been with anyone emotionally since. I’ve only had sex once in two years, and I am so guarded I barely allow access to myself to see how I am doing, smh!!! At this point, I am just now beginning to have honest discussions with my best friend regarding what type of guy I envision myself with. I am happy without my ex- not just because I am not with him anymore but because there is no more stress in my life. I am stronger, and am back in my right mind. Smart woman survive heartbreak because when we fall down we get back up more efficient.
Insanity: I still love him, but I never want to see him again. He is my drug of choice…
