Breakups suck. Nobody likes them, yet most of us have gone through them. I certainly have experienced my fair share of them. Often after a breakup, I find myself reflecting on how I thought the relationship went and what I could have done better. There have been a number of times where all I could think about was “what if I had just done X instead?” or “If only I had done Y.” As if doing one thing differently would have not only prevented that breakup but also any potential future breakups. Reflections like these can be helpful if we can take a lesson from them to improve future experiences, whether that be noticing something we can do better or identifying a trait we want to look for or avoid in future partners. However, oftentimes we fixate on what we did not do and spiral down a hole of self-deprecation, which not only gets in the way of learning from the experience but also prevents us from moving on with our lives.
Most of the time there will be something we could have done better in any given situation and that’s okay. I would argue that there is no such thing as a bad breakup. There are definitely messy breakups, but not bad ones. To me, a breakup means that one person realized that the relationship would not work out and acted to save both of them from further experiencing a dynamic that is not mutually beneficial for both people.
A breakup is a loss of a relationship. Like any other kind of loss, it’s important to be mourned in some capacity, which looks different for each individual. Fixating on all the things we could have done differently is like kicking ourselves while we are down. It’s not helpful. During this time, it is important to be as kind as possible to ourselves and show ourselves unconditional self-acceptance. Unconditional self-acceptance does not mean that we need to like everything about ourselves but it does mean that we acknowledge ourselves as the imperfect beings that we are. It is easy to blame ourselves for a breakup happening, and sometimes it is our fault and sometimes it is not. Regardless of who is responsible, when we accept ourselves for who we currently are, rather than beating ourselves up for who we are not, we are better equipped to give ourselves the space to process the relationship and identify what we can take away from it.