Don’t be alarmed: my partner and I did not break up. I just felt like writing about breakups today!
Several friends of mine have been through breakups recently, and I feel for them. While offering unsolicited advice to a heartbroken person is a grade-A shithead move, occasionally pals will ask me for guidance when going through romantic turmoil (perhaps because I’ve been dumped so many times?!), and my favorite suggestion to offer is this: make a list of all the reasons your ex, and your relationship with them, was not actually ideal for you, and reflect on what that means for you and your future.
You have to pick the right moment for this, and that’ll depend on your personal psychology. Try to do it too soon after the event and you’ll find yourself at a loss for words, weeping into your notebook as you gasp toward the sky, “But they were perfect for me!!” (They were not.) Wait too long to do it, and it won’t be as effective – or you won’t have mental access to the clear memories you need to do this exercise. I think, depending on what kind of breakup it was and how you’re feeling, the best time to do this is after the initial grief-level agony has settled a bit – which could be a few hours, a few days, or maybe a week – but before the pain fully dies down to a numb, muffled throb. If your heart still hurts but not so much that you can’t focus on a book or a TV show, you’re probably in a good spot to do this.
I originally got this suggestion from a friend-of-a-friend named Nora when I was writing an article on breakups for a copywriting internship and polled my Facebook friends for their best breakup advice. This is what she wrote: “Make a list of reasons why they weren’t a good fit. Make a list of things you can now feel free to do or are excited to try. Refer to them when sad.”
I’ve since done this not only to ease the pain of a breakup but also to ease the pain of unrequited love, or just small sexual rejections that stung. It could be considered a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy, in that it serves to unmask your erroneous assumptions about the person who broke your heart – namely, that they were perfect and that no one else you date in the future will ever be better. Trust me, no matter how good you think the relationship was, neither of those things are true.
Making this exercise into a ceremonious ritual improves its effects greatly, I find. Here’s the step-by-step process I suggest:
- Set aside some time for your ceremony. Give yourself at least an hour of peace and quiet (door locked, calendar cleared, phone off, to-do list set aside) because, even if the exercise itself doesn’t take nearly that long, you’re gonna need time to sit with your feelings, cry, breathe, process, etc.
- Pick your medium: do you want to physically write out your list, or type it up? I always prefer to write mine by hand because it takes longer so I have more time to think about what I’m committing to paper. It also feels more cathartic to me than keying some words into a text doc. But hey, you do you. Whatever medium you pick, make it feel fancy and special somehow for yourself – that could mean a beautiful pen and elegant notebook, or a full-screened writing app with your device set to “do not disturb,” or even a creaky old typewriter dusted off for the occasion.
- First, list things you don’t like about your ex. You really don’t need to judge or censor yourself while you write these. It is totally okay if you write down stuff you would otherwise consider petty bullshit, like that he can’t seem to scrub a dirty dish to save his life or that she was always late for dates. The point is to get it all out there – and maybe make yourself laugh a little in the process. If you get stuck and need help, text a friend who always seemed to low-key (or high-key) hate your partner while you were dating them… They’ve probably got some stuff stuck in their craw that they’d be happy to share.
- Next, list things you didn’t like about the relationship. This is slightly different than your most-loathed qualities of the person, because they themselves could be wonderful but just terribly suited to you. Did your kinks not quite match up? Did you both tend to get snippy when you were stressed out? Did their schedule not allow much time for you? Did you constantly bicker about what kind of takeout to get for dinner? No matter how big or how small, write these things down. Take as long as you need.
- Finally, list some things you’re excited to do now that the relationship is over. Maybe you can date and fuck other people now, sure – but you can also do tiny acts of victorious rebellion like eat your ex’s least-favorite food any time you want, wear those shorts she thought were undignified, or blast the death-metal albums he couldn’t stand. This part of the exercise works best if you can make concrete plans to do some of these things in the near future – so maybe text a friend to ask if they’d like to go for absinthe cocktails the likes of which would’ve nauseated your ex on sight, or ask your mom if she’d like to get together next weekend to watch that slapstick comedy your ex thought was dumb. This is about not only looking for the silver linings of your situation but also giving yourself things to look forward to.
- If you want to make this all feel more real and final, read your lists aloud in whatever way feels best to you. Sometimes I choke mine out softly between sobs and wails of despair; sometimes I wipe my tears away and perform a zany dramatic reading to myself in the mirror. Put the words out into the world, listen to them, feel them wash over you, feel how true they are.
- Don’t forget to give yourself aftercare, because this process is intense. Ideally prep this beforehand so you’ll have self-soothing supplies on hand when you need them. Hydrate (especially if you’ve been crying), eat a snack or a meal, text/call/hang out with someone who loves you, read a beloved book in the bath, put on a cute outfit and makeup, watch a Pixar movie, masturbate wildly… You know yourself best, so you likely know what you’ll need at this juncture.
- Perhaps most crucially, refer to your lists as needed in the future, when heartbreak rears its ugly head once more. It’s normal and natural for grief to wrack you in waves, often unexpectedly – and when it does, you’ll be able to combat it by re-reading your lists to remind yourself why the breakup was actually a good thing. You may even want to make a recording of yourself (or your best friend) reading the lists aloud, so you can keep it on your phone and listen to it whenever a stab of anguish hits you right in the chest while you’re out running errands or riding the subway.
That’s it! This process won’t heal your heartbreak immediately or single-handedly, but I’ve found it extremely useful every time I’ve employed it. Like a decidedly sadder version of rose-colored glasses, recent rejection can make you apt to idealize your ex and rationalize away their flaws – so keeping those flaws close to you, explicitly spelled out for easier perusal, can work magic. “This too shall pass” is a cliché for a reason: sooner or later, it always does.