Heartbreak by The School of Life

Author:The School of Life
Format: epub

HOW TO BREAK UP

The intensity and suffering exacted by a heartbreak depends not only on the core fact that we’ve been left; it also decisively depends on how we’ve been left. Our hurt can be hugely intensified when we’ve been left badly – just as it may be rendered a great deal more bearable when we are fortunate enough to have a lover who has learnt the psychologically rich art of a mature break-up.

There are certain things guaranteed to make a break-up worse than it ever needs to be:

i. Lingering

All decisions around relationships should be taken with the awareness that life is desperately short for both parties. It therefore really shouldn’t matter that a holiday has already been booked or that preparations for our birthday are – awkwardly – well under way.

As soon as the decision has been taken inwardly, a courageous lover will not dither out of a misplaced desire not to upset pre-existing plans. They know they must leave. They are ruining things, of course, but they can see that the holiday or restaurant meal would in any case be doomed – and they are kind enough to know not to waste any more of anyone’s precious time.

ii. Collateral accusations

A wise departing lover knows not to accuse the other of more sins than they are guilty of. It is not our fault that their career is going wrong and we truly aren’t responsible for their insomnia or conflicts with their brother. The wise lover keeps the list of accusations down to the specific problems that necessitate a break-up; they don’t use the parting as an occasion to rehearse all that happens to be a bit wrong with us – an inevitably far longer but irrelevant charge sheet.

iii. Deceptive niceness

The most harmful lovers are those who labour under a misplaced impression that they need to be nice – even when they are breaking up with us. But there is in fact no need for honeyed words; we simply require the basic information and then some privacy to put ourselves back together again. Indeed, ongoing niceness simply confuses us all the more. The tenderness makes us ache to restart the relationship; there seems no reason why not, given how they are behaving. We might even, if we’re properly unlucky, end up in bed once more.

iv. Evasiveness

Clumsy lovers are so scared of the news they have to share with us, they cannot bear to come out with it cleanly – and so let it seep out in odd, symptomatic ways. They start drinking too much, they come home very late or they advance odd-sounding theories about relationships. They seem to hope – through their perplexing and harmful behaviour – to be pushed rather than to have to jump.

On the other hand, there is so much that can spare us excessive pain:

i. Directness

Kind departing lovers make a sharp break. Once they’ve decided, they move swiftly to letting us know; they clear

off quickly; they don’t hold out hints of reconciliation; they don’t suggest that if we changed in certain ways, they’d reconsider.

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