TO SURVIVE A BREAKUP — 12 WAYS TO AVOID BLAMING YOURSELF

Last Updated on May 19, 2020, by Susan Anderson, Psychotherapist

No matter the circumstances, on some level we blame ourselves when a relationship ends. We take it as a personal failure. The depression that goes with heartbreak is caused by turning the anger we feel about the failure against ourselves. If we feel rejected by the person, multiply that by a thousand. The remorse and regret involved in a breakup us to beat ourselves up, self-inflicting true agony. It can leave scars in our self-esteem.

Insecurity is one of the things people blame themselves for — that their insecurity is what drove their partner away. They are suddenly aware of all kinds of other personal defects, believing that it was their lackings, inadequacies, faults, deficits, and negative behaviors that made them unworthy of someone’s undying love. They feel as if they’ve been condemned to eternal aloneness as a punishment for these shortcomings.

People succumb to feeling unworthy — that the breakup is proof that they are not ‘attachment worthy.’ They must be lacking the personal power to hold someone’s love. They must be inherently unlovable, lacking in some essential ingredient of personal value. Otherwise, why would someone have thrown them away?

Or they blame the breakup on their neediness. Now that they are in abandonment grief, feelings of neediness become overwhelming. The truth is that we all become needy during heartbreak. We are needy at other times, too — neediness is part of being human — but it becomes pronounced when we are attempting a new relationship with someone we’re not sure of or when the person we are attached to is no longer fulfilling our basic need to be loved and secure.

When we feel unrequited love — a lack of emotional reciprocity from the other person — we naturally feel insecure. Even the most independent among us can exhibit reactive behaviors that are extreme and can make the other person run for cover.

1. The first step is to accept your humanness — neediness and insecurity are part of the human condition (even if we don’t enjoy copping to them).
2. Actively engage in radical self-acceptance — accept yourself, warts and all.
3. Don’t expect to be perfect. Perfectionism is a form of self-abandonment.
4. Stop looking to other people, including your ex, to validate your worth. You must do that yourself, especially at this painful time of heartbreak when the person you seek validation from has disposed of you.
5. Accept that now is the time to institute self-love. Don’t expect this to happen by osmosis.
6. To accomplish it, commit to implementing the tools of abandonment recovery.
7. Vow to stop laying your needs for love and acceptance at your lover’s feet, and take 100 per cent responsibility to give yourself the love and esteem that you need (that’s why they’re called self-love and self-esteem).
8. Take advantage of this time of heightened insecurity to learn how to give yourself security. Realize that it’s nobody else’s job — especially now that your lover has abdicated this role in your life. Only you can do this. The tools are there to help you.
9. As you learn how to give yourself security, feel the satisfaction of finding your own two feet to stand on. Validate your own separate functioning. You can survive on your own.
10. Write your ex a thank you note for motivating you to develop self-assurance and self-love.
11. Congratulate yourself for becoming emotionally self-reliant.
12. Do you have an outer child that interferes in your relationships? Use the breakup as a chance to Tame Your Outer Child and rise to your higher self.

Categories: abandonment, Outer Child Tags: aloneness, blame, emotionally self-reliant, heartbreak, inadequacies, Inner Child, insecurity, unworthy

Blog © Susan Anderson Feb 10 2014

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Originally published at https://www.abandonment.net.