The Blindsided Breakup: Alone for the Holidays After the ‘Breakup’
Is it the truth or the silence that’s worse?
48 hours after the alleged breakup, I went to Milan. I saw my best friend, cried on her floor, drank wine, danced, and cried some more. I tried retail therapy, but even that didn’t stop the tears. I walked through the streets, convincing myself it wasn’t a breakup — just space that might lead to one or maybe a second chance. I spent three days trying to get my head straight.
Back in London, I let two days pass which gave him a week, respected his need for space, and prepared for ‘the talk’ — the moment that would either end us or give us a chance to continue. I texted him, a simple message anyone would respond to, hoping for a reply.
Hey I respect your need for time/space, I respect your decision but we both deserve a talk even if it is going to end we both deserve better than that night, so please let me know when you are back so we can meet and talk… Thank you.
I clung to the idea of our planned trip to Rome (the trip we booked two days before the ‘breakup’), fantasising that he’d show up, apologise, and we’d go together, saving what we had.
I waited for days, crying, confused by his silence to my text.
When the Rome trip day arrived, I packed my suitcase, thinking maybe I should go.
Maybe he’d be on the plane, too? Maybe he is expecting me to show up?
But deep down I knew that guy I was hoping for, that ‘shows up’, ‘fights for me’, the guy I wanted him to be didn’t exist… This person wasn’t the guy I wished him to be…
Honestly, deep down I was beginning to realise he never was not even during the relationship was he the ‘I’ll show up and fight for you’ guy…
The fact that for a second, I thought he might now after blowing us up like that…
Let’s just agree that loving this guy didn’t make me the smartest person out there…
In the end, I didn’t go I stayed in London, thinking it was better to be alone there than alone in Rome.
No one was in London. Everyone I knew was away for Christmas. (Disclaimer: I don’t come from a celebrating Christmas background, but the holidays have been just as special to me growing up (with our traditions and celebrations (and I always always have a Christmas tree, though back home we call it the New Year Tree :) ) and celebrating Christmas with my loved ones who celebrate has always been a special occasion… I stayed back (alone) well because my ‘ex’ and I had decided to go to Rome together for Christmas, and we planned to spend the New Year in London with my friends who would return after Christmas… Why didn’t I go home after the ‘breakup’ well, I didn’t want my family to see me in pain like this over the holidays…)
I tried to stay busy, went out to my regular places (yes by myself), went for a lot of walks, met new (one friend specifically loveliest still in my life in the most beautiful way) people, and said yes to being involved in a new work project of an old friend, and went to a musical, though I still cried through half of it.
More days passed, and still no reply.
On Christmas Eve, I walked past his flat; I looked up. Hoping for a sign. Begging for a sign. And boy did I get a sign… Just not the sign I was hoping for…
But thank you, universe, for showing me exactly what I needed to see. (Yes, I love the universe. The universe is my best friend, even when its truth hurts… I believe in its power because imagine I could have walked by an hour before or an hour later or not at all and would have never seen what woke me up from the delusion… I would have gone to bed just waiting for a text and for him to be ready to ‘talk’…)
The light was on and in front of the window, a blonde woman. The scene played out like a cruel echo of our time together: the dinner, the wine, the candle I’d bought him.
It was pouring rain. I should have left. Instead, I stayed put. I needed to be sure.
I watched them set the table the way we did all those nights; I watched her sit exactly where I sat each night I was there, I watched him sit the way he sat with me. I watched him grab the candle I got for him just four days before the ‘breakup’ and light it. We hadn’t even used it together yet.
Then… I saw it… The moment when he ripped my heart completely out of my chest, held it in his hand and then stabbed it in front of my eyes…
I saw him get up in the middle of their meal and kiss her — the same kiss he used to give me during meals, a sweet moment I thought was ours during every meal we’ve ever had.
That kiss that made me fall in love with him… That ‘get up in the middle of a meal and kiss her’ moment he had done to me in every single meal that I thought was just for me… I never even considered the possibility that it might be just ‘a move’… He knew how special it was to me… He did it each meal since our first date, even on a Sunday, eating ramen in sweatpants…
I couldn’t even picture myself touching someone’s skin, and here he was giving this girl my most special moment from our relationship… That moment that always made me love him more… Now, it made me feel cheated… That special moment that I held onto so tightly now stung… Because since the ‘breakup,’ I thought, but we had those real moments… It was real… And now it wasn’t… He took everything, my entire reality, of him, of us, of the last months… And crushed it…
Heartbroken, I realised this couldn’t just be someone new; it was a betrayal. Whether it started during our relationship or after, it felt like cheating — cheating my heart. There I was still wearing his initial necklace, notes in my phone filled with how we can make this work, my flat full of memories of us… Still holding on…
I went home, cried… Then I got up and placed everything that reminded me of us in a thrash bag, left it in front of my door undecided on what to do with them and texted him…
Hey forget what I said. No need to talk anymore. I just want my things from your place and my keys. You have 48 hours to get them back to me.
There’s no good conclusion I can give to this article. Seeing someone you love with another person is gut-wrenching, no matter the circumstances. It doesn’t matter if the relationship, marriage, or situationship just ended. It doesn’t matter when it ended if feelings were felt, seeing someone you love kiss another person is torture…
That kiss was an image that popped up in my head for weeks, maybe months… It stopped me from eating (and I was barely eating since the ‘breakup’). It held immense power over me… I felt physically sick from that picture-perfect truth I saw…
But in a way, it also shifted something in me. The hurt was still there… But one thing that wasn’t there before… Anger… Now, anger was there, too. And anger gave me some of my power back… The power to pull me through this… It made me realise I no longer wanted to wait for him.
I had to let go — no matter how painful.
I can’t force myself to come up with a good ‘advice’ conclusion on this article because honestly not much can stop that pain. Only time can do that… Yes, that stupid word ‘time’ again… But it’s true. I am sorry…
The only thing I guess I could say is that when you see something like that, you’ll want to get in their head… You’ll still come up with excuses and reasons… But in the end, it should give you the power to realise your self-worth… Don’t wait for someone who has no problem ‘moving on’ (or pretending to)… Who has no problem ignoring you… Leaving you in tears… In pain…
It is incredibly painful to hold on to hope when the other person has let go trust me because that was me for a while… I wish I could say I fully let go of hope after what I saw but of course, my hope didn’t completely go away right away even though it started to…
But when I finally did fully let go of that hope it was so freeing to accept the truth.
Self-worth comes from recognising when someone isn’t treating you with the love and respect you deserve. Sadly, heartbreak is a part of life, but as I said before in other articles, it leads to the most amazing growth as well.
You don’t ever fully break free from pain or heartbreak they just stop holding power over your life, they just become a part of your past and a part of who you are now. A beautiful part rather than a painful part.
That night I decided now the only thing left was to get my stuff back, which was my last physical tie to him and then to start focusing on moving on and letting go rather than holding on and having hope…
This I promised myself.
Writing this now months after that night… From the future… :) I can say that the strength and self-worth you regain from overcoming heartbreak is powerful, and that is something that does last forever (so I’ve been told, and I plan to make sure of it). What doesn’t last forever? It’s the pain. You might occasionally (for a long while daily) still wonder ‘why’. But the pain will stop. And that is the light at the end of that dark tunnel of heartbreak…
