How It Felt to Choose Love During My Break-Up

I decided to cherish every minute of my break-up as much as the actual relationship. Here’s what happened.

I am almost thirty, and my entire dating life consists of two long-term relationships. I’ve been on two first dates and had sex with two dudes. Ever.

The first relationship began when I was in high school and continued off and on for almost a decade. It was unhealthy, and when I finally got out, I felt a great sense of relief and excitement for my new life.

The second relationship had its ups and downs, as all partnerships do, but this second man made me happy, and our life together was complex and full of adventures in the real world and in our little emotional world.

That relationship ended because after three and a half years, the second man could not bring himself to take the next step — moving in together — and I couldn’t stay another day with someone who would never be ready to move forward.

We love each other, but contrary to popular belief, love is not all you need.

So the end of this relationship is very different from the end of my first. I do not feel happy. I am not relieved. I will not be striding out into the world to embrace my new life.

As I recover, I am trying to honor the joy and love that we felt by making a list of all that I’ll miss. And in an attempt to move forward, I’m also acknowledging all the frustrating bits that I’m now free of, and keeping a list of those, too.

In college, I studied theatre, and we talked a lot about finding the love in difficult scenes. The actor’s quandary: Why do I remain on stage to have this argument? Why don’t I just leave? Answer: Because there’s love between you and your scene partner. Whether the character is a friend, a relative, a stranger, or even an enemy, there is love somewhere in the scene. You love the relationship you’ve developed, or the family you were born into, or you just plain love your fellow man and want to see them succeed. Maybe the love is for yourself, and you have to stop someone from stripping you of it.

Whatever the case, it’s not just an on-stage challenge; it’s a real-world challenge. And it was this second man who taught me to find the love in the difficult scenes of romantic life. While the first man and I fought terrible fights — full of passive aggressive door slams, cold shoulders, and nasty jabs to finally out-mean the other person and “win” the fight — the second man genuinely wanted to solve the problem and move on. Can you imagine? He would put the love first, refusing to sit in silence forever, and never wanting to go to bed angry.

We hear a lot lately about love conquering hate and fear. I myself use the #lovetrumpshate hashtag on the regular these days. But what we see on a large scale is mostly the opposite. The lowest behavior gets you the highest office. Business owners talk about building community, then outsource work to Pakistan and lay off employees with no warning and no severance. Police kill thousands of people, and most of those officers never even lose a day’s wages, let alone stand trial. Posturing and doublespeak carry the day. We say one thing and practice another.

The second man in my life was not the most thoughtful or the most selfless, but when a rift opened up between us, he didn’t widen it with his anger, stew for days, and begrudgingly return to build a bridge back, as I had always done. Instead, he called across to me even as the rift emerged. He reached out and touched me, to remind me we were two real people with feelings, not two abstract points of view. He forfeited being right in favor of doing right.

When we broke up, I felt I was the one in the right. I had committed to the relationship, and I loved him. And after more than three years of living between apartments, buying two sets of groceries, constantly packing and unpacking, I wanted to move in together, and I didn’t think that was too much to ask.

So when he couldn’t bring himself to do it, I was devastated that his fear was decimating our life together and the future I had imagined. I was frustrated with yet another man unable to make his own decisions or commit. I was angry with him for abandoning something so good.

But everyone must do what’s right for themselves. I, for my part, couldn’t go on being in a relationship that wasn’t moving forward; and he, for his, couldn’t do the moving forward that I needed. Our only option was to end things.

I wanted to both yell at him and retreat from him, and I felt I was entitled to do either. But having learned the peace that comes of doing right, rather than being right, I told him — with a clear understanding inside myself and between us that it was, indeed, over — that I loved him, and that I would miss the wonderful things about him, and that eventually we would both be happy again.

Because no matter what we see on the news each day, love is not weakness. Love is not compromising your values or endangering yourself in order to stay with someone. You can be strong and independent and still love with everything you’ve got.

I wish I had hugged him more. I wish I’d told him I loved him again. Maybe I’ll go and find him and tell him now. Because while love is not all you need, it is an essential ingredient, and we should take every opportunity to feel it and give it and know it — even as we’re saying goodbye.