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“We choose, we are chosen”… Why do we so often choose “the wrong ones” and, as a result, experience acute disappointment and pain? And how can you help yourself — or someone close to you — get through a breakup? The psychologist Elena Sidorova tells.
Women often come to me for counseling with problems in their personal lives. For some, there is a crisis in relations with a partner, for others, an “enlightenment”, a painful meeting with reality, and others are experiencing separation and the pain of loss.
In this state, it is difficult to understand that no matter how painful the situation is, it requires only one thing from us — growth and transformation. It is necessary to go through a difficult path from anger at a partner to gratitude. Not everyone succeeds: many get stuck in the first stage of separation and continue to experience resentment and anger. You can transform only by working on yourself — on your own or with a psychotherapist, dissolving in pain, living feelings without a trace.
No matter what requests clients come to me with, most experience acute disappointment in a partner. Why is this happening? Why do years of marriage end with this heavy feeling?
Fear mixed with desire for love
The answer is usually to be found in childhood. If a girl grew up in an atmosphere of safety and love, it helped her learn to listen to her needs and understand her desires. It is easier for such girls to hear their inner voice, make choices, say “no” and refuse those who do not suit them. They were taught the main thing — to respect and choose themselves — and they choose slowly, thoughtfully, the one who really suits them.
And what happens to those who grew up in an incomplete family, or from childhood saw their mother’s tears, or heard screams, reproaches, criticism, condemnation, prohibitions? Such girls have undermined self-confidence, severely low self-esteem, no internal support has been formed, no standards, no ideas about a worthy man and how to build personal boundaries. They have a lot of hard lessons to learn.
A traumatized woman cannot build a harmonious relationship with a man until she heals her inner girl.
Usually such girls dream of growing up quickly, getting married and finally finding a safe haven. But a traumatized woman cannot build a harmonious relationship with a man — at least until she heals her inner girl. It seems to her that a partner can become her salvation, but in fact she is only disappointed and goes around in circles until she realizes that the reason for her failures is not in men, but in herself, in her internal patterns, feelings and emotions. She herself attracts certain men.
A psychologically healthy person enters into a relationship already in a state of abundance, fullness, happiness. The natural desire in this state is to share your happiness with the same person, giving him love and receiving it in return. In such a harmonious union, happiness multiplies. Traumatized, lonely, frustrated, unhappy people become emotionally dependent on each other, which means they have new problems and suffering.
Is it necessary to look for «the one»
Often, rapidly rushing in search of love, we forget about the important period of pre-relationship. The main thing for us at this time is to become a happy and harmonious person. Find love within yourself, grow it to such a size that it is enough for yourself and your future partner.
During this period, it is good to end all previous relationships, forgive parents, yourself, friends, exes, take responsibility for everything that happened, and learn to enjoy life again.
How to get over a breakup
After a breakup, many torment themselves by searching for the cause of what happened, asking themselves over and over again the question: “What is wrong with me?”. When we part, we lose not only a partner, but also social life, social status and ourselves, which is why it hurts so much. But it is in this pain that healing lies.
It is important to stop wasting time looking for the reasons for the breakup and help yourself find the gaps in your life and fill each of them. It can be:
- gaps in the perception of oneself as a person (who I am, why I live),
- gaps in social activities (with whom and how I communicate),
- gaps in the profession and financial sphere.
After parting, we often begin to idealize the former partner: we remember his smile, gestures, joint trips, making ourselves only worse. We also need to remember the bad — how difficult it was for us at times.
It is necessary to accept the fact of parting with a partner and stop again and again looking for the reasons for what happened
Losing love, we often begin to reopen wounds ourselves: we go to the profile of a former partner in social networks, look at photos, write SMS, talk with friends for hours about a breakup, cry to sad music … All this only aggravates our condition and delays recovery.
It is necessary to accept the fact of what happened and stop looking for reasons.
If your loved one is going through a painful breakup, support him: it is difficult to survive this serious psychological trauma on your own. Usually it is accompanied by insomnia, reduced immunity, obsessive thoughts, in some cases, the situation can end in clinical depression. And when the loved one feels a little better, help him understand that what happened was not a «terrible mistake» — it was a unique life experience that will definitely help to become stronger and will be useful in the future.