Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Most of us have experienced breaking up at some point in our lives, some even many times over. Some break ups are amicable, some are acrimonious. You can ended up stalking your ex, or you can ended up befriended him/her or you can also ended up not in contact at all. Each to their own.

They say it's easier to get over of someone by not in contact with them for at least one month. In this digital era, you cant just cut off your offline connection, sometimes you also need to do it digitally too. With all emails, chats, social networkings, twitter, and skype we are more connected than ever. Do you blocked your ex from IM and defriend them on social networking? Two third of my exes are on my social networks, and we befriended after we broke up. I know some immediately checked out my profile after I put up pic of a baby that I took at this park but that's about it with them, I blocked them from IMs. With the others we still text/skype each other for birthdays and they called me up when they found out my dad passed away. The rest I have absolutely no idea about them online or offline.

Then came the question of how do you expect your friends and family to treat your ex? New York Times "Modern Love" column examined that in an essay by Charles Antin. Antin had an amicable break up and still friend with his ex on Facebook. All seems well until his grandfather joined the networking site and befriended his ex. Antin was angry.

I never said anything about taking side to "my people". The way I see it, the break up is between me and him, if my people was friends with him before, why do they have to stop for my benefit? Tho I've noticed that in some of my break ups I ended up still friend with their friends. There is however this gal who went out once with me & my then bf, who later befriended him on IM, etc. One day she told me that my ex asked about me (married or not, etc. the same ex who checked out my profile I mentioned above) every now and then. I found it rather odd, is not like they were friends before. I didnt say anything about it, but dont they have anything else to talk about beside me if they are really friends?

What I think the most difficult part of breaking up, aside of losing a close confidant, is to forgive the other person just as we forgive ourselves for the break down of the relationship. The lost of trust & dreams, anger, rage, indignation, humiliation, and hurt, (dont forget the hurt!) of a break up can ruined our own chances of happiness. Those negative feelings not only consumed us, but also keep our connection with our ex longer than necessary. Sure, we might meet a new person, even falling for him/her. However there's always this part that is connected to our previous break up that lingers that can ruined our chance of success in the new relationship. For example your ex cheated on you, and you are still not at peace about it, chances are you are more suspicious about your present partner because you dont want to experience the same thing again. Of course it is logical and understandable. But guess what, he/she might broke up with you because of your suspicion.

Good luck dealing with your break up. As hard and painful breaking up is, just remember what Mitch Albom said:

all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.