There’s a deafening stillness after a devastating heartbreak — especially when you were the one being broken up with.
As cliche as it sounds, relationships are houses you get to build into a home. You spend months stabilizing the foundation and building up the walls, a few more months to choose the wallpaper, the fixtures, the temperature of the lighting, and another to pick which couch goes to which wall and bicker about whether this is too office lobby bauhaus or not. Once the house is complete, you both get to sit on the couch you bickered over and say “Wow, we did that.”
But creating a home isn’t just about making it into one, it’s also maintaining it. It’s the daily upkeep of who’s taking out the trash? Whose turn is it to wash the dishes? Do we do the laundry together? How about dinner? As much as it’s picking out everything together, it’s also telling each other about your day across the dinner table and taking turns deciding who has to get up and turn off the lights before bed.
So when love firmly decides to walk out of the door and slam it shut, what do you do with everything you built together?
The answer: I don’t know, either.
It’s been almost a month since he left and I am still grappling with what little remains of our relationship. There are mornings I still expect “good morning, i love you” messages from him. There are jokes I know he’d find hilarious, but I stop mid-send because I’m not allowed to send him a message — that, and because I’m too proud to break no contact. I still get teary-eyed whenever I listen to the songs we loved, but for different reasons. I constantly find myself so stuck in the loop of our old routine that it leaves an aching emptiness that refuses to be filled. It’s there when I drink my morning coffee, there when I view his Instagram story because he refuses to block me, and there when I lie in bed at night trying to manage the what-ifs, self-blame, and my breakup playlist listening party. Everything reminds me of him.
A week into the breakup, I gave away all the stuffed animals we lovingly called “our kids,” thrashed the bouquet he gave me on our anniversary, and nearly sent myself into a psych ward because of an emotional breakdown (sorry, mom and dad.) To this day, I cannot open my desk drawer because I just know our photobooth pictures are still there. I can’t listen to Iris by Goo Goo Dolls because it triggers a fight-or-flight response. I also can’t throw away all the junk I collected with him in the two years we were together.
I would like to believe that I am a recklessly calculated lover girl. At the big age of 25, this would have been my second relationship to date. I know I don’t give my heart out to just anyone, but when I do — boy, do I love recklessly and without any inhibition. I have an odd habit of giving someone I love everything that I have to give because I know that despite my difficult upbringing, I am a person so full of love. I thought that when I loved him with everything that I had, it would be enough to make him stay.
News flash: it doesn’t, kids.
Even when you’ve taken accountability for your actions and have been working towards making good progress. Even when you’ve extended grace towards him time and time again. Even when you understand his childhood traumas, dislikes, and nuances. Even when you take care of him for three days because he injured his ankle a week before an important 10-kilometer race (only for him to break up with you the minute you get home.)
It doesn’t and won’t get him to stay.
Now, I can’t speak for my ex because (1) no contact, duh; (2) not a mind reader; (3) again, no contact, but there can be a lot of reasons why he won’t stay despite everything you’ve done. You would think to yourself, “Well what was all of that for?” It’s easy to say that it’s unfair especially after all the effort you’ve poured into the relationship! However, that is also the beauty and grief of true, unconditional love: giving it your all without any expectation of it being reciprocated, but with the tiny hope that it does.
I am incredibly hurt now and I am still processing the breakup with my therapist, but the one beautiful gift I have given myself is knowing I did not love half-heartedly. I loved him wholly that it does not leave room for any regret and doubt. The silence in the house we built may be filled with the ghosts of our patterns, routines, and memories, but I know that I have sat in it for a while to take it all in. Maybe I’ll sit in this silence a couple minutes longer before I fully let him and us go.
Once it’s my turn to get up and leave the room, I’ll whisper thank you to the house, close the door gently and lock it. Because when love leaves the room, only half of it does.
The other half goes out with you.
