Relationships rarely end exactly when they’re supposed to, there’s usually an extended period where one or both parties try to fight off the inevitable.
Before I broke up with my ex, nearly two years ago, I prayed for months that my doubts about the relationship would magically vanish. Instead, they grew until they towered over me and my attempts at pushing them away felt like trying to banish an incoming tide.
My final wake-up call came a month or two before the breakup when I bumped into someone I had a big crush on at uni in Edinburgh. I had seen him a few times throughout the years and, when I was still in love, I had no interest in him. But this time was different.
There’s a saying that men cheat when they want to stay in a relationship and women cheat when they want to leave one. And while I think that is a bit Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus and you can’t put either gender in too much of a box, there is some truth to it. Of my female friends who have been unfaithful in a relationship, none of them were emotionally fulfilled at the time of the infidelity. They were, consciously or not, looking for a way out.
I didn’t cheat. But when I bumped into my old crush, the impulse was there. Something which never would have crossed my mind if I had still been emotionally committed. It was confirmation that I wasn’t devoted to my then-boyfriend in the way I had once been. And it was the beginning of the end of the relationship.
How I felt when I saw him signalled to me that I craved something more: more from my relationship, more from my career, more from life in general.
Throughout the breakup, I thought obsessively about my crush – I checked his Twitter likes multiple times a day; pictured bumping into him; and stared at photos of him, my eyes resting on his lips, his neck, his arms.
A friend of mine once became equally as obsessed with a man she barely knew while going through a breakup. She used a VPN every time she looked up his Instagram because she was worried he would somehow know how often she checked it, when she was passing through the area where he lived, she asked him for recommendations in the hopes that he would invite her to meet up (he didn’t), and she read the entire Wikipedia page for his hometown to “better understand the socioeconomic conditions in which he grew up.”
Both of our behaviours were attempts at forging a new connection to replace the one we had just lost, we were jumping into getaway cars to distance ourselves from the difficult emotions we were facing. Both of us immersed ourselves in an obsession completely rooted in fantasy because the realities in front of us were too isolating.
A lot of the time when a person leaves a relationship it’s because they’ve got someone else lined up to take their ex’s place. When this isn’t the case, I think lots of people take the stance that a partner who isn’t quite the right fit is better than no partner at all.
And I could relate to this on some level, I was terrified of losing the bond I had with my ex. But I also realised that I deeply craved a romantic connection with someone I could relate to on an emotional level, and on a creative one too. And though my crush wasn’t the right person, he served as a reminder of the parts I was missing.
My ex is the kindest man I’ve ever known and I’ll always feel incredibly lucky that my first love was such a good person who treated me so well. I loved him deeply and we were exactly right for each other at that particular time in our lives. But as we shed the skin of our youth, the relationship we had once lovingly sewn together had started to unravel at the seams.
Having a big crush on someone else isn’t always an indication that a relationship has hit a dead end. But it should be seen as an opportunity to assess whether that person represents something that you are missing in your relationship and whether that missing piece is a want or a need.
Breaking up with someone means leaping into the unknown in hopes that you will find that right person eventually, and it can mean being adrift for years.
You can’t get everything you want from one person, but everyone has certain non-negotiables that they need to feel fulfilled in a relationship. And if your long-term happiness is going to suffer without those missing pieces, it could be a sign that you need to sever the tie; to drift away on a journey of your own, with the knowledge that, one day, you’ll find the right spot to drop your anchor and make a new home for yourself.