Love is Not Enough, a Breakup Story

When a relationship ends your life changes forever. You’ve had to take a massive detour and completely change the route of your life. Maybe it was all going well, or at least your path was going along quite consistently and/or comfortably, then suddenly a giant heap of horse shit (as is compulsory in any self-respecting countryside road near my hometown) drops down from the sky and blocks your road right off. So this is really, really bad horse shit. It’s heavy and it stinks. And there’s a lot of it, so much so that no one knows if it will ever be cleared but it’s not looking good.

A break-up conversation:

“Look at this horse shit mountain in front of us.”

“Yeah. So what should we do?”

“I don’t know. Doesn’t look like we can clear this… this road is probably just going to be closed for the rest of the foreseeable future.”

“Ok. But are we going to get our shovels and try though?”

“I actually can’t be arsed. Not really worth it for me, unless you want to do all the shit clearing – I don’t want to mess up my shoes you see. Is that alright?”

“Um. I’m not really up for that.”

“Oh. Right. Was hoping you would be.”

“How about you also clean some shit?”

“No, I want you to do it. It’s only fair.”

“Ok. Well I’m going this way then…”

So you are stuck. No one had the foresight to make and put up any diversion signs – you’re lost and you’ve got to navigate the rest of the way with no sat nav and your phone’s run out of battery so Google maps can’t save you, a truly lone traveller. Even better, the warm sunny weather you were having before turns sour – it’s shitting it down and you’re now in the middle of a storm. All thunder and lightning and stinking shit.

I’d say this metaphorical situation is a pretty good representation of what a break up can feel like. Of course in reality, it is often SO MUCH WORSE. As serious relationship terminations go, there are this-is-a-bit-shit-or-even-quite-inconvenient-but-I’ll-get-over-it break ups, and there are what-is-this-excruciating-pain-please-rip-it-out-of-me break ups. Mine was the latter. My heart was truly crushed, pulverized, well chewed and spat back out. My world had fallen down. It was the End of Everything Good Ever. Not meaning to be dramatic, but it is the single most dramatically painful thing that has happened to me. In terms of breakups, it wasn’t a very exciting one. No one would make a film about us; neither of us cheated, tragically fell out of love, or wanted to move to Italy for a New Start.

Let’s get one thing straight – we loved each other. I loved him more than anything. Our relationship was amazing and we were truly great together. We had something people spend their lives searching for and were seen as ‘couple goals’ by many who knew us. Our relationship was a good one. It wasn’t perfect (obviously), but it was pretty fucking close.

Ultimately – even though we cared about each other, brought out the best in one another, and loved fully and deeply – love wasn’t enough for him, and thus we didn’t work out. I knew it would be so lonely giving him my all yet knowing he was looking for so much more.

As real and raw as it is, sometimes love is not enough. And for some, a relationship isn’t between two people – other people’s opinions on the relationship matter to them more than the person they love. It’s a harsh truth, and one that the Hollywood rom-coms would be absolutely appalled at. But it happens. Our priorities just weren’t the same. He had expectations so high and pressures so intense I don’t know who will be able to handle them whilst keeping their integrity. I just knew that girl wasn’t me.

The worst part of all is how brilliant we were together. Just us, I mean. We got on amazingly. He was smart, handsome, funny and caring whilst I was… painfully average lucky. We were good for each other.

Even if you love each other, both like olives, make plans to start a family (by getting a puppy together, duh) and have the best, kinkiest sex either of you have ever had, sometimes one or both parties decide there’s more that they want. They can’t compromise. They don’t understand. They don’t want to change. Sometimes, a partner will just never be their top priority.

It hurts. You will despair over the injustice. You’ll feel the shattering loss of all the incredible things you had most of all. But know this: if he can’t understand what’s wrong with your relationship and is beyond explanation, or he just feels you’re not worth the risk (whatever that risk is), he’s not right for you.

This is a face-saving understated summary of my break up experience. I left out the dirty* details (*there was a fuck-tonne of snotty tear-drowned tissues) but of course no break up is ever simple. If you are going through heartbreak – I completely get it. You have no reason to trust me (just another blogger on the internet here!) but listen, don’t give up – I promise things will get better.

Image soucre: favim.com