The truth is that I didn’t stop loving you, I just stopped insisting

Sometimes what ends is not love, it is patience. Yes, the desire to continue adding fuel to a fire that does not give heat, in a look that does not embrace, in hugs that are not enough for us. In the end we get tired of insisting, spirits melt, illusions dissolve and only the embers of that dignity remain that we collect in pieces, aware that this is no longer our place.

It is curious how some people, when looking for a professional to help them better cope with the process of grieving a breakup, do not hesitate to tell the psychologist that “Help me stop loving my ex-partner, help me forget her”. Perhaps many therapists would love to have in their consultation that magical recipe, that fabulous technique with which to erase every trace of that love that hurts, of that melancholic memory that clouds the days and lengthens the nights.

However, The good professional knows well that grief is a useful suffering, that slow, but progressive process, that allows the person to acquire new growth strategies and resources to improve their emotional management. The balms of oblivion would therefore be a sterile and not very useful resource, where vital learning can be numbed, a type of internal journey where we can recover the initiative and the desire to love again.

Because at the end of the day, no one stops loving from one day to the next. What we do achieve is stop insisting in something that long ago ceased to be worth it, to be worth life.

The two duels in emotional breakups

There are those who do not hesitate to do it again and again: insist on receiving a little more attention, insist that thoughts, decisions, fears, joys and complicities be shared, that the time spent between two tastes of happiness and not to doubts, to authentic desire and not to coldness, to excuses, to looks that avoid us… In fact, that someone who insists we have all been at some point.

When one finally understands that it is better to stop insisting is when the first duel occurs, a beginning of painful reality that makes us open our eyes to the evidence.. However, it will also force us to go through a series of stages, all of them essential to clarify much more the reality of that emotional bond, and end a relationship before it becomes an ordeal of useless suffering.

The stages of this first duel are as follows:

Dullness or numbness of sensation: refers to those situations in which we do not quite understand the reason for certain reactions, the distance, the emotional coldness of our partner or the reason for their lies.I long. In this second stage it is common for one to continue insisting, and for the typical biases or self-deceptions of “If he does this it is because he has a lot of stress now, because he is busy, tired…”, “if I am a little more affectionate, it is possible that he will love me a little more, pay more attention to me…”.Acceptance is the last stage of this first duel, an essential moment where one stops insisting in the face of clear evidence. Nurturing hope is little more than a hindrance, we know, a way of poisoning ourselves slowly and heavily without sense or logic, and therefore, we must do it: move away…

This will be the moment when a much more complex phase begins: the second duel.

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I stopped insisting, I put distance but I still love you: the second duel

When we finally say goodbye and distance is established, we give way to the second duel. In the face of what is irremediable, in the face of what hurts, in the face of what breaks our dignity and annihilates our self-esteem, the smartest option is distance, we are clear about it… However, What will never be possible is distance without forgetting.

We know that the simple recognition that “everything is over and there is nothing to do” frees us from waiting rooms and sterile fields, however… What to do with that feeling that lies embedded inside us like an insistent demon? The second duel is more complex than the first, because if it is hard to discover that we are not loved or that we are “badly loved,” it is more complicated to have to heal the wounds, survive and reinvent ourselves into someone stronger.

Therefore, knowing this, It is necessary to shape an emotional mourning that fits our needs, where the mind and also the body can cry.process, assimilate the absence of the loved one and forcibly – and reluctantly – accept the new situation without hard feelings, without anger or resentment.

In addition, It is also an ideal time to “insist” on ourselves. It’s time to be stubborn, it’s time to feed ourselves with hopes, nourish ourselves with new illusions, although at first, of course, we cannot swallow them. This second mourning requires that we insist and persist in our own being, modulating memories and anxieties, finding that perfect frequency where nostalgia and dignity find their harmony to allow us to move forward with our heads held high.

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Images courtesy Agnes Cecile