Your Ex-Boyfriend Will Hate This - Your Ex-Boyfriend Will Hate This (2015)

Your Ex-Boyfriend Will Hate This (2015)

Chapter Eighteen

Your Ex-Boyfriend Will Hate This

Nineteen chapters, and he’s just getting around to explaining the title of the book. Thank God he wasn’t trying to write the great American novel, or we’d be here forever.

Again, the sarcasm is unnecessary (and perhaps a bit unkind), but I do see your point. Nineteen chapters is a long time to wait for an explanation. However, I’ve felt every part of my preamble was necessary to arrive at this point and, for my own part, I’ve enjoyed making the journey thus far with you. You’ve been wonderful company.

And the title, obsequious author?

No matter how much it hurts and how unfair or inexplicable it may seem right now, there is a reason your ex-boyfriend has that prefix. The pain you feel (or felt) may not be warranted, but it’s absolutely necessary. If you examine honestly the reasons the relationship ended and take to heart the lessons they provide, you’ll realize that, barring physical abuse (which is never a “teaching moment”), the breakup is exactly what you needed. Without this clear-eyed introspection, however, a breakup is empty, causing only bitterness and pain.

A quote by Friedrich Nietzsche, often favored by the terminally humorless, says:

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

What complete and utter horseshit.

That which doesn’t kill us doesn’t always make us stronger. It does make some of us more tiresome at cocktail parties, but not necessarily any stronger. Not every wound heals perfectly without proper attention. Some wounds become infected when left to their own devices. Our white blood cells aren’t there just to give piggyback rides to visiting bacteria while the scab fairy does her business. Our immune system is constantly battling the ravages of our environment, father time, and our own boundless idiocy.

Ever gone out drinking when you knew you had the flu? Or continued to smoke after you contracted bronchitis? Be happy your immune system lacks the power of speech, or you’d hear a torrent of four-letter words that would make a porn star blush.

A common mistake that we all make, especially when we’re young, is to assume that when something doesn’t kill us, we’re stronger than we really are. If you get hit by a car and live, that doesn’t mean every subsequent car is powerless to murder you. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Your bones may heal, but they aren’t stronger for having done so. They’re actually demonstrably weaker and more prone to breaking again in the future, especially if the original injury occurs later in life.

I tore a muscle in my calf six years ago while running and not paying attention to where I was going, and I hadn’t warmed up properly beforehand. The pain of the injury, coupled with my irritation at not being able to run for many months, ensured that I followed the attending doctor’s orders to the letter. I wasn’t going to risk anything until the muscle had healed completely. After several months spent mostly off my feet, followed by the gradual resumption of physical activity as the muscle strengthened again, I proudly reported that I was free of pain and good as new.

“Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as ‘good as new’ with an injury like this,” explained my doctor. “Especially after you hit thirty. This injury will happen again and again if you don’t take certain precautions—avoiding activities that put undue strain on the muscle, proper stretching before exercise, a better diet. Even if you do all of that, you’re going to experience pain periodically for the rest of your life.”

So much for “that which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Nietzsche was clearly not a jogger, or he’d never have said something so evidently stupid.

You can keep the platitudes. Pass me the pain meds.

If Nietzsche were being honest, he’d have written the quote as follows:

“That which does not kill us doesn’t make us stronger, but it might make us smarter.”

Neurological research suggests that breakups affect the brain almost exactly like a physical burn. The same areas of the brain are affected, as are the same neural networks.[lvii] Think about the first time you touched something hot as a kid. The blister that formed didn’t appreciably lessen the pain if you touched it again, but it quickly taught you to avoid repeating that mistake.

My calf muscle didn’t repair to superhuman strength. It will never be exactly the same. But it doesn’t have to be, because I learned my lesson from the injury. I’m careful to perform the right stretches before I run. I don’t try to overdo it. I eat better. I don’t have to be stronger. I don’t take the same risks I once did.

Relationships are the same way. If you’ve ever been with someone who abused you, it doesn’t lessen the emotional or physical hurt if it happens again. However, you’re able to better recognize the traits of those who hurt you in the past. If you trust your experience, the wisdom you’ve gained, and your innate flight instinct (it’s in our nature as humans to avoid predators too), you don’t have to be stronger. You just have to be smarter.

Experience without introspection yields no wisdom. Wisdom without the corresponding action is useless. Look closely at your past. There’s an abundance of wisdom there for you to discover. Heed those discoveries closely. They’ll make life a lot more pleasant if you do.

You picked up this book from your local bookstore (they still exist, right?) or online, seeking wisdom or at least a fresh perspective. This book doesn’t offer much that hasn’t been said before in one place or another. I’ve just tried to collect my own observations, the stories of my friends, and the thoughts and studies of those more qualified than myself. By doing so, I wanted not so much to provide wisdom but rather to illuminate the wisdom inside you the whole time.

As the movie quote I referenced earlier noted, “Sometimes it’s not so important to know the answers as it is to ask the questions better.”

I hope this book helps you to ask better questions about yourself, your past love life, and what you want from the future. Perspective is the enemy of bad decisions. The better your perspective, the less likely you are to allow a single moment to obscure or erase your long-term plans.

I spoke to a close friend a few days before beginning this chapter. Her name is Amanda. I’ve known Amanda a few years and, since we met, she garnered wisdom beyond her years (she’s twenty-four) and far beyond any I had gleaned by her age. When I first met her, Amanda had recently suffered her second broken engagement in three years and was carrying an unblemished seven-year record of terrible, terrible boyfriends. (One “terrible” isn’t sufficient to characterize them.) She’d never been single for more than two months since her sophomore year of high school. If anyone was due for a commitment vacation, it was Amanda.

The last time I saw her was nine months ago. She was coming off another failed relationship, this time with an unrepentant narcissist we’ll call Ed Hardy. (I’m running out of synonyms for “utterly useless douchebag.”) Anyway, she began dating Ed Hardy only a month or so after breaking it off with her fiancée (due to his chronic allergy to gainful employment). Ed Hardy was sending up red flags immediately—his preoccupation with his own looks, his minor but steady-streaming chauvinistic remarks, and his ever-growing criticism of her clothes, looks, and friends. When I pointed out how poorly these things reflected on his character, she readily acknowledged it.

“It just nice to be with a guy who has a good job and doesn’t mind spending money,” she explained. “I never went anywhere nice with [Failed Fiancées 1 and 2].”

As I pointed out to her at the time, when you’re willing to overlook major flaws for a few nice meals, it indicates one of three things:

1) You’ve thrown up your hands and given up on the whole love, intimacy, happiness, fulfillment, self-respect hassle.

2) You need a pimp who’s a much better negotiator.

3) You need to quit dating for a while. Maybe a long while. (See Chapter One.) Immediately.

The point of telling this story is that Amanda took my advice nine months ago and has remained single ever since. When I spoke to her on the phone the other night, she told me that the last nine months have been the most rewarding of her entire adult life.

“What I’ve learned about myself, about what I want in a guy, about what I want in life—all of it came in the last nine months,” she said. “I get a little lonely from time to time, but then I remember how far I’ve come too. For the first time, I’m completely confident in what I want and who I want, and I’m willing to wait for both.”

I’ve told Amanda my various theories about dating over the course of our friendship, but I had spoken to her very little during the nine months since I last saw her. I don’t think we spoke for more than five minutes total during that period, and we exchanged maybe fifty texts. I mention this to demonstrate that I offered next-to-no counsel during that time. I’m not even sure she remembers the night I unfurled my ideas about a “commitment vacation.” We had both enjoyed a few beers, and I’m sure I wasn’t nearly as fascinating as I imagined I was at the time.

The truth is that I can’t take credit for Amanda’s enlightenment, as much as I’d love to. I had no part in her self-discovery. I didn’t shine a light on any heretofore unrealized dreams. I didn’t give her any ideas about who her Mr. Right should be. She didn’t need me in the least. She did it all.

It couldn’t have happened any other way.

By the time you finish this book, you should be both smarter and wiser. A smart person can analyze a situation based on learned or observed information and make the best decision. A wise person examines the same situation through the prism of her own experiences and makes the best decision. Pay attention to yourself, your life, and the lives of those around you. They’ll yield a great deal of the knowledge and wisdom you’ll need to pursue your own happiness.

That’s why your ex-boyfriend will hate this book. The girl who spent so much thought, emotion, and energy on him at the expense of herself won’t be around anymore. The person he hurt, neglected, took advantage of, and took for granted is gone. In her place is someone who has a much better understanding of her own worth, of what she wants, and of whom she should be with. Assigning blame doesn’t make the hurt of a breakup go away. Discovering the causes of that breakup and accepting them does. Implementing the lessons learned is what allows you to move forward.

Letting go after a breakup isn’t easy. It isn’t just an emotional transition; it’s literally a biochemical one as well. Research demonstrates that the grief you feel can literally re-program your neural network for a while. The sadness you experience is unique. The way we experience other kinds of depression isn’t the same. This difference can make the first time you go through a hard breakup feel like your world is collapsing. In a sense it is. You’re feeling something you’ve never felt before. Your former experience with sadness or emotional pain can’t compare.

The struggle to get over someone, to let go, is unlike any other mourning. Even if your rational self knows your ex is wrong for you, you’ll want to go back, if only to make the hurt stop. But forestalling pain isn’t the same as relieving it. The issues that caused the breakup won’t go away until there are major changes in both yourself and the other person. If they didn’t occur while you were together, it may be a signal that they can’t or simply won’t happen.

There are several textbook definitions of the word “broken.” It can mean “out of working order,” suggesting the possibility of repair; but it can also mean “reduced to fragments.” Sometimes only time apart is necessary. Grow up a little and let him do the same. However, it’s just as likely that no separation is long enough to reassemble the fragments that remain. Accepting that fact is the key to moving on.

In the next chapter, we’ll examine what to do when your pain disappears over the horizon, and you’re ready to look ahead.