Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

By Catherine Portland -

Last week, I opened the door to find my best friend, tearstained and weeping so profusely I barely recognised her. "Bu-u-t I l-loved h-him," she sobbed, little rivulets of mascara dribbling down her cheeks. "Why did it have to happen like thi-i-iis?"

Reaching for the two girly staples of tissues and chocolate, my immediate conclusion was, of course, that she had just been dumped. It was only ten minutes into my standard "B*stard how dare he?" tirade that I realised, after gleaning information from in between sniffles, that it was she who had dumped him.

If you've ever been in a relationship, you probably won't need me to tell you that break ups are extraordinarily difficult. Hurting anyone is bad enough; hurting someone you once loved by telling them you no longer want them can be downright excruciating.

Yet making the decision is often the hardest part. After all, your relationship used to be good, so it can be hard to understand where things went wrong – and difficult to give up hope of fixing them. The seductive, easy comfort of coupledom, often accompanied by an irrational fear of never meeting another man who will put up with your toenail picking habit, mean that it can take months of denial before you finally accept it's time to call it a day. After all, dumping someone makes you feel, well, rubbish.

Of all the thousands of break ups that take place every day, I'd be willing to wage a bet that no woman has ever found a good way to go through with it. However gentle the letdown, however sympathetic the ear, telling your one-time 'other half' that he is now just 'half' is always going to be difficult. Ask your friends on the best way to do it, soften brute honesty with semi-truths all you like – but as realisation dawns, there's little you can do to prepare yourself for the rejection and betrayal you'll see in his eyes.

It doesn't help that where women have the good sense to turn to friends, haircuts and bottomless tubs of chocolate Haagen Dazs on breaking up with someone, men tend to handle things a little less maturely. Worse than a bruising to his brand new Audi, a dent to the ego can drive even the most gentlemanly of exes to new lows of wildly self-destructive behaviour. Take my flatmate Sarah. Famed for having the most sensible boyfriend in the house while they were together, she recently switched on her online messenger to find his sign-in name, in view to all: "Be cruel to be kind" – the same phrase she had ill-advisedly used when trying to explain her decision to break up.

Lacking sufficient emotional empathy to realise that you are probably suffering too, bullish exes tend to lose sight of self respect and instead act as if you have just waved a red flag in front of their eyes – complete with Get Revenge on the Bitch emblazoned across it in capitals. Prepare yourself for the backlash: even the most gentle of break-up-ees has the capacity to turn into a malicious, self pitying monster after the immortal "It's just not working," – as my friend Claire found out.

Rather than dealing with his wounded pride, her newly-single ex attempted to purge himself of his hurt by lashing out at – well, just about anything, briefly turning into such a maniacal stalker that she even considered getting a restraining order. After punching a wall didn't help – although it did land him a spell in A&E– he proceeded to send a mass email to all her friends demanding "the truth" as to why she had broken up with him, followed by an expletive-peppered rant on her failings as a girlfriend.

So, a few words of advice from someone who's been there, done it – and cried into his t-shirt when it was all over. Ride out the storm of anger (it will take longer than you think), don't rise to the bait when he lashes out, be patient – and who knows, one day you may even find yourself in possession of that holy grail of break-ups: friendship with an ex.