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By Catherine Gryp, October 10, 2011 6:00 am

There it was, at the bottom of the tan purse I never wear: a grocery list from another life.

Toothpaste

Frozen dinners

Diet Coke

Ice cream

Cheez-Its

Oatmeal cookies

I haven’t thought of buying Cheez-Its or oatmeal cookies since the day I moved out of your house. This list was pre-breakup.

A year ago, finding this list would have been devastating. Alongside this list would have come tears, regret and hurt. This slip of paper would have been a painful window into a world where I was part of a “we” who were planning to get married and live happily ever after.

Today, this list is simply a reminder of my past. I feel nostalgic, but not sad. Pensive, but not overwhelmed. And I throw the list away.

I’m (almost) over you.

I’ve created this timeline of my life. There’s pre you – the years until I was 18. There’s you – 18-25. And then there’s post-you, my life after canceling our wedding.

I’m realizing that post-you are some of the best times of my life. I like who I am post-you more than I’ve ever liked myself before.

I’m (almost) over you.

I don’t think of you as often as I used to. In fact, this is probably the least in my adult life I’ve thought about you. Since we started dating when I was 18, it was all you, you, you. I liked you. I loved you. I worried about you. I cared for you. I thought about you. With you, I had some of the most romantic moments of my life. You, you, you.

And then it all came crashing down. You hurt me. You lied to me. You caused me pain. I was angry with you. I couldn’t bring myself to forgive you. I missed you. I yearned for you. I wanted you back. But I didn’t want you back. I wanted my old life with you back. You, you, you.

Continue reading '(Almost) Over You'»

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By Lady Bee, October 3, 2011 6:00 am

I broke up with a serious boyfriend last year. Our relationship was really complicated. Our breakup wasn’t.

When we ended it, we were both of the same opinion that it was over. With initial reluctance, I acknowledged to myself that I was getting less than I wanted or deserved from the relationship. With the honesty that was typical of his character, he agreed. He knew he wasn’t in a position to be what I needed. The breakup was an evolution, and the final decision was mutual and not acrimonious in the slightest.

There were some fundamental cracks that simply couldn’t be papered over. It happens. And it was an unfortunate ending to what had been a mostly good relationship.

When we had “the talk” that ended things, I just wanted to let out some of the feelings that had been brewing for a while. He, on the other hand, was concerned about hurting me and worried that he would lose me from his life altogether. The only thing he couldn’t bear to let go of was my friendship and my presence in his life. He didn’t want that bit to change. He wanted me to stay as big a part in his life as I had been.

He needn’t have bothered with his first concern. I wasn’t shocked or hurt. However, at the time, I wasn’t entirely sure about the second concern. It was naïve to think that things wouldn’t change.

Yet, I replied, “Don’t worry, we’ll still be friends. You’re not going to lose me.” And I meant what I said.

I didn’t want to cut him out of my life completely. And though I wasn’t eager to keep up the same level of closeness we had in our relationship, I was sure we were going to be involved in each other’s lives. At the time, this exact thing wasn’t in doubt in my mind.

On the other hand, I had no intention of investing as much time and effort into our friendship as I had into our relationship. First, I took a breather from him to let the break-up actually take. Then, it was simply a case of putting more effort into other friendships, work, family and every other aspect of my life. I made a conscious choice not to place him in the forefront of my life as one of my more important priorities. He wasn’t my job, one of my best friends, my mother, or my favourite hobby, and his friendship now ranked accordingly.

Continue reading 'My Ex-Boyfriend Isn’t My Friend Anymore'»

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By Jasmine Curry, July 4, 2011 6:00 am

I'm not throwing your love away. I'm just recycling.

A lifetime ago, I was in a long term live-in relationship with a boyfriend. It was good, but it wasn’t perfect, and I felt myself pulling away from him. To be honest, I even got a bit bitchy with him.

That Thanksgiving, I spent the holiday out of town with my mother, and being away from him felt like tasting chocolate for the first time. I realized that it was probably time to end the relationship.

But how? When? Before Christmas, so you don’t feel guilty over receiving gifts from someone you intend to break up with? After Christmas, so you don’t ruin his holidays? This was my first relationship and thus was also to be my first breakup. I had no idea how to go about things.

Luckily, my boyfriend took care of things for me. The night I got back from our weekend away, while we were eating dinner (at the… wait for it… “Comfort Diner”), he jokingly asked, “What, are you going to break up with me?”

And, being someone who can’t lie, I honestly–and probably too abruptly–said, “Yes.”

The Comfort Diner was suddenly not so comfortable. Put me off chicken pot pie for years….

The next two weeks were hell. We had all of our stuff to separate. We even had custody issues with our pet cat. (Man, I miss that cat. I almost considered staying in the relationship just to be with her.) Mostly, it was two weeks of “why?” followed by “why?” followed by “why?” again. It was like living with a three-year-old who got into mommy’s Valium.

Not my idea of fun. Well, probably not anyone’s idea of fun. Unless you have a disturbing fetish and get off on that kind of thing, in which case you should just buy a cape and change your name to “The Heartbreaker.”

Continue reading 'Sex With An Ex Sucks'»

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By Dennis Hong, March 14, 2011 6:00 am

For months after Julie and I broke up, we chose to remain friends.

Yes, it was a mutual decision.

No, really.

Stop rolling your eyes.

This is not another rant about being stuck in the Friend Zone.

We still cared about each other, and we still enjoyed each other’s company. We just realized that, romantically, we weren’t all that compatible. We were like peanut butter and bacon: You love ‘em both. Just not together.

We continued to hang out fairly regularly, though. In fact, we joked that we were kind of/sort of still going on dates. Except that they didn’t end in anything physical….

Wait.

Okay, yes. They were exactly like many dates I’ve been on.

I was fine with that. We both knew that muddling the boundaries we’d established wouldn’t be a good idea. So, we continued our platonic dates, going out to dinner, chatting about what was going on at home and at work, slipping into deeper conversations about our lives… our hopes… our fears….

That’s when I had an epiphany.

I was totally getting screwed in this arrangement.

In recent years, scientists have discovered that the hormone oxytocin is responsible for feelings of attachment in women. Most notably, oxytocin is released when a woman orgasms. This explains why women have a more difficult time having casual sex. When they orgasm, their brains release oxytocin, which reinforces their emotional attachment to the man they’re with.

So, it’s not that women don’t want to have casual sex, or that they don’t like casual sex. It’s just that women often have a difficult time keeping it casual.

Continue reading 'We Weren’t Having Sex, But I Was Still Getting Screwed'»

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By Julie Hartley, July 8, 2010 8:00 am

Photo by Kristin McKee via Flickr

When my friend is going through a breakup, it becomes my personal mission to mend her figurative heart. The quantity of chocolate ice cream at the supermarket diminishes noticeably. The local Blockbuster’s angry-girl-loses-guy-but-then-meets-even-cuter-one genre experiences a huge spike in rentals. I have all the right tools to combat my friend’s newly acquired depression….

Except the verbal skills.

Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouths. My spoon is more of a copper alloy (you know, the kind that turns your skin green after you’ve worn it for too long).

A few years ago, after her relationship had come to a fiery end, my bosom buddy and I sat on her couch while she poured out her heart. I tried to keep my terror from showing on my face. What was I supposed to do? What could I say?

She paused and looked at me with those pleading, tear-filled eyes. I had to come up with something both insightful and comforting. And quickly. Hurry, hurry! What always made me feel better?

“Uh, I want ice cream.”

We asked our readers what’s the worst thing a friend can say to help someone get over a breakup. I’m ashamed to realize I’ve used almost all the clichés out there. Miss Bonnified doesn’t want to hear,  “I always hated him,” while Anna cringes at, “he wasn’t that great, anyway.” I used both of these lines on my friend that day.

Next, I tried to be gentle, telling her that “it wasn’t meant to be.” But those are words that Lauren H never likes to hear. I knew for a fact that she was “better off without him,” but that’s something reader Resullins despises.

FatalFlyingGuillotine sums up the general sentiment on clichés: Continue reading 'Breaking Up Is Hard… For Your Friends, Too!'»

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By Musings on Life and Love, June 15, 2010 1:17 pm

Reader Jaberkaty made a great suggestion for an article:

What can friends and family do when someone close to them is going through a bad breakup?

Honestly, I don’t have the answers, and I doubt that any single person can. So, this might be the perfect opportunity to get some reader feedback….

For those of you who’ve been through a particularly emotional breakup, what are some of the worst things someone can say or do in an attempt to make you feel better? For me, “don’t worry, you’ll find the right person” always smacks of hollowness. I know they’re trying to help, but… honestly, no one can possibly know that I’ll ever find the right person, so those words mean nothing to me. Continue reading 'Talk To Us: If you're trying to get over a breakup, what's the worst thing a friend can say to you in an attempt to make you feel better?'»

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By Jennifer Hamilton, June 7, 2010 9:39 am

Image by utsavbasu1 via Flickr

We get lots of generic advice when we break up. “You’ll get through it.” “You’re better off.” “Don’t worry, you’ll find the One.” But no one ever tells us how to get through the pain, the loneliness, the emptiness. Whether the breakup is mutual, shocking, brutal, or civil, it sucks.

So what do we do? Blast “I Will Survive” until our ears bleed? When will those yucky feelings go away? I think everyone has their own progression that they go through, similar to the five stages of grief. Here’s mine:

Disbelief and Denial

After my boyfriend of two years broke up with me, I was shocked. In hindsight, it was a long time coming. During the last turbulent months of our relationship, I knew we were heading down that road. He had moved away six weeks prior—a tell-tale sign of doom. But when it actually happened… well, I was shocked. It was a Sunday morning, and he had spent the weekend with me. When he left that morning, he left for good. I was a puddle. I sat in my room for three hours, knowing that once I walked out of there, I’d have to face my roommates and tell them what happened. I wasn’t ready for it to be real.

Desperation

Six hours after the dumping, I made the tearful phone call begging Mr. Ex to take me back. Not one of my finer moments. I was a ball of desperate emotion. I needed to save us and wasn’t ready to accept all the valid reasons for the breakup. Continue reading 'The Progression Of A Breakup'»

Comments (48)

By Dennis Hong, June 4, 2010 8:04 am

Image by El Nuko via Flickr

I hate breaking up with someone. I really do. Call me spineless, tell me to grow a pair, I get it. I just have this need to be the “good guy” (or at least deceive myself that I am). I feel better when I’m the poor sap who gets broken up with, rather than the a-hole who dumps an awesome girl.

To that end, I’ve come up with some pretty devious ways to get a girl to break up with me. When I’m ready for the relationship to end, but don’t want to pull the slow fade or just stop calling altogether (remember, I’m trying to be the good guy here), these devastatingly effective strategies get her to do all the dirty work for me:

I “become” excessively busy at work

All of a sudden, my workload surges exponentially. I’ve been given a new project. Or, I’m the newly-appointed office firefighter. Either way, I have to start working late most nights.

After a few months, she starts wondering if work matters more to me than she does. It does, of course. What she never realizes is that I don’t actually have to do all this extra work. I only take it on to get out of hanging out with her. In some cases, I don’t even have any extra work. I simply spend my late nights getting reacquainted with WebSudoku.

So, she breaks up with me. And I get to be the poor overworked sap, unreasonably forced to choose between career and personal life.

I “become” stressed out and moody

This one works great in conjunction with the first strategy, especially if I’m dating a particularly supportive woman who understands the importance of career. For her, being busy may not be a good enough reason to break up. Seriously, right? How dare she be so considerate?

Continue reading 'How I Get A Girl To Break Up With Me'»

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By Dennis Hong, April 25, 2010 6:42 pm

Image by Clipart.com

As the cliché generalizes so succinctly, breaking up is hard to do. Especially when you don’t know if it’s the right decision….

I would like to announce that I just experienced the most civil breakup in the annals of breakups. Seriously, if Gandhi and Mother Theresa had been an estranged couple, they wouldn’t have done a better job. It was a mutual decision, we both knew it was probably inevitable (even though neither of us wanted to admit it for some time), and we parted ways with the promise that we wouldn’t lose touch with each other. No bitterness. No hurt feelings. Nothing bad to say about each other. No sense of rejection or betrayal.

Easy, right?

Of course not. The breakup was still an agonizing, gut-wrenching decision. Because, when it came to making that decision, we didn’t have a reason to break up… or a tangible one, anyway.

The truth is, we got along incredibly well. Continue reading 'In Search Of Certainty'»

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By Jennifer Hamilton, April 23, 2010 6:15 am

Photo by Getty Images

I am just one of the hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded by Iceland’s volcano, Eyjafjallajokull, or as I like to call it, “Eyja<expletive><expletive>.” But, I am part of an even bigger fraternity. I am just one of the billions of people who have been stranded, dumped and rejected.

You may ask what these two groups have in common. Well, let’s put it this way, I have spent the last week frantically checking every internet site regarding airports, travel, airlines, volcanoes and weather. I have hit refresh on my web-browser every few minutes with the hopes that new information is available. I have sent countless emails making plans, canceling plans, rescheduling plans, and re-canceling plans. I have checked my email every half hour and updated my Facebook and Skype statuses with each bit of hopeful information. I’m an emotional basket case.

Now, let’s jump back a few years. It’s Easter Sunday, and my boyfriend of two years dumps me. I’m sitting in a puddle of my own self-pity, unable to leave my bedroom because I’ll have to tell my roommates what just happened. So, what do I do? I check my email. Maybe he’s changed his mind and written me a love letter. I check mutual social networking websites. Maybe he’s online, writing me said love letter. I check my cell phone. Maybe he called while I was sobbing in the shower and didn’t hear my phone ring. I’m an emotional basket case.

Hope. It’s one of the nastier four-letter words out there. Continue reading 'Stranded, Dumped And Rejected—Oh My!'»