You Probably Don't Miss Him!

You simply miss who you THOUGHT he was.

By Jennifer Tardy — Written on Dec 11, 2010

Break-ups are one of life’s toughest challenges. Disconnecting yourself from someone you’ve loved, the plans you’ve made, and the life you’ve created doesn’t get any easier, even when you get older. But something that I’m noticing is that there’s a trend occurring. The more I’ve been able to talk one on one with women who are dealing in heartache and confusion. Many of them are holding on to something very similar—an image of their now ex.

Now, what do I mean by an image?

When you walk away from a relationship, I’m sure you agree that no one can take that deep memory of your former love away from you, right? You have this image in your mind of him that you can’t seem to get out of your mind, no matter how much you try. But the question that I pose to you is,
“What image of him are you holding on to?”

Let’s talk about those images and the pressures of each.

The Past Image. The very first image that comes to mind is the image of who he used to be. This is the man that we met. The one we fell in love with. He was everything to you and he did everything that he could to get your attention. Remember that one? The pressure with holding on to “who he used to be” is that he is no longer that man. You are breaking up with someone different. He is not who he used to be and who he is now isn’t making you happy anymore. You have to remind yourself that this is okay and to move on. You can hold on to who he used to be for as long as you want, but that’s not going to bring that same man back. What you may find that you are doing is really using up a lot of the free time that could be better spent on finding someone who suits you right now.

The Future Image. We are holding on to an image of who he promised he’d be in the future. How many times have you heard him say, “just be patient, just strap up those boots, just…whatever.” He promised you that the future was clear for the two of you if you could make it through the test. If you could be loyal (while he does whatever he wants to do) then you wouldn’t regret it. This is probably one of the harder images to let go of. We have fallen in love with who he could potentially be, and we’ve invested so much into this potential that we must hold out until the end—no matter how much this relationship is killing us. Never stay with someone merely for their potential because they may never live up to it. And in the end, you will be left feeling betrayed and bitter because you’ve invested so much into him and he’s never materialized. It’s not worth it. Do yourself a favor and let go of him and the image.

The Mental Image: We are holding on to an image of what we’ve created in our own mind. There is no quote better for this woman than, “love is blind.” She only sees what it is that she wants to see. She’s typically the woman who believes everything he’s said although his actions were completely different. His words and his actions never aligned. And even as his ex, she’s still doing that to this today. She’s the one that is so worried that some other women is going to have her best friend, her lover, her protector and her provider, although he was never truly any of those things for her. Moving on will be very difficult for this woman because she’s finding it very hard to be honest to herself.

The Actual Image: Now, here’s where we all need to be when a relationship comes to an end. Hold on to the honest image of who he actually was. This woman reminds herself of why the relationship came to an end. She’s very honest about her situation—regardless of how ugly the truth seems.

Now, let’s look at that for a second…

The first two steps in healing are (1) being honest with yourself and (2) being honest about your situation.
So let’s get started. If you are currently going through a break up and you find it hard to move on? Ask yourself a few questions:

Were you truly happy in your relationship? Now, we all have happy moments and I’m sure that you were happy to consider yourself his girlfriend. But overall, would you have considered yourself happy, genuinely? How many times did you cry yourself to sleep, worry that he wouldn’t check up on you, or drive yourself crazy wondering if he was doing something inappropriately?
Did you really even like him? Isn’t that a weird question? I mean how could you be crying over a man that you didn’t even really like? Try not to confuse “liking your cozy situation with him” with “liking him.”
Did you ever feel as if you deserved more? You deserved to be treated better, talked to better, respected more, or anything else. You felt that way because you actually did deserve more.
Was there a part of you that couldn’t suppress that continuous feeling of…something’s not right? That was your soul speaking to you. Always pay attention when your mind, body and soul are not aligned. Something isn’t right.

Now let me leave you with this last question: What truth would come out if you were actually honest about your situation?