Breakups that are both the worst and the best

I don't really have a question, I just wanted to state the above fact.

This breakup is both incredibly sad but also incredibly relieving. I was in love with a girl for a while, but upon feeling that the love wasn't returned in the same way I was giving it, I felt this crazy mix of emotions. All the microaggressions we inflicted upon each other are nobody's fault; we weren't outright mean to each other, but we just didn't know how to be with each other without taking it out on each other. We weren't in love.

For the first time I'm not taking a breakup personally. I'm not thinking of it as my faults or her faults. Sure that voice is in there somewhere, but it's quiet compared to the voice that says that it ended for a reason and that now I know for certain and I can move on with my life. And now i know what not real love feels like, and I can go out and seek the real deal.

This is both the best relationship I've ever been in, and the best breakup I've ever gone through. I miss what I thought we had at one point, but I don't miss the relationship itself.

I've been up all night drinking coffee and this is what came out. So that's that. I might be finally growing up.

 

Rainfall then it sounds like it was just a very long trial process before an unfortunate rejection. Even if it wasn't a relationship it could still have felt real at one point. I recognized, like you, that one-sided love isn't really love, as real as it might have felt at one point. To pine for someone when they don't feel the same is never going to be as satisfying as the real thing, and comes from idealizing the other person. You deserve better, we all deserve better. I hope you guys can stay friends, if she wants to.

 

Haha it is oxymoronic! I don't know how many exactly-- I've had breakups with people that would qualify more as "lovers" than boyfriends/girlfriends, so maybe 5-6 in which I was emotionally invested in some way.

By "best breakup" I mean one in which we ended up being more honest with each other than we had before, more on the same page, etc. I felt relief (mixed with sadness and whatnot) after. I am not missing her or wanting her back. It was a clean break, and I think ultimately we will be great friends.

So yea as oxymoronic as it sounds, "best breakup" is totally a thing.

 

Tough question... I guess when people ask "is he your boyfriend"/"is she your girlfriend" and I say no, then they are just a person I'm hooking up with and am mildly attached to, so "dating", but have no deeper feelings for besides friendship.

Bad breakups are the WORST. But sometimes there's a person with whom everything SHOULD work out and it just doesnt, and nobody treats anyone particularly badly, so there's no resentment. I hope you experience a good breakup (or better yet no breakups ever again!) next time you date.