News
Breaking up is hard to do…
I see many clients crumble, emotionally and mentally, as a result of relationship breakdowns – they either turn to drink or drugs, blame themselves, go into a depressive meltdown, become violent, become nasty, play the guilt card or even consider ending it all. As tragic as these outcomes are, it doesn’t have to be like this. By finding out how you’re likely to react when hurting, you’ll be halfway to pulling yourself out of any potential pit of despair.
So……ask yourself, how do you like to get your own back?
1. Do you enjoy playing the victim?
When faced with betrayal and lies, do you feel like you’ve been thrown off balance, as if your world is crumbling around you? It’s a shock and you don’t cope well with the idea that your partner might continue to live their life as if nothing has happened to you, while you, because of their behaviour, continue to suffer. You can’t deal with the injustice of it. Your aim isn’t to have revenge, but to make your partner understand the consequences of their actions. After what they have done to you, you’re hardly likely to make their life easy…and when an opportunity presents itself, you are tempted to make them pay for their betrayal by causing problems. You think about revenge very carefully in advance, are serious and determined.
Do your best not to be too rigid. In order to ease your pain and open up new horizons, it would be far better if you could get involved in some new, personal projects, so that you’re able to let go of the relationship and the past and so move on.
2. Do you believe in an eye for an eye?
When the person you love betrays you, do you feel so hurt that it’s impossible to control your reactions? You experience the situation in a very intense way and you express your feelings without tempering them. You act on instinct, saying, “You hurt me, now I’ll hurt you”. It’s your pain that gives you the upper hand where you take revenge in the most spectacular of ways. Your tendency to react like this in the face of betrayal perhaps points back to a hurt felt during childhood, when you felt as though you were the victim of a profound injustice from which you were unable to defend yourself. You have scores to settle and you’re finally allowing your least controlled emotions to have free reign.
Why not channel and use the strength you have to serve a good cause, to defend the rights of people who are so much worse off than you? Maybe friends and family could provide you with some opportunities to help those in real need? With your will and passion, it’s exactly what’s needed to make a difference. Have a think about it.
3. Are you not the vindictive type?
Do you believe that the path of true love never did run smooth and that, like many other people, the fact is that you will encounter infidelity, lies and betrayal at some stage in your life along the way? It doesn’t mean you have to behave equally badly in seeking revenge. You don’t allow yourself to react in a vindictive way because it seems pointless and humiliating. When you get hurt you are more likely to blame yourself. You wonder why you were incapable of holding on to your relationship. You ask yourself what you did to make your partner lie to you or seek affection elsewhere. You assume you must be to blame.
Be less hard on yourself and more critical of the people who cause you pain. If you bottle up your feelings too much you risk letting the person who has hurt you think that you are fine, which is not the case at all. Be yourself and don’t censor what you’ve got to say.
4. Is it subtle vengeance you’re after?
When faced with sexual betrayal, is it likely that your first instinct is to exact revenge so that you ease the pain by forcing your partner to pay the price for making you suffer, but you then find that the feeling doesn’t last very long? You think things through and soon realise that revenge is useless as the harm has already been done. All that’s left is the desire to make the other person feel guilty and to prevent them from cheating again. Perhaps you find yourself looking for ways to prolong the relationship, of making your partner feel obliged to pay attention to you out of a sense of guilt?
Do your utmost not to focus on the past or on your regrets for too long. The best thing about the past is that it’s over and any chance to revive long-forgotten goals with a view to achieving them may be just what the doctor ordered. This should give you a new thirst for living. It may even lead to a new relationship that is nothing like your previous one.