Editor’s note: This article was first published in February 2015. The author says he is 35 and single, and the tech references (WhatsApp, Facebook, call-blocking apps, no mobile phones for teenagers in his youth) reflect that moment.
Getting over heartbreak has nothing to do with business. Or maybe it does: relationships are part of our lives, and so are romantic disappointments and letdowns. As our reader Raúl Asensi put it, it is sometimes hard to act professionally with a broken heart, because you are not really giving 100% when you are not as focused as you should be. So today we are going to look at how to get over a breakup in a fast, practical way.
In our article “3 things you think about too much that keep you from moving forward in life“, I mentioned in passing that I had learned not to let a romantic disappointment last more than 72 hours (3 days). My inbox filled up with questions about that, because love and heartbreak may be one of the few subjects on which nobody is an expert.
How do you get over the pain of a breakup quickly?
I don’t know whether this will be my best article or my worst, but I am sure it will be my most personal. In fact, while writing it I even dug up things I had long forgotten. I suppose if I thought about it twice I wouldn’t publish it, but then again… why not? Why not get to know each other better? Why not share a part of my personal life that has, in a way, made me the person I am today?
To begin with, just as in work and business, practice helps. It is no different from losing your fear of public speaking. Some people don’t feel the slightest bit nervous the very first time they stand in front of an audience. I suppose it is because they got used to it as children, acting in school plays. In the end, it is something you either have or you don’t.
For those who do suffer from stage fright, on the other hand, there are always strategies to reduce it. Either way, practice and repetition will help ease that fear.
And the same goes (I think) for heartbreak. In my case, at least, my heart got broken so many times (sometimes I broke it all by myself) that I learned at an early age that heartbreak won’t kill you and the pain always passes. So, in a way, if you do things right, how long that pain lasts is in your hands, as long as you are clear about what you are facing.
First, we have to go back to the source
From the age of 14 to 17 I lived in a coastal area, and I was a “victim” of countless summer romances. In other words, I met lots of girls who only came for a two-week holiday.
While my friends proudly counted their summer flings by the dozen at the end of August, I had a serious problem: I liked women as a whole. What I mean is that I went for the girls who were more than a pretty face and a good body. I was also looking for a mind that could bring out the best in me, and I tried to bring out the best in them.
When I met a girl like that, I spent those two weeks with her. Then she left, and I was left with a deep sadness. At some point I came to associate love with pain, because it was two weeks in heaven followed by another two weeks (or more) of sadness because that person had gone.
And back then there was no Facebook or WhatsApp. If you wanted to stay in touch, you had to rely on old-fashioned paper letters or a landline (mobile phones weren’t within teenagers’ reach either).
After having my heart broken by these summer romances a few times, I got to the point where, if I liked one of these “passing girls”, I ran the other way so I wouldn’t end up moping like a lost soul when she left. Of course, it didn’t take me long to realise that this way of thinking was too cowardly, and that it is better to live something beautiful, even if it ends, than not to live it for fear that it will end.
Then life goes on, and so do relationships
After that, relationships of all kinds carry on. Some last longer, others less. Older people give you advice about love, you leave a girl, a girl leaves you, and both situations hurt.
You discover that there are three kinds of heartbreak or romantic disappointment, and there is rarely any other:
- When you fall in love with someone, but that person is not in love with you.
- When you are both in love, but you discover that the other person is not who you thought, or they think you are not what they expected.
- When you are both in love and, by the whim of the man upstairs, one of you is left without the other.
Of these three, the one that really hurts is number 3. Seen this way, the others are just “trifles”, and there shouldn’t be much heartbreak to get over.
See also: 16 things you should know about life, success and happiness
But there are some universal rules in love
I am 35, with more relationships behind me than I can remember. And I am single, so obviously there must be something I haven’t done very well in this area. Still, universal rules are universal, and understanding them will help you recognise when you are the one making a mistake right from the start.
1. When two people want to be together, they are together
Barring force majeure, there is no valid excuse. If two people want to be together, they will be together. None of that “I’ve just come out of a relationship and I like you, but let’s give it some time before we start.” Tell that person to get lost, because they are really just giving you an excuse. They don’t want to be with you, full stop. In other cases it is simply a question of priorities, and you may not be theirs.
2. When two people are in love, they want to be together as much as possible
There is no other way to solve this equation. Anyone who has truly been in love knows there is no other possible combination, especially at the start of a relationship. There is no exception here, unless it isn’t love. If you have never felt that need, I’m sorry, but you haven’t truly fallen in love yet.
3. You cannot fall in love with someone who feels nothing for you
I know many people might disagree on this point, but the truth is that you have to distinguish between love, a whim and plain lust (pardon the expression). Love is born not from what people are like, but from how people make you feel. So it is logically impossible to fall in love with someone who despises you, in the same way that it is impossible to fall in love with an ice cube.
Call it a whim. Some people also have a hard time when they want to buy an iPhone and can’t, and that doesn’t mean they are in love with an iPhone. It is a different matter when two people have fallen in love and then one stops feeling anything for the other. But falling in love, from the outset, with someone who has never felt anything for you is IMPOSSIBLE.
The problem is that sometimes a person may feel fondness or affection for you, or you for them, and feelings can get confused. So the only way to test rule number 3 is to see whether the other two are working. And there you have your answer. Are you together? No. Do you both want to spend as much time together as possible? No, or only one of you does. Result: one of you is going to end up badly screwed.
Most romantic disappointments come from ignoring one of these three universal rules, and often all three at once. How? In the same way that someone becomes obsessed with a film star to the point of wanting to kill them out of love.
A philosopher once said that true love is obsession
If there is no real obsession with a person, there is no true love, in the same way that love and madness are sometimes hard to tell apart. But sometimes obsession isn’t love; it is just obsession, especially when you project it onto someone who doesn’t feel the same. It is no different from being obsessed with video games.
Moving on…
None of the above is just a long-winded speech; it has a lot to do with what we want to say. I know this is starting to sound like a self-help book, but it is simpler than that.
The importance of your own lines, principles and code
Many people’s problem is that they have never stopped to think about how they would act in a given situation. It was Victoria Bernal who taught me, almost 17 years ago, that in every area of life we need to be very clear about the lines we will never cross and the lines we will never let others cross. That way, when the moment comes, you don’t follow your feelings; you follow your code and your principles.
Examples of lines, principles and code
If someone you are trying to make it work with tells you “I need time to think”, right or wrong, in my case the answer is very clear: “Take all the time in the world. It’s over.” It may sound too cold, and you may end up crying in corners, but my own experience, and that of many others, tells me you would be walking into a hell that rarely ends well.
Are there exceptions? Meh, they would have to be looked at. But when one person is sure and the other isn’t, it is more useful to go by the general rule than by the possible exceptions, because people who go looking for exceptions usually end up very disappointed (as a general rule).
If someone cheats on you, everyone can do as they please, but in my case it is not something I can forgive, much less forget. So again, even if you have to cry in corners, when the moment comes I already know what to do. If they say “It was a mistake… I’d been drinking”, I, at least, would answer: “So you’re not just a cheat, you’re a drunk as well.” What back home we would call “a real gem”, in other words. 🙂
See also: 18 tips for waking up happier in the morning
Let’s get to the point.
Why does the pain of heartbreak sometimes last so long?
The other day I was reading a piece called “The day you decided to smash your face again”, from the page “Ni falta que me importa“, which perfectly describes most romantic disappointments and one of the main reasons they happen:
The day you decided to smash your face again
Don’t blame anyone; you knew perfectly well. You knew it and you know it. You knew you were going to crash, you knew you weren’t going to get what you wanted no matter how much you were willing to give, you knew that what awaited you was not exactly what you were hoping for, you knew the slap would be open-handed, the kind that stings and leaves a mark, and yet your balls decided to turn bullfighter: you put on your best clothes, strapped on half a bulletproof vest and knocked on wood almost 69 times.
You know that feeling of being blindfolded and swinging wildly at a beautiful piñata that someone took away a few seconds earlier? You swing and swing at thin air, but you get nothing. You can’t see because your eyes are covered, but… even though you could take off the blindfold, you don’t. You start to get tired, you don’t understand why after so many attempts you get nothing, but you don’t stop trying; you insist on keeping your hopes alive even if it wears you down. You don’t even weigh effort against reward, which is why you try again and again. Everyone tells you to give it up; they can see it clearly, but you think you know better than everyone else.
The worst comes when you take off the blindfold and see that the effort you invested was infinitely greater than the “treasure” you were trying to get.
Heartbreak works like any serious problem or trauma. It usually goes through the same stages:
Denial, negotiation and acceptance
- Denial: This can’t be happening to me.
- Negotiation: Dear God, if you fix this, I’ll quit smoking.
- Acceptance: Well, yes, it is happening to me, and there’s nothing I can do.
Unfortunately, with heartbreak we drag out the denial stage far too long and make the negotiation stage last forever. That is why so many people struggle to get on with their lives.
Denial
You have to get through it quickly, because in most cases you probably already knew what was going to happen. All the more so if you are seeing clear signs or your partner has told you plainly…
Negotiation
In love, insisting is allowed, although I learned very young that when someone has found the courage to tell you they don’t want to continue, every time you insist you push them further away. Besides, you end up seeing yourself as pathetic.
I have even got back together with someone out of pity, and I did that person no favours. And the truth is, I wouldn’t want anyone to come back to me out of pity.
But in love and heartbreak, negotiation tends to take different forms that lead us to do truly stupid things. For example, being in love with someone who is leaving you and insisting that you both want to stay friends. Like hell you do; you don’t want to be their friend, and all you will do is prolong your own agony.
Acceptance
If you keep all of the above in mind and follow the simple steps below, the 72-hour approach can work perfectly well.
There is no scientific reason why I chose 72 hours (3 days). It could have been six days, but to be honest, sometimes we don’t even need one of those days, or more.
I chose three days on the basis that we are not computers, and on the premise that love works exactly like a drug you have to get off. We can get off it in those three days. And what does someone do when they want to quit a drug? Stay away from it and not touch even a little.
In those first two days, if you are the type who drowns your sorrows in drink, drink. If you need to cry, cry. If the disappointment is extremely hard, even take a day off and spend it in bed crying, drinking or whatever it is you do, if your job or responsibilities allow it. But always bear in mind that this behaviour has a very short expiry date.
Tips for getting over heartbreak quickly
Avoid any contact, or chance of contact, on either side
As the Spanish pop duo Chenoa and Bisbal sang: “How many times have you waited for that call that never comes…?” Well, once you have finished the negotiation stage and enter acceptance, don’t wait for that call. Avoid it.
See also: 6 things you can learn in 10 minutes that will improve your life
Most people prolong the pain waiting for a message, a call… and in this technological age, the more masochistic check the person’s WhatsApp status, their Facebook posts and so on.
Block them completely on WhatsApp
Delete their number and any other way of contacting them, download an app to block incoming calls from that person, and unfriend and block them on Facebook. That way, the hope that they will get in touch with you is over. The anxiety of “Will they call me or not? Will they message me on Facebook?” should at least go away.
The most drastic among us (present!), once we are clear that the time to forget has come (acceptance), erase every trace of that person. Photos in the bin. It is usually a good way of doing things, because it forces you to look ahead, and if in a few weeks or months you are with someone else, you don’t risk getting back on the wheel after seeing a photo of that person.
That is one of the reasons why I personally have no photos with my exes, apart from a few exceptions. Basically, if there was deep disappointment or pain, wiping out every reminder was my instinctive method. Is it the right way to do it? I don’t know, but it is the one that has worked for me.
I store the memories in my mind, and that has led my mind to give more weight to the people who mattered most, although I have always been grateful for every experience I have lived.
Basically, I call this a format, and just as on computers: “Are you sure you want to delete X? This process cannot be undone.” We click OK.
There is no going back
You must be very clear that once you set the whole machine in motion, there is no going back. Talk to that person, meet them if you want, but the moment you say “that’s it”, don’t back out. Pulling back is a lousy method; pulling out is even a lousy method of contraception.
In my case, I make sure the other person knows how I act in these situations, what I will and won’t accept, and what would happen in certain circumstances. That way, I at least make sure they already knew what would happen if… (whatever it might be).
Is it really that simple? It sounds stupid and not very effective
Put like that, it may even sound stupid, but… if we combine it with everything above, we have the answer to why it works, at least for me.
First, it works for me because I know it is going to work. In other words, as in any other field, not starting out with doubts tends to support a positive result more solidly.
Second, I engraved my principles and my code on this subject a long time ago, and I suppose some of those first intense heartbreaks served as a vaccine so I wouldn’t experience that pain in the same way.
Knowing that you will be over it in a few months also makes your subconscious ask the obvious question: “If I’m going to be over this in three months, why not get over it now?”
But above all, it works because in most cases, rather than resorting to insulting or criticising the other person, if you are smart you will end up telling yourself “I’ve been a complete idiot”, because you didn’t want to see what was going on, you wanted to see signs where there were none, and so on. Admitting you have been an idiot helps, because they say that the moment you realise you are mad or an idiot, you are already less mad and less of an idiot.
It also helps to accept that the other person probably never truly loved you
In many cases, what helps most is seeing yourself from the outside. In other words, looking at what they did to you, how they treated you or how they are treating you, and imagining it being done to someone you love instead of to you, will often make you realise that someone who behaves like that isn’t worth a minute of your time.
In short: have established principles and very clear lines, spend just enough time looking for explanations and talking to that person about what is happening or what happened, and head quickly to acceptance by doing what we have called a format. Don’t look back, and keep moving forward.
If anyone wants to say, share or criticise something, feel free, but I’ll say up front that what I have set out here is not meant as a doctoral thesis, just my personal view on the subject.
Read next: 17 steps to survive the worst moments of your life
Featured image: Emily Allen, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
