Now, I’m Using the Breakup Pain for Deeper Healing

He left when I realized I deserved a secure, supportive, and sustainable romance.

Photo Credit: Anas Qtiesh | Published in “The Virago“

Two months ago, I hit an emotional burnout wall at his house. He hadn’t been proactive about getting me home safe, as he usually was, and I grew overwhelmed and anxious.

I don’t have another ounce of energy to give to inspire you to care more. 

Inspiring his care and affection is not my responsibility. Yet, on some level, I still felt like it was. I’d been trying to receive safety and security from my partner, and I couldn’t do it anymore.

At some point, I’d fallen into lingering codependent patterns. The way he expressed anger often led to me feeling emotionally unsafe. Over the months, I experimented with healthy, accepting ways to approach these situations and protect myself. It wasn’t working.  

Leading up to the relationship, I’d already spent years doing focused inner work. With depth therapy, psychology research, and somatic processing, I revamped my approach to relationships. With well over 10,000 hours of focused effort and practice, I consider myself a romance expert. 

As I sift through layers of grief, I see that our relationship simply ran its course. I opened myself to love and trust. I feel proud of how I showed up and enthusiastic about leaning more deeply into self-love and self-worth.  

And, I’m going to do a few things very differently in my next heterosexual partnership.  

***

Emotional burnout felt like a wake-up call.

Many tiny moments and actions added up to my feeling less loved and secure. He seemed more distant. I started self-reflection and noticed the ways I’d been trying to prove how great of a partner I could be.

Early on, he’d done a great job of making me feel chosen, special, and valued. Only later did I notice some insecure avoidant patterns, which tapped into my remnant attachment anxieties.   

So we celebrated our six-month anniversary, and big questions came up. Chaos ensued. 

The surface-level mix of him being sick and jet-lagged led to a breakdown in communication. I experienced a new side of him and felt disrespected. 

Maybe a combination of things made it all too much. His deeply rooted insecurities led to several unexpected eruptions. I’d hoped for more thorough repairs after some emotionally damaging interactions.

***

Looking back, I see the bigger energetic picture of our relationship immersion. My remaining feminine and masculine wounds tapped on his, and there simply wasn’t a strong enough container between us to process them. 

After seeing myself burning out, collapsed on the floor, and sobbing, I knew something was very wrong. I got super motivated to make changes. 

I began supporting myself and managing my energy more. Our connection could only be healthy if I was healthy. I needed to let my love flow from a place of abundance rather than scraping the bottom and running empty.

Dear future lover: We both deserve a loving, sustainable partnership. So I’m only going to give in ways that feel mutually nourishing. 

***

From the start, we shared beautiful core values.

In our first real conversation, he told me about his multi-year self-healing journey. So much of our connection revolved around the inner work we both prioritized, and I loved that. 

He also resonated with my core creativity and relationship values. 

I showed up to this relationship with great clarity about what I wanted and needed. Our overlapping values made many of our shared decisions easier. 

I loved so much about him. He constantly made thoughtful efforts to nurture connections. He was loving, brilliant, exciting, beautiful, charming, powerful, bold, curious, creative, talented, and passionate, and I fell deeply in love. Thankfully, I understand I also have these qualities. 

Dear future lover: I know you’ll be values-driven, and it will feel so good to align in this way. 

***

I did many things right in this relationship.

I chose and accepted this person, including the struggles and buried traumas. I chose a set of problems and showed up very willing to do the work to create a beautiful partnership — maybe too willing.

Before we began dating, I’d made a list of what I was looking for in a romantic partner. I leaned into my feminine energy to attract a man, and I kept making space for love through my healing work.

Let me really give myself credit here. I excel in open communication and brave vulnerability. I’ve even been exploring the layers of my unconscious for years, ready to address any nuanced, shadowy motivations.

I let myself really receive his affection and acts of love. For the first time after many years of reckoning with patriarchy and capitalism, I graciously let him pay for things, gradually for all our shared time expenses. 

Oh, and I continued to be very good at talking about (and engaging in) sex. Layer by layer, I showed up to create a foundation of trust, which led to deeper physical, emotional, and spiritual intimacy.

Dear future lover: I know you’ll appreciate all the powerful and valuable relationship skills I’ve developed because you’ll have them, too. Also, I know you’ll want to spoil me, and I’m ready for that.

***

Being deeply secure makes everything better.  

Before meeting him, I’d already done so much work on cultivating personal security. I’d immersed myself in attachment styles research years ago and talked about it often with previous partners. 

Still, he seemed to have some deep wounds that he wasn’t ready to heal. I also found some buried wounds that I couldn’t seem to process while I was with him, especially with self-worth.

Maybe with all my spacious, loving, and deeply nurturing energy, I could hold all the pain I’d witnessed. Now, I see I needed to let him heal on his own.

Also, doing so much emotional caretaking wasn’t good for either of us. I noticed him getting annoyed with my placating energy, and I felt drained. 

Rather than focusing on him so much, I began shifting my energy to prioritize myself. That’s the only way I could feel sustainable. As I feared, those shifts spurred waves in our dynamic. Watching that happen helped me feel more calm about the rightness of our separation. 

I poured my energy back into my life and needs rather than obsessing about him and his feelings. I became unwilling to give more than I could gracefully give. 

Dear future lover: I am an “earned secure” person, and that makes me such a rare, deep human. I know you’ll appreciate this about me.

***

Healing masculine and feminine energies matters. 

Growing up in a patriarchal culture, we all have some wildly damaging wounds to heal. I rode my own dramatic pendulum swing and wrote 26 articles about it. 

After the burnout, I dove into more research on heterosexual romance. As I explored what I needed and believed to be true about being a woman wanting to date a man, my desires evolved. My shifting needs in this area seemed to be another big factor in the breakup. 

The more I explored my femininity, the more I wanted to exist in this space. Being receptive, cultivating a loving presence, and enjoying that creative, expansive, and flexible energy felt like heaven. I could lean in and let my male partner offer supportive structure, direction, and protection.  

Yes, we all have both energies, and I feel most at home in my feminine side. 

***

As I crave a deeper surrender, I need strong, safe masculinity to hold me. Attracting that energy starts with healing my inner masculine. So I’m taking responsibility and modeling inner strength after the loving, secure higher power I ascribe to.

I’m committing to, showing up for, and choosing myself more intentionally. 

So I made some shifts, like being more flexible about plans, showing up more grounded and less codependent, and really, just enjoying my life more. 

My shifting desire for more initiative and supportive structure didn’t land well, though we did enjoy some steamy polarity. My requests and changing energy tapped into some of his gender-related wounds, and he became decisive about ending our partnership. 

Feeling so “bought-in” and in love and excited about my stronger personal security, I felt like maybe we could have worked things out. I guess I was expecting him to change for me, and that’s always risky. It’s the risk I couldn’t afford not to take. 

Dear future lover: I know you’ll be secure in your masculinity and excited to uplift me. Your strength will create a beautiful container for my loving femininity. How exquisite!

***

Our partners mirror back our wounds. 

I’ve been approaching romance as a spiritual process for several years now. It’s the only sane way from what I can tell. As I practiced accepting him, I realized I could accept myself more too. 

When he got angry, and I felt hurt, I knew I needed to fully accept him and forgive his behavior. With that, I also needed more supportive boundaries.

I more recently had a nightmare about my inner abusive self. I woke up at 2 a.m. terrified. Without a more watchful presence, I noticed how harsh self-judgment beat down my self-esteem. Only rich self-compassion and complete acceptance could soothe the pain.

Similarly, seeing his insecurities forced me to reckon with my own. He struggled with trusting me, and I struggled to trust myself sometimes. Now, I’m using this space to more intentionally strengthen self-trust.

Discovering those insights about my security, masculinity, and femininity feels invaluable. 

Also, there are many reasons we fear intimacy. Show up anyway. Lean in, anyway. And, of course, take steps to feel safe.

Dear future lover: I hope your healing journey is going well. I know I’ll be able to trust you because I trust myself. 

***

Release the old to welcome the new. 

Overall, this partnership felt like entering a whole new realm of depth. If I’d believed in “the one,” I’d have told you, I found him (before burning out). I’d seen visions of us sharing decades of our lives, maybe even living together. I’ve never felt that way about a man before.

Over seven months of romance, nine months of close friendship, and a year of shared community, our lives intertwined. As the overlapping dreams shatter and disintegrate, I can celebrate the triumph of sharing my heart and soul so completely. It’s not easy.

I told some friends that “I sort of manifested this ending.” I’d started valuing and loving myself more, believing I deserved safety and sustainability. I accepted that as my needs and desires changed and I honored myself more, he might not still be the best match for me. 

Really, we will both continue to benefit from the partnership we shared. I gained some fun skills like using electric shavers, designing mood lighting, and being more comfortable in my skin. My loving presence ignited his creative passions, spurred decluttering, and boosted his confidence.

Not to mention the thousands of beautiful healing and inspiration prompts, even the painful ones. 

Dear future lover: I am creating space to share with you. I’m saying “No” to what doesn’t serve me and healing my heart. I’ll be ready for a “Hell, yes!”

***

I’m slowly starting to feel exhilarated by all the beautiful growth occurring in my life in this newly open space. 

With this new wave of clarity, I’ll discern better romantic matches with less resentful tolerance, especially early on. I’ll honor my intuitive responses and real feelings even more because I value my time, energy, and authentic voice so much. 

Slowly, I’m deeply sensing how sacred my heart, soul, and body truly are. We are all magnificent, valuable beings. Staying connected to that sacredness might be my best piece of relationship advice. 

With all my research and experience, I feel well-resourced to continue making my romantic adventures a source of inner mending and growth. I feel hopeful and enamored to continue writing this new volume of my beautiful, artistic life. 

I’m grateful for having experienced such deep love and intimacy. Also, I’m confident that my fresh discoveries and powerful intuition will lead me to an even more aligned, expansive romance.