Yesterday we looked at Getting Some Control Back after a Breakup. Here is an interview with Rachel – a woman who was dumped in a restaurant – after a 5-year relationship!
I talked with Rachel, a final year grad student about her breakup. She met me in the park outside her University on a sunny day. She had beautiful olive skin and black hair with a sheen that can only be natural. She lifted her sunglasses in greeting and I could see the puffiness under her eyes.
‘I don’t really know what to do,’ she said. ‘It’s too hard. Jack broke up with me three weeks ago. I was…I am… devastated. We’ve been going out for five years. He’s my first real love.’
Breakup day
They had a long-distance relationship and when he came to visit one weekend a few weeks ago, he broke it off.
‘I don’t want to be together anymore Rach,’ he said over the restaurant table. ‘It’s the fights…I’m too busy with work to handle it.’
Rachel couldn’t say anything in response, she just let out a groan that she quickly tried to muffle.
‘We’re young,’ Jack said in a rehearsed tone. ‘We need to live our lives. I can’t take the stress Rach.’
‘I have to go home,’ she replied. ‘I can’t do this here.’
He stood up with her. ‘I’ll get the check. I’m staying at Mike’s, he said he’ll pick me up from here.’
‘You’re not coming back to my place?’
‘I can’t Rach. Like I said…’
‘Right…yeah…we can’t be together,’ she replied, acutely aware of the other diners around her in the small restaurant. ‘I’ve gotta go.’
Blaming herself
She got herself home and then the blame set in. Instead of getting angry with him, she blamed herself for the arguments, she was sure it was her fault.
‘I’m very insecure and have no self-confidence,’ she said to her roommate, Yolanda. ‘He’s really busy with work and goes out all the time with his friends drinking and to clubs. I just get jealous. I can’t help myself…always ringing him, asking him where he’s been.’
‘It’s difficult,’ said Yolanda. ‘Long-distance relationships are almost impossible. Don’t beat yourself up.’
‘But he never gave me a reason to doubt him. I’m an idiot. He never gave me a reason to think that he would cheat on me. Why did I think that?’
The other woman arrives
These thoughts continued to plague her over the next weeks. She talked to his roommate, Gary, who was a mutual friend. He didn’t know they had broken up because Jack hadn’t said anything and seemed normal. Then another friend told her when Jack started dating someone else. She also found out he had been hanging out with this new woman before he broke up with Rachel. She was confused about what really happened.
I spoke to her on the phone and suggested that a short breakup conversation in a restaurant wasn’t enough for her to move on. She could ask to meet him next time he was in town. It was a five-year relationship, and she deserved better.
The final post-breakup meeting
I caught up with her a few weeks later, this time when she removed her glasses, her eyes were back to normal and she gave me a brief smile.
‘I saw him last weekend,’ she said. ‘I almost didn’t want to know, but it was bugging me so much. I can’t believe he broke up with me in a restaurant! We talked for a couple of hours. I’m not sure I believe everything he said – that woman had been around for a while but he said they were just friends before. I don’t know about that though, I think he was seeing her before. I feel better, still sad though – five years is a long time. Why would he throw away five years just like that?’
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