7 Questions You MUST Ask Yourself After A Breakup
You’ll never hear me say breakups are easy. It may be the toughest event you’ll ever go through.
You’ve shed the tears, pleaded with them to take you back, wrote letters and delivered flowers…and nothing worked. They remained solid in their decision to leave.
And now you’re left to pick up the pieces of your life without them. It’s begun to set in that your relationship is officially over. You might be curious about what to do next or if there’s anything else you can do to get them back.
There is one thing you must do right now. And that’s turn the focus inward and ask yourself a few difficult, but essential questions that will help you with writing the next chapter of your life.
Whether you want your ex back or want to let go, the first step starts within.
“What did I do that contributed to my relationship failing?”
Breakups are emotionally charged experiences. Many times, we have a one-track-mind which is laser focused on getting our ex back at all costs.
This is expected, but it’s a mistake.
Because our thoughts are directed to getting the love of our lives back, we fail to place the focus on what WE could have done to contribute to your ex deciding to breakup with us.
This is a hard pill to swallow, but it’s time to put on the accountability hat and ask yourself what you did to push them away. Relationships are a dance—and it takes two to tango. Yes, you may be angry that your ex broke up with you, but were you truly innocent? Did they become closed off emotionally because of you? Did they stop communicating with you because you’re difficult to speak to you? Maybe you were overbearing and smothering, and you weren’t aware of it at the time.
I will admit, this takes time and emotional effort to think back over our relationship and reevaluate things with a level of objectivity. Take your ego out of it and take a step back.
You think initially you were blindsided after the breakup, but after looking inward—it wasn’t really out of the blue at all. You might find that your ex wanting space from the relationship is really because they want space away from you and the damage you’ve caused.
“What if I did nothing to deserve this?”
Life isn’t fair. We could do everything right and we still don’t get the outcome you deserve. Relationships are the same. You can treat your partner with the utmost respect, love, and devotion and they can still cheat on you.
I wish life wasn’t like this, but we both know it’s true. Certain things are just out of our control and are circumstantial.
A relationship becoming long distance. A global pandemic. Falling severely ill. Financial woes. Loss of a loved one. Depression.
These are unfortunate monkey wrenches that get thrown into our relationship which can change its course from happily ever after to a faded memory.
And though you love them dearly and will fight through hell to save the relationship and be that mountain for them to lean on, if your partner doesn’t want to put in the same effort as you, the relationship will fall apart.
And there’s nothing you can do to change it.
Relationships are hard. But you need to find that partner who acknowledges that it will be hard and will want nothing more than to go through the hard shit with you than to go through it without you.
“What is my value system?”
Love is essential to relationships. It’s the sugar to a cake.
But it’s not the only ingredient.
Just because the intimacy was amazing, you loved each other and had inside jokes that made your side split, it doesn’t mean you’ll be fulfilled on a long term scale.
Now that the dust has settled after the breakup, it’s time to review your value system. What do you need from a relationship and what do you need from your partner to be satisfied?
Remove your ex from this question. This is a general question. What. Do. You. Need.
Do you value communication or chemistry? Do you favor loyalty over intimacy? Do you prefer respect over vulnerability?
Find out your essentials. Get back in tune with your dealbreakers and must-haves. Write them down. Cherish them.
And once you acknowledge them. Ask yourself if your ex measured up to what you need.
Though you miss them with all your heart, you may realize your ex fell short of what your value system is.
“Are they resembling the person I fell in love with?”
There are important things every relationship. Just like baking a cake, you’ll need certain ingredients. Whether it’s red velvet, German chocolate, pineapple upside down…I could go on and on. Though every cake is different, essentially every cake needs flour, butter, eggs, oil, sugar, vanilla, and baking powder.
Every relationship needs trust, loyalty, communication, compassion, vulnerability, love, and respect.
But just like a cake, a relationship also needs consistency. If a recipe calls for 2 and a half cups of flour and you only have a half a cup, you’re going to run into problems.
If your partner was loyal in the beginning of the relationship, but during the latter part of it, they cheated, that means their loyalty was inconsistent. And as a result, you won’t be happy. Loyalty needs to 100 percent for a relationship to flourish.
If your partner is only respectful to you half the time, you won’t feel respected and appreciated.
We often make the mistake of seeing our partner for who they used to be at the start of the relationship as opposed to who they are now.
Look at your ex’s behavior at the start and look at their behavior when things declined. Is there a disconnect?
If there is, that means you’re in love with someone who no longer exists.
“What are the things I can focus on more now?”
Breakups can shatter your reality. And it’s easy to slide down a path of pain and bitterness and get trapped there.
Your breakup can either be the worst thing to ever happen to you or it can be the best.
How you choose to perceive it is your choice.
Nothing is either good or bad, but our thinking makes it so.
You’ve put so much energy into your ex, that you’ve lost sight of yourself. Your cup is empty. Now is the time to fill your cup with self-love, self-improvement, integrity, and confidence.
We all have a story. No matter how much we feel we have no control over things that happen to us—we are still the author of our story. Things will happen. Terrible things. But we can choose to stay down after life deals us a huge blow. Or we can get up, regain our footing, and stand taller.
Do you want this story to be about you not being able to let go of someone who chose to let you go or do you choose to define this next chapter to become the best version of yourself and realize it was their loss to let you go.
This is your greatest opportunity. You have a new chapter right before you. It can become your best one, if you allow it to be. Something amazing, bright, and enriching lies after the darkness. You can turn the page.
“Would I date me?”
This is a slice of humble pie. The jagged, bitter little pill. Most people avoid this question because the answer doesn’t just sting; it pierces.
But it must be asked—and answered honestly.
That requires you stripping yourself naked and getting raw and honest. But who else should you be honest with but yourself? If you can’t be honest with yourself and tell yourself the real, how can you expect anyone else to?
This will make you step outside of yourself, give distance, and see you for who you really are. Lay all your flaws out bare. Peel the layers back. Expose your ugly side and your beautiful side. Get real.
If you were single, would you date you?
The answer can be scary, but once you find out the truth—that’s where healing can begin.
Looking inward isn’t about being brutally honest with yourself to where you beat yourself up. Do it with compassion and sensitivity. But it must be honest.
The purpose of asking yourself questions is to process the relationship AND the breakup. Because if you don’t know where you’ve been, you won’t know where you’re going.
Take time with this—it’s a process. A worthy, but essential process. All things of value take time and effort. Be kind to yourself.
This isn’t about your ex.
This is about you.