Bored in the bedroom? Fretting over infidelity? Whatever your love dilemmas are, MM’s agony aunt Kim Reader has the answer.
This Valentine’s Day, MM’s very own agony aunt hears from someone going through a break-up on one of the so-called most ‘romantic’ nights of the year.
If you have a question for Kim, you can email us here.
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Dear Kim,
I’ve just been dumped by my girlfriend. We were together for about five years and it’s Valentine’s Day.
Not that we should have stayed together if she wasn’t happy but I thought we were doing okay. I’d bought the gifts and booked a restaurant to make sure she had a romantic night out, but now I’ll be alone for the first time in ages.
I don’t really know where we went so wrong or where to go from here. I feel like part of me has been ripped out and I’ve just been left in a heap. And I can’t bear the thought of this weekend – I still haven’t cancelled the restaurant booking for us!
Do you have any advice of how to get through this Valentine’s Day without feeling like the saddest, loneliest git on the planet?
Any help will do!
Boy with the Blues
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Dear Boy with the Blues,
I’m so sorry for what you are going through. Heartbreak is not easy for anyone to handle and I am sure you know it is going to take a while before you’re well and truly on the mend.
But you can and will get through this Valentine’s Day and every day after that.
One of the toughest parts of coming out of a long-term relationship is readjusting to being ‘you’ rather than being ‘we’ – a word you’ve used a lot in your letter to me.
‘What are we having for dinner tonight?’, ‘we’ve been invited to so-and-so’s party’, ‘yeah, we’re doing fine thanks’, ‘we don’t need you, me or I because love is selfless and we’ll do anything to please each other’… and so on.
Reverting to ‘you’ can be absolutely terrifying because – thanks to another ludicrous piece of language linked to couples – you feel vulnerable, incomplete and inferior without your ‘better half’.
But, while part of love’s beauty is the way it makes us so willing to thrive off the joy of another, this simply is not the way the world works and is therefore quite often the downfall of many relationships in the long run.
You are an individual with your own wants, needs, dreams and desires. You need your own space, you need time to do the things you like to do, see the people and places you want to see.
You’ve just spent five years falling in love with a girl and trying to make her happy. This Valentine’s Day was going to be all about her… but you need to make it all about you. Take this time to fall back in love with yourself and make yourself happy.
It might sound silly, but it definitely works.
Play your favourite music as loud as possible and dance round the house in your pants, have a bubble bath, play Xbox for 24 hours straight, watch all the films and TV series you love but she hated while gorging on cheesy Wotsits and Nutella, or go out for drinks with that mate of yours she always hated.
Let yourself do whatever it is you’ve not done for ages, let yourself have anything and everything you want, let yourself be happy being you and having you time… and let yourself be sad too.
You have just reached the end of a relationship, you are allowed to grieve. I can tell you all the cliché things about how it just wasn’t meant to be, there are plenty more fish in the sea and you’re better off without her. I personally think these things are said so often because they are true – if you two were right for each other, it wouldn’t have ended.
But none of that makes what you are going through any less painful. There is no shame in being sad, in fact, it would be more bizarre if you weren’t.
Give yourself time to let it sink in, let yourself get teary or angry then take another handful of those puffy little cheesy goodies and embrace being a stronger, wiser, ready to take on the world you.
Good luck, lovely, and happy Valentine’s Day!
Image courtesy of Elizabeth Ashley Jerman, with thanks.
