When my ex and I broke up after years of dating, our friends took his side and I was left totally alone. While the immediate aftermath of the split was incredibly challenging, I’m so grateful for how things turned out. Here’s why losing my friends during the breakup was a blessing.
- I needed a fresh start. I was ready to move on the second we broke up. If I’d remained friends with the people I’d been close to during the relationship, I would’ve felt constrained and bogged down in the past. I needed a clean slate, and part of that meant I couldn’t keep the friends I’d had.
- The single me is totally different from the dating me. When I’m in a relationship, I’m more serious and mellow. When I’m single, I’m the life of the party and am totally unapologetic about it. My friends knew the version of me that was dating someone, and even the ones I’d known since before the relationship were no longer accustomed to the single me. Post-breakup, I doubt they’d even recognize me.
- I outgrew them. Even if my friends hadn’t taken my ex’s side, I’m not sure we could’ve been friends after the relationship ended. When I was dating my ex, I wasn’t nearly as adventurous or outgoing as I am now. The person my friends knew doesn’t exist anymore. I’ve changed. Unless they’d changed with me, we wouldn’t have had anything in common anymore.
- My ex needed more support than I did. The breakup hit my ex pretty hard. It wasn’t exactly fun for me either, but it was clear that he would need more time to get over it than me. Although I would’ve loved to have had the support of friends after we split up, he needed them a lot more than I did, and in the end, I’m glad he had the help he needed.
- Any friends who take sides during a breakup aren’t real friends. Rule number one of friendship: don’t take sides. They could easily have stayed out of it and continued to support both my ex and me. Eventually, we probably would’ve drifted apart (or my ex would’ve drifted away from them), but any friends who are ready to drop you at a moment’s notice aren’t friends you want to keep around.
- It forced me to move on. If my friends had stayed with me and supported me through the breakup, I would’ve spent twice as long wallowing in my heartache. Seeing them every day would only have reminded me of my ex and forced me to relive all of it again. Losing my friends along with the relationship meant that the minute it happened, that part of my life was firmly behind me and I had no choice but to move forward.
- My new friends aren’t stuck on an old version of me that no longer exists. Like I said, I’ve grown a lot since the breakup. This would’ve happened regardless of whether or not my friends had stuck with me, but it would’ve been a lot more challenging and less liberating if they had. I want to be free to be the new me without feeling judged or held back by people who can’t evolve with me. My new friends support me for who I am, not for who they think I should be.
- No one is comparing the guys I date to my ex. Thankfully for all the guys I go out with these days, no one is sitting around comparing them to my ex the way my friends would’ve if they were still my friends. This way I get to date whoever I want and not even think about them in relation to my previous partner.
- My new friends are “grown-up” friends. A lot of the friends I had when I was with my ex were friends I made in college, and while I’ll cherish those times forever, there’s a big transformation you go through between graduating from college and turning 30. I went through that transformation, but my friendships stayed stuck in college. The friends I’ve made since the breakup are fully integrated into adulthood, as I am, and our friendships reflect that.
- I’ve realized that part of why it didn’t work out with my ex was that our friends kinda sucked. Sure, my ex and I had our issues, but when I look back on it, I can see that I was really ready to move on from my friends as well as from him. My friendships just weren’t fulfilling anymore, and that dissatisfaction caused my relationship with my ex to deteriorate. In the end, the breakup was the result of needing to separate from everyone in that chapter of my life. Now that I’ve moved on, I’ve been able to become the person I knew I was supposed to be all along.
