1. How My Worst Breakup Turned Out To Be The Best Thing That Happened To Me
Part of the “As Told to Star Candy” series. Have a story to share? Contact [email protected]
Meet Olivia, 39—she shares how a painful breakup left her shattered, but ultimately helped her grow in ways she never expected.
“I thought we’d last forever. We had history, shared dreams, and a life that seemed solid—until it wasn’t. When things fell apart, they did so in the worst way possible: harsh words, broken trust, and an ending so bitter it left a bad taste in my mouth for months. I was consumed with anger and resentment, replaying every fight and every red flag I’d ignored. I wanted closure, revenge, anything that would make the pain go away. But no amount of overanalyzing or venting to friends could change what happened.
“It took time, but that breakup forced me to grow in ways I never imagined. I had to sit with my emotions instead of running from them, take accountability for my part in things, and, most importantly, learn to be whole without someone else. I stopped trying to ‘win’ the breakup and focused on rebuilding myself. Now, looking back, I realize that losing them was the catalyst for finally finding myself.”—Olivia Carter, Seattle.
Continue reading about turning heartbreak into growth and moving forward >>
2. Love And Attachment Are Not The Same Thing
It’s easy to mistake deep attachment for real love, especially when a relationship has been intense, long-term, or emotionally consuming. But just because you feel like you can’t live without someone doesn’t mean they were good for you. According to Taproot Psychology, “Love and attachment are not the same. Love is about mutual connection, affection, and trust with your partner, while attachment can feel stressful and erratic.”
Attachment can keep you clinging to something that’s already broken. Love is freeing—it makes you feel safe, valued, and whole. If the person you were with made you feel anxious, uncertain, or like you constantly had to fight for their affection, it wasn’t love—it was attachment.
3. Fighting To Keep Someone Who’s Already Checked Out Is Just Self-Destruction
One of the hardest lessons to learn is that you can’t make someone stay if they’ve already left emotionally. When a person has checked out of the relationship, no amount of effort, pleading, or compromise will bring them back in the way you want. According to BetterHelp, “When a person has checked out of the relationship, no amount of effort, pleading, or compromise will bring them back in the way you want.”
Instead of fighting for someone who no longer values your presence, put that energy into yourself. Clinging to someone who no longer wants to be there only prolongs your pain and prevents you from healing. The moment you stop fighting for them is the moment you start fighting for yourself.
4. Wasting Energy On Being ‘Good Enough’ For The Wrong Person Is A Losing Game
It’s exhausting to constantly prove your worth to someone who refuses to see it. In toxic relationships, you can find yourself jumping through hoops, trying to be “better,” more attractive, more agreeable, or more accommodating, hoping it will finally make them appreciate you. According to Tonya Lester, LCSW, “In a healthy relationship, love deepens into ‘interdependence,’ where we can meet our own needs, but we are also able to turn to a loving partner for support and reciprocate that loving support.”
But the right person won’t need to be convinced of your value—they’ll see it naturally. If you’re constantly trying to “earn” love, you’re giving your energy to someone who was never truly meant for you in the first place.
5. Romanticizing Someone Who Treated You Like An Afterthought Is A Hard Habit To Break
It’s easy to rewrite history after a breakup, to remember the good times and conveniently forget all the ways they made you feel small. Nostalgia can be deceptive—it tricks you into missing a version of the relationship that didn’t actually exist. According to PsychCentral, “Love is multifaceted and radiates outward toward a person irreplaceable to you, while attachment is more self-serving and echoes inward what sense of security and satisfaction someone gives you.”
But if they treated you like an afterthought while you made them a priority, you need to remind yourself of that. Stop giving them more credit than they deserve. The person you’re missing isn’t who they actually were—it’s who you hoped they would be.
6. Missing Someone Doesn’t Mean They Should Come Back
Loneliness can be brutal, and in those moments, it’s easy to convince yourself that reaching out or getting back together will fix everything. But missing someone is a feeling, not a sign that you belong together.
Just because you miss them doesn’t mean they were good for you. Sometimes, missing someone is just part of the healing process—it’s a reminder of what you need to outgrow, not what you need to return to.
7. Love Shouldn’t Feel Like A Constant Battle
If a relationship feels like an uphill battle every single day, if you’re always on edge, exhausted, or questioning whether you’re enough, it’s not love—it’s survival mode.
Healthy relationships don’t require constant fighting just to stay afloat. They have challenges, sure, but they don’t feel like an emotional war zone. If you were always struggling to keep the connection alive, maybe it wasn’t worth saving.
8. Accepting Breadcrumbs Instead Of Expecting Full Effort Only Leads To Resentment
If you ever found yourself being grateful for the bare minimum, it’s because you got used to being starved for love. When someone gives you the occasional compliment or a rare moment of attention, it can feel like a grand gesture—but it’s not.
You deserve consistency, not scraps. When you stop accepting less than what you need, you stop feeling resentful toward those who refuse to give more.
9. Mourning A Relationship Sometimes Means Mourning The Fantasy, Not The Reality
Sometimes, what we grieve after a breakup isn’t the actual person—it’s the future we imagined with them. The life we thought we’d have. The version of them we hoped they’d become.
But when you take a step back, you realize you weren’t mourning what was real. You were mourning the potential. And you can’t build a lasting relationship on potential alone.
10. Letting Go Of Anger Is The Fastest Route To Peace
Anger is seductive—it makes you feel powerful when you’re hurting. But holding onto it only keeps you trapped in the past. You don’t have to forgive them, but you do have to free yourself from carrying the weight of resentment.
Letting go isn’t about saying what they did was okay—it’s about choosing your own peace over bitterness.
11. A Failed Relationship Doesn’t Mean Failure—It Means A Lesson Learned
People love to act like a breakup means something went “wrong,” but sometimes, relationships end simply because they’ve run their course.
Every relationship teaches you something—what you need, what you won’t tolerate, what love should actually feel like. The real failure is refusing to learn from it.
12. ‘The One That Got Away’ Is Usually Just ‘The One That Was Never Right’
It’s tempting to romanticize an ex as “the one that got away.” But more often than not, they didn’t “get away”—they left, or the relationship didn’t work for valid reasons.
When you see it for what it really was, you stop idolizing the past and start focusing on the future. The right person won’t be someone you have to chase.
