I bore witness to the ending of relationship this week. He loved her; she is too damaged - so she is not capable of loving anyone. He however is doing much better than I did when my marriage ended. The key difference, he has a healthy dose of self love.
It’s not that he is not heartbroken, because he is. Tears were shed on the day of the breakup, and every day since. They were engaged to be married in the spring, so his heart was all in. She, however being one of the many broken souls out there who has not done their work to heal, just caused a whole lot of pain to others and left a wake of chaos behind her.
I marvel though at the fact that he is not suicidal or unable to function as I was when Mike left me. I can see how self love helps you not to turn against yourself even though someone has hurt you. He is not claiming fault to what happened and understands that she has her own demons to battle that he cannot help her with or be a part of. He was strong enough to end a toxic relationship – why because he loves himself.
Self love allows you to set a healthy boundary as he did. Even though it tore his heart apart to end the relationship, he did so because she was taking them down a long dark path that he did not want to be a part of. Self love has allowed him to grieve, but still function, not go down the black dark hole I did.
As time goes on, his heart will heal and he will find his happy again. I plan on watching how he handles the phases of grief and loss that we all go through at the end of a committed relationship so that I can bear witness to what self love during a breakup looks like.
My heart hurts for his loss, but I am hopeful as I watch self love in action. He is a teacher and does not even know it.