After my divorce, learning how to date again was… bumpy.
Educational. Humbling. And occasionally unhinged. (More on that in a future blog.)
One of the biggest things that held me back after the breakup wasn’t the people I dated.
It was the stories I told myself about what happened when things ended.
There was one relationship in particular that took me a long time to get over.
It was hot and heavy from the start. The chemistry was intense. He told me he loved me after a month. He talked about our future. He went above and beyond to make things work. A few months in, he took me on a trip and introduced me to his childhood best friends.
And then we got home…
and he disappeared.
I was devastated.
The Story I Told Myself After the Breakup
For a long time, I stayed stuck in a very specific narrative:
“He blindsided me.”
“He made me feel so loved and then pulled the rug out from under me.”
“What did I do wrong to make him stop loving me?”
And listen, parts of that were emotionally true.
It felt sudden.
It felt shocking.
It hurt deeply.
But with time, distance, and a lot of honesty, I had to admit something uncomfortable:
That story wasn’t actually accurate.
What I Could See Once the Pain Settled
The truth was, the road had been paved with red flags all along.
He still lived with his soon-to-be ex-wife.
He hadn’t told his kids yet that he was getting divorced.
He told me he loved me very early, before real intimacy or consistency had time to form.
Those weren’t small things.
They were big, flashing signals.
But I was swept up in the excitement and the promise of it all. I rationalized what didn’t fit. I minimized what made me uneasy. I focused on how he made me feel instead of what his life circumstances were actually showing me.
It wasn’t until I let go of the story that I was blindsided – and replaced it with a more honest one – that I could finally move on.
The Story That Helped Me Heal
A truer story sounded more like this:
“I ignored information that didn’t align with the future I wanted.”
“I confused intensity with readiness.”
“I participated in a dynamic that felt intoxicating but wasn’t stable.”
That shift wasn’t about blaming myself.
It was about reclaiming agency.
Healing doesn’t come from perfect villains or spotless victims.
It comes from rewriting the story in a way that includes your role… without shaming yourself for it.
Questions to Ask Yourself After a Breakup
If you feel stuck after a relationship ends, here are a few questions I now encourage clients to ask:
What information did I have early on that I talked myself out of?
Where did hope override data?
Was I attached to who this person was, or how they made me feel about myself?
What did I tolerate that I wouldn’t tolerate now?
This isn’t about becoming cynical or closed off.
It’s about becoming more honest.
Because when the story stays “this just happened to me,” you stay powerless.
When the story becomes “I see what I missed, and I learned from it,” you move forward wiser and steadier.
You don’t heal by finding someone better.
You heal by telling yourself the truth kindly enough that you can trust yourself again.
