Failure: The Stages of Breaking up

One of the stages of breaking up you might face, is feeling like a failure. I know I did. I wondered if it was possible for me even to pick the right kind of guy to have a long-term (as in over 5 years) relationship with. I seemed excellent at picking a guy that would last 2-5 years, but after that it would go to shit and end in a messy breakup.

If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down.

As the beautiful Mary Pickford says, failure is not about falling it is about not getting up.

I recently read When Smart People Fail, which is a book more about professional 'failure' - losing your job, your business, that promotion you wanted. There are lessons for us in this book as well.

First the authors, Carole Hyatt and Linda Gottlieb, define failure as: 'A judgment about an event'

It is not a condemnation of character. It is not a permanent condition. It is not a fatal flaw. It is not a contagious social disease. It is a judgment about an event.

There is a lot of self-talk going on when you breakup. You have a dialogue going on in your mind - I should have noticed he was an asshole earlier. If only I had tried harder. If only I was nicer, slimmer, curvier, stronger. You know the type of thing - you probably have a dialogue going around your head right now! It affects your self-esteem. Failure is part of that dialogue - yes, the relationship ended but you are not a failure.

In When Smart People Fail the authors look at reinterpreting your story. Your breakup is an event - seeing it as a failure, seeing yourself as a failure is your interpretation of that event. If you keep up your overly negative interpretation of your breakup, it can cripple you for the future - you may talk yourself into believing that there is no way you can carry on a normal relationship (whatever that might be!).

When you have a 'negative outcome' (i.e. a breakup!) treat it as training. Gain all the information you can about that relationship - what you have learned, how you have grown. If I didn't have my monstrous last breakup, I would never have been ready to meet my nice guy (finally!). I gained a lot from that breakup, and it put me in the right place to find the partner I needed to settle down. In one of the interviews in the book, a woman who had gone through a particularly hard two years in her career said:

I refused to see things as barriers, instead I chose to see them as hurdles to overcome.

Something for you to try now:

1. Write down or record your breakup story - reread or listen to your story. What kind of interpretation are you putting on your breakup event? What kind of negative assumptions are you making?

2. Think about what you consider success and failure to be - you might have labeled being in a relationship as 'success.' But what about an unhappy relationship? Is that still success? For me, getting out of an unhappy relationship became 'success.'

3. Retell your story in a more realistic light.