“Hi! Your account says DM for advice 👀 so I thought it couldn’t hurt to try! I’ve been following your account and it’s been really helpful as I have been going through a breakup with a guy I had been with for 3 years and thought I would marry. We even talked about it and everything and then one day he decided there was something “missing” but he didn’t know what and he ended it.
I was reading a blog post you wrote where you mentioned when you were 27 you got dumped by your boyfriend who wanted to take you out on dates after the break up and you let him. I unfortunately have been doing the same 😞 For the past 3 months we’ve been broken up but I still see him or talk to him occasionally and I think it gives me comfort? But I know that’s not sustainable. I was wondering if you had any advice for how to deal with that and move forward?
I know you probably get a million DM’s but I would take any and all advice at this point if you have the time. Thank you!!!”
My Dearest Bad Biddie,
The easy thing for me to tell you would be to quit your ex cold turkey. The easy thing for you to do would be to continue seeing him ad hoc as a salve to your breakup, and the thing that lands somewhere in middle of what’s easy for me and what’s easy for you will maybe lead you closer to the way forward.
I dated a guy for nine months in my twenties. That guy dumped me, but he packaged it in a way where it didn’t really feel like he was dumping me, or at least that’s what I told myself. The intermittent “non-dates”, the innocuous texts and emails about ASMR, llamas, or any other mundane subject you might message a boyfriend, and his reassurance that I could call him whenever I needed made me feel like, in some small way, that I didn’t get dumped. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I held a candle for him – I mean, I would’ve burned down my proverbial house with that candle if it would’ve brought him back to me. But, in the same breath, I also knew that one part of me needed to move on, even if the other part still held onto that flame.
And so, I let my ex take me out at the same time I jumped back into the dating game. Maybe that’s the middle ground for you, as well – to date new people while still acknowledging the very real feelings you have for your ex. As much as there was a part of me that wanted to get back together with him, a larger part of me knew I deserved more than a man who couldn’t decide whether he wanted to be in or out of my house, and if I was going to burn down the house for anyone, it was going to be for a man who would be standing next to me even when everything else had turned to ash. You, my biddie, deserve a man who not only doesn’t feel like something is “missing” with you, but realizes that you are the missing piece in his life.
I wish I could tell you that I had the courage to break things off with my ex-boyfriend when I realized that it wasn’t healthy to be, essentially, dating my ex, but I’ve never really had the courage to be truly alone. Maybe that’s where my courage to relentlessly date came from – the fear of being alone and that fear being greater than any fear of rejection. Then again, courage and fear are two sides of the same coin. I often tell people that the bad-bitch-lipstick-dropping version of me you see online only exists not because I have no fear, but because I’m afraid of everything, and in being afraid of everything, I’ve had to dig up a lot of courage to do just about anything.
Maybe what you fear is not so much letting go as you do of what you might find if you do let go. Maybe you’re afraid, but maybe that’s what makes you brave. You’re brave because you know that, as heartbroken as you are right now, what’s scarier than letting go of your ex is not letting go and staying in this constant state of limbo. Start by letting one finger go, and then another, and then one day, you may just realize both of your hands and your heart have been set free.
Love,
Your internet hype woman