It’s like feeling the warmth of the sun after a long winter season.
While you’re in the pit of despair, it seems like all hope is gone, but after all, is said and done, you start to wonder why you were so caught up in a guy who didn’t even deserve you in the first place.
I’ve been through quite a number of heartbreaks in my life; some I’d rather not think of because they were emotionally dramatic and traumatic, and some which I wish I had not gone through because they were a waste of emotions.
One particular dramatic break-up that comes to mind is the first time I ever got dumped for another woman.
It was the infamous case of the ex, and the guy I had been dating was secretly seeing his ex behind my back. It’s not that I was clueless about his cheating because, besides my intuition telling me, he gave off signs of unfaithfulness, such as spending less time with me, not replying to most of my text messages and ignoring most of my calls.
I chose to ignore the signs because I was desperate to make the relationship work. As life would have it, I found out about the relationship when his dearly beloved called him one afternoon while we were spending time together. He answered the call, and to my irritation and dismay, he chatted with her quite affectionately for what seemed like a lifetime.
I couldn’t lie to myself any longer about the farce nature of our relationship, so I confronted him and forced him to tell me the truth. After beating around the bush, telling me how it was him and not me and that I was an awesome person who deserved someone better, he finally owned up to his actions and told me that he wanted to be with her.
Naturally, I was devastated; I mean who wouldn’t be?
I think it was my ego that was more brutalized by his actions because another woman stole his heart.
As time went on, I didn’t feel the pinch of the heartbreak as much. The cliché ‘time is a healer’ proved to be true, but what surprised me more was that meeting someone new made getting over my ex ten times easier.
You might be thinking that I was using the new guy as a rebound, but he was far from that.
I found love again, which made letting go of the past relationship much easier to the point where I forgot about the hurt and disappointment of it.
I felt connected again to something special, and my heart was happy. This new love focus dislodged the old focus from me completely, and I decided to give this love phenomenon a name; it’s called ‘displacement by replacement’.
See, when a woman goes through a break-up, it’s hard for her to let go of the ex because her mind and heart are still fixated on the notion that her ex is the one for her; that there’s no one else in the world who’ll love her like he did and that they belong together.
Somehow in our minds, we only see the good that the guy has ever done and completely forget the bad, which accounts for more of the good, hence the fallout of the relationship. So when this old relationship is displaced by the new one, a woman feels alive again because she’s pursued and feels loved.
Her heart becomes alive again and she no longer feels like an invisible and an unlovable organism that’s merely roaming around on the earth. It feels as though an empty space in her heart is filled again, and that feels great.
There’s the danger of being hurt by the new love, resulting in the whole heartbreak cycle being repeated again, but that’s part of the risk of falling in love and it can’t be avoided.
Also, the concept of displacement by replacement doesn’t work well with one-night stands and shag mate relationships. These types of relationships are like high-calorie foods that taste good but are very unhealthy because they lack any nutritional value. Being in this relationship might feel good for a second, but often it will leave you feeling emptier, exacerbating the heartbreak you already feel from the failed relationship.
So, after a break-up, give yourself some time to heal. Don’t give up on love because somebody better than your ex will come along and restore your faith in good men and healthy relationships. $ads={2}