breakup advice

Hello, how are you doing?  A friend of mine is torn up, suffering, heartbroken about needing to break up.  She’s scared of hurting anyone and being the bad guy.  So I have breakup advice on my mind.  I would like to share with you too.

Sex kindles such big feelings–deep needs and vulnerabilities.  Emotions are intense.  In romantic and sexual relationships, the feelings can turn up to 11.

In regular friendships it’s usually less.  Family stuff can be super activating too, huh.

freedom

You are a free person.  Your freedom is sacred.  And it’s always here with you.  You can grab your freedom at any time.  Like a life preserver or a golden ring.  You have the option if you need to–just grab it and run!

No one deserves an explanation from you or a thousand chances.  Your desire to explain and try many ways is sweet.  But you don’t actually owe that to anyone.

Your freedom is vital.  If you’re beholden to anyone, that should be your choice.  Not slipping into society’s scripts or meeting some crappy demands being placed on you.  Please don’t participate in that.

responsibility

Your main responsibility is to yourself.  Yes, you have allied with this partner for a time, for mutual benefit.  But they are not benefiting you.  You’re on earth to do your unique work, and this partner is tearing you down.  You deserve people in your life who love you skillfully, not make your life’s work harder.

Their trauma is not your trauma.  You helped them hold it for a while, but it’s ok to set it down.  Maybe someone else can take a shift.  You’ve done tons of work with so little compensation.

You never promised forever to this partner.  Even if you had, contracts are in place for the benefit of both parties.  If things change–and things always change–contracts can be renegotiated and dissolved.  That is life.

freeing up energy

Your partner is an adult and has people in their life other than you.  They will be ok.  If they’ve done a shitty job getting support and having healthy relationships with others, that’s not your responsibility.

You love them so skillfully and model good choices in happy relationship.  You’ve done amazing, but you don’t need to keep carrying everything for them.  You can free up so much energy and make spaciousness in your life by setting boundaries that work better.  If they take the boundaries you set, panic, and run with them, you have no control over that.

You’re so kind to try to predict what will happen.  But their choices are their choices.  Your choices are yours.  You’re never responsible for what they do.

people change

If they didn’t do the work to make a good life for themselves, what can you do?  Stick around for more years of fuckery?  You’ve already been there steadfastly.  You’ve gone above and beyond.

People change, but usually not while they’re in a cush place of having nice femmes like you holding their hand, being a buffer between them and the rest of the world.  Your role in their life has been caring and beautiful.  But they remain stuck.  Your presence and how they’re using you might be part of why they’re not getting better.

You breaking up with them will shake things up for sure.  Hopefully they can use that energy to make better choices.  At least there’s a chance.

health

You deserve to be happy.  If you stop agonizing about this person and what they’re doing or not doing, you free up so much stuckness in your own life.  The relationship you share is not a vibrant, living, changing partnership of joy, pleasure, and mutual respect.  It’s been an intense struggle of you getting your needs half-met sometimes and hoping things improve, which they aren’t.

Your health matters–mental health, physical health, your life’s trajectory.  You do so much at your paid job, and so much work with your own changes as you sexually awaken, grow, and learn.

The partner you have loved so much isn’t helping you skillfully on that path, meeting you halfway, giving you ample support in what you need.  You scramble to meet their needs and show up for them.  It’s been so unbalanced.

Good sex is not worth that.  Lots of people are good at sex.  You can find them and queerly enjoy them in a beautiful collaboration, for a long long time.  Believe me–this is possible.  I know.

breakup advice

What do you think of this breakup advice, reader?  Every relationship is different, but so many themes repeat.  The femmes who try and try to make shit work.  The avoidant users who expect a ton but give very little.  Lack of balance, poor communication.  Making progress, slipping back.  The roles that mental health, domestic violence, trauma, and addiction might play.

How hard is any one person willing to work?  Sex can’t heal all the problems.  If communication is too much effort, I’m sorry.  It’s not optional.

Most everyone is doing their best under non-optimal conditions.  But some people’s bests are better than others’.  That’s a fact.

I like commitment.  In some ways, to hop off the merry-go-round of one relationship just means hopping on another, with its own flavor of dysfunction.  You’ll never get away from effort and other people’s pain.  You’ll never get away from your own pain.

shaking the etchasketch

But it has to do with energy and self-worth.   Ming is one in a million.  He honors my self-worth more than anyone, including me.  But I’m making progress.  Maybe one day I’ll love myself as much as Ming does.

If you think this breakup advice is good, that’s because I’ve told it to myself countless times.  I’ve worked so hard to get away from a buncha selfish asses.

Glad to have reclaimed my freedom so many times, like soul retrieval or shaking the etchasketch.  I tried and tried and tried.  Then comes the point that I’m not playing anymore.  I get Ming’s support and the support of friends, then take the deep dive to my own freedom.

There’s oxytocin withdrawal involved, and often I need a few breakup attempts to complete it.  But I can live many lives this way, rather than being stuck in a little two person hell.

It’s your survival.  If you don’t want to drown, let go of the stone.