When a relationship ends unexpectedly, the multitude of emotions can be overwhelming. From confusion and hurt, to grief and loss of the future you imagined together, there’s no map on how to find your way through these feelings. But here, columnist Michelle Elman shares her own ongoing journey following the end of her engagement
When you think about your future, the day you get engaged, short of the wedding, is likely the one you imagine the most. There is something uniquely special about the hope, promise, and potential of what lies ahead on this day. You know, logically and rationally, the reality of married life brings difficulties and challenges, that you acknowledge in vows and speeches, but on proposal day, you get to live in the fairytale for a bit, at least.
My fairytale was cut short though. Less than 24 hours after getting engaged, I found out my now ex-fiance had been cheating on me. I discovered this because I had publicly announced our engagement, and posted a picture of him for the first time in our three-year relationship. One of my readers was one of the women he had slept with, and she messaged me to let me know.
What followed was a very quick unravelling of the life I saw before me, and in the past two months since I found out, I have found myself overwhelmed by how much my life has changed in such a short space of time. One day I was engaged, trying for a baby, and planning a wedding, and the next I was on dating apps and going on a first date.
In my book, The Selfish Romantic, I make a case for not comparing myself or relationships to other people. I say: “Love lives do not come in the linear trajectory that we have been sold: dating, relationship, engagement, marriage and kids. It just requires one match, one conversation, one date, or even one moment talking to a stranger in a club that can change your entire love life – in the same way that it takes one break-up, one divorce, one argument, and one too many mean words to end a relationship. When you look at all of this together, you realise there is no ‘behind’ or ‘ahead’. Where you are in your love life can change in an instant, and we need to re-evaluate what we constitute as stages.” I wrote these words in 2021 and so, even back then, I knew this logically and rationally, but living it is something completely different.
How I have navigated it is I rarely let myself escape into what I call the ‘shoulda, woulda, coulda’; we have enough to deal with in the real world, with our reality, we don’t need to be making up fictional scenarios and ‘what if’ things had been different. Letting your brain play that game is not only pointless, but it’s unnecessarily painful. Telling yourself the story that if you had done something differently, or said something in a different way is an illusion. Ultimately, when a partner cheats, it is not on you. It is not your job to prevent the cheating; it is their job to stick to their commitment of fidelity.
All of this is true, and I also let myself feel the ache of ‘how am I on first dates again’. There is a mixture of shock, sadness, and joy in there. I have been loving the first dates I have been on, and also it pushes on my sadness that my dreams of becoming a mother are now further away, along with the fact that someone who has been my constant is no longer in my life.
We need to let all our feelings exist. I believe one of the ways we make break ups more painful than they need to be is that we invalidate our feelings and tell ourselves we shouldn’t be feeling what we are feeling, we are being silly, or dramatic, or simply that we can’t break down because we will never pick ourselves back up. You need to create time to break down. Before I told the world, I let myself have three full weeks. It is the longest I have taken off work, and the first week was largely me in shock, struggling to even eat or sleep. However you process this is the right way for you, and whatever you are feeling is valid.
Ultimately, no matter how much you plan for your life, there is always a possibility that it can all change in an instant. We cannot control that, but we can control how we react to it. As much as it brings great sadness, each life stage brings different positives and negatives, and so it’s also your job to notice the wins. Even in the midst of a break up, you are still allowed your pockets of fun, laughter and joy!
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