Although most breakups appear to be sudden, they actually happen over a long period of time. Dumpers first develop a desire for a better life, then they become doubtful and feel overwhelmed, and finally, they withdraw emotionally before they pull away physically.
They experience many ups and downs during which they slowly convince themselves the relationship isn’t progressing the way they want it to and that it may be better to abandon it and look for someone they’re more compatible with.
Oftentimes, they line up someone else and develop feelings for that person, so leaving the relationship isn’t very hard.
The hardest part is telling their ex they fell out of love and that their ex needs to give up on getting back together.
Despite losing feelings, many dumpers know their ex doesn’t deserve to suffer. But because they don’t want to feel responsible and get hurt for hurting their ex, they create their own explanations for the breakup and justify their actions and behaviors.
By justifying their choices, actions, and behaviors, they turn themselves into victims and hold their ex liable for their loss of feelings and anger, resentment, or contempt. They put the blame on their ex as doing so helps them feel powerful and stay in control of the breakup.
Bear in mind it takes dumpers some time to go from wanting to be in a relationship to not wanting to be in one. In a few-year relationship, it takes them weeks whereas in decades-long relationships, it tends to take months.
How long it takes them to detach and lose feelings depends on the length and the quality of the relationship and the obstacles they face.
If dumpers meet someone they like and flirt with that person, they tend to leave their partner very quickly. As soon as they develop a crush, cross the friendship boundaries, and feel certain the new person wants them, they safely disconnect from their partner and connect with the new person.
They don’t need long to do this because the new person validates their importance and can replace the emotions, favors, and relationship benefits their ex provided. That explains why cheating often terminates relationships and makes it seem like dumpers left very suddenly.
In reality, dumpees just didn’t know their ex had developed a strong bond behind their back and that the relationship was going to end the moment their ex got infatuated with the new person and became ready to throw away a long-term relationship for a chance with someone new.
This is what temptations do. They make dumpers overprioritize the emotions they feel in the moment and due to a lack of awareness, morals, commitment, and emotional strength, prevent them from doing the right thing (which is to pull away before it’s too late).
You see, a breakup in a long-term relationship doesn’t happen because the universe wants it to. Every breakup happens for a reason, whether that reason is cheating, a lack of gratitude, poor relationship skills, doubts, unresolved fears, or incompatible attachment styles.
Something or someone stops couples from investing in themselves and each other and makes them think that being alone or with someone else will make them happier. Such thoughts make them develop relationship-damaging feelings and ultimately lead to the demise of the relationship.
So if you’re going through a sudden breakup after a long-term relationship and wonder why your ex left even though things weren’t looking that bleak, know that your ex didn’t tell you the full story. Your ex didn’t communicate what he or she thought and felt for weeks or months before the breakup.
Or if your ex did tell you, you didn’t take it seriously and thought your ex was going to deal with it the way he or she always dealt with it.
Because the problem was bigger than your ex’s ability and willpower to fix it, your ex kept it hidden from you until the day he or she decided to quit. That was when your ex revealed that he or she had lost feelings and that you needed to accept the breakup and stay away from your ex.
In today’s article, we discuss why breakups seem to occur out of the blue and how you can deal with a sudden breakup in a long-term relationship.
Why do breakups occur so suddenly?
Breakups appear to happen so suddenly for 3 good reasons.
- Because dumpers hide their problems and reasons for their detachment.
- Because dumpees don’t notice the problems their ex and/or the relationship is facing.
- Or because dumpees notice problems but take them lightly or don’t have the power to resolve them. If problems are caused by their ex (let’s say their ex has become depressed), they usually can’t stop their ex from feeling depressed. If they try to fix their ex’s mental health problems themselves and make their ex love them (invest in them), they often make their ex feel guilty instead. This is because their ex realizes he or she can’t love their partner and himself or herself at the same time. As a result, the dumper chooses to walk away and self-prioritize.
Many dumpees ignore their ex’s lack of attention, energy, emotional well-being, and good mood and think their ex is just going through a difficult time. They don’t know their ex is detaching extremely fast and that if things stay the way they are, their ex will give up on the relationship and leave.
Their ex will find something or someone else to focus on and leave when an opportunity presents itself.
Many people in relationships convince themselves they’ll never break up. They believe their relationship is special, better, and different than other relationships and that their partner appreciates them as much as they appreciate him/her.
Such people can be a bit naive as they don’t understand that there is no such thing as a relationship that is immune to breaking up.
Every relationship can end if a couple takes it for granted and stops maintaining it. It can end very quickly if a couple doesn’t align their goals, interests, and values and communicate efficiently.
They don’t necessarily break up the moment they lose direction and stop bonding and getting along, but they do put themselves at great risk of developing unhealthy thoughts, perceptions, beliefs, and emotions.
The more unresolved problems their relationship accumulates, the more tempting it becomes for a couple to discard their relationship when they get an opportunity to do so.
And they get an opportunity when they feel their relationship has become a chore and that they could be happier without each other.
The reason why you had a sudden breakup after a long-term relationship is that you couldn’t detect the problems your ex or the relationship itself was going through. You couldn’t read your ex’s thoughts and emotions and didn’t think anything was wrong until your ex broke your heart and dumped his or her problems on you.
That was when you realized something was wrong and that it was bigger than the other issues the relationship faced in the past. It became too late to fix the issues plaguing the relationship as your ex had already decided the situation was hopeless and that he or she needed to leave and secure his or her own happiness.
All you could do at that point was accept the breakup and let your ex be free.
So if you’re going through a sudden breakup after a long-term relationship with your ex, know that your ex had plenty of chances to fix relationship issues, but chose not to. Your ex instead ignored every chance he or she had and focused on things or people who distracted and empowered him or her.
It made more sense to run away from problems and unwanted emotions than it was to work on them. This is because your ex got tired of holding difficult emotions inside him or her and wanted the pain to stop. The only way to do that was to walk away from problems and not look back.
People don’t like being in pain. They especially don’t like it when they believe their partner is responsible for their misery and that they deserve better. When they believe such thoughts, they quickly disconnect from their partner, raise their guard, and protect themselves from the pain their partner’s presence and inability to make them happy makes them feel.
Dumpers want to distance themselves from their ex as distance helps them forget their problems, eliminates their ex’s expectations of them, minimizes guilt, and helps them think healthy thoughts and feel healthy emotions.
The quicker they break up with their partner, the quicker they stop worrying about their ex’s thoughts, feelings, and problems and focus on their own.
That’s why so many dumpers refuse to explain things (give closure) and push their ex away by force. Some dumpers even ghost their ex after a serious relationship and make their ex blame himself or herself for not deserving a proper breakup and hearing a peep from the dumper.
Needless to say, ghosting is beyond cruel. Only those who can’t deal with guilt, shame, pain, and other negative emotions ghost a person they committed to. Such people are immoral cowards who care only about themselves.
A sudden breakup is difficult enough. It doesn’t need ghosting on top of it as a sudden breakup already annihilates dumpees’ ability to love themselves and makes them wonder why their ex left so suddenly.
Yes, dumpees aren’t completely innocent, but they still deserve an explanation for why the breakup happened.
They need an explanation to accept the breakup, work on themselves, and move on. If they don’t get closure, they need to get it on their own. And that takes them much longer than it would if they talked to their ex about what went wrong.
So if you’re going through a sudden breakup after a long-term relationship, know that a sudden breakup doesn’t mean that nothing major was wrong with the relationship. It merely means that you didn’t see the issues or that you underestimated them because your ex didn’t express them or directly express them to you.
You thought everything was fine and that you could overcome any problem the relationship encountered. Although it’s good to be optimistic, it’s just as important to be realistic. You need to constantly be aware of what’s happening to the relationship and treat every problem as if it’s the last.
Your partner, of course, needs to do the same. If you’re the only one putting the work in, the relationship won’t last because your partner will take you for granted and exhaust you. Relationships need to be balanced in terms of investment, care, and power.
The less balanced they are, the higher the chance that someone will get tired and think he or she deserves more.
Always remember that you and the person you’re with are responsible for investing in the relationship and making sure the relationship is balanced and has a purpose.
You can do that by communicating, bonding, and expressing love and gratitude.
With that said, here’s why breakups occur so suddenly.
Bear in mind that a relationship doesn’t need a lot of neglect to break. For most couples, 3 or 4 weeks of neglect and intense arguing are enough to disconnect emotionally and create space. Every couple is different, of course, but everyone has a tipping point.
There’s only so much and for so long a person will put up with neglect, disrespect, or disconnection. That’s why it’s so important to fix relationship and personal problems as quickly as possible so that you can restore the bond and let the relationship grow.
Your partner probably won’t tell you that he or she is about to lose feelings and leave the relationship, but you’ll likely notice certain signs.
You’ll see that:
- you don’t communicate and deal with problems efficiently
- you talk about superficial things
- you don’t feel connected
- you don’t do things together
- intimacy, gratitude, respect, love, and future talks are lacking
- the relationship feels unfulfilling, strange, or different
How to deal with a sudden breakup in a long-term relationship?
Dealing with a sudden breakup can be difficult as the breakup can put you in a state of shock and denial and hinder you from loving yourself and holding your ex accountable for breaking up.
An unpredictable breakup can have such a devastating effect on you that you hate yourself for making relationship/breakup mistakes, fall into depression, and experience suicidal thoughts. It can make you undervalue yourself and overvalue your ex.
To not suffer more than you need to, you must do your best to avoid taking the breakup personally. Of course, that’s easier said than done, but try not to tell yourself things like, “I deserved it, I had it coming, I’m not meant to be in a relationship.”
If you put yourself down, you’ll keep your self-esteem low and keep thinking you’re the problem.
As a dumpee, you need to understand that you contributed to the breakup, not caused it. You and your ex were both responsible for the relationship, but ultimately, your ex was the one who gave up on it. He or she decided the relationship wasn’t working and let the relationship die when it needed the most care and effort.
If you’re struggling to cope with a sudden breakup, you can always sign up for therapy and confide in friends and family. They will keep you busy and make sure you don’t entertain foolish thoughts and ideas. Ideas such as messaging your ex and demanding your ex to tell you the truth.
After the breakup, there are certain breakup rules you must adhere to. They’re called the rules of no contact—and they must be respected at all times. You can’t afford to break these rules because if you do, you could irritate your ex and watch your ex distance himself or herself from you even further.
That would, in turn, make you feel rejected and hurt all over again.
You must treat a sudden breakup as a normal breakup that you couldn’t foresee and do anything about. If you do that, you should blame yourself less and understand that the only way forward is forward.
Your ex is moving forward as well, so you must stop worrying about what your ex is doing now that you’re no longer together. The quicker you unfollow your ex on social media and stop talking to your ex, the quicker you’ll get through this unexpected breakup, learn from it, and fall back in love with yourself.
Are you currently going through a sudden breakup after a long-term relationship? What are some of the things you’re the most worried about? Post your worries and questions in the comments below.
And if you’d like to talk about your sudden breakup with us, sign up for coaching and get in touch with us.
