The Person Who Broke You Can't be the One to Fix You

The Person Who Broke You Can't be the One to Fix You
Raquel Aldana

Written and verified by the psychologist Raquel Aldana.

Last update: 14 December, 2021

Remember this: the person who broke you can’t put you back together again. Don’t make this mistake. Don’t think that this person will be the one to fix you, to help you overcome the damage, to eliminate the pain.

If the relationship is causing you harm, don’t fall back into it. Don’t go back because you’re afraid of being alone or not knowing how to live your life without them. Because dysfunctional relationships, if they’re not handled properly, don’t stop being dysfunctional overnight.

Remember that your mind filled with arguments in favor of a life without that person when you broke up. It hurt and you still had reasons for wanting to stay by their side, but you wanted to convince yourself that it wasn’t the best thing for you.

A girl overcome with sadness.

Everything you run away from is condemned to repeat itself

Time passes and conflicts repeat themselves. Humiliation, distrust, the sting from a wound that didn’t heal properly. Everything you run away from without resolving it is condemned to repeat itself. Freud theorized this fact in 1920 in his book Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Back then, he called it a compulsion to repeat.

This means that people tend to trip over the same stone (everyone has their own stone, of course). It means that when your personal stone is a certain kind of relationship, you’ll systematically fall back into it.

The fact that your rock has “a human name” or “a human form” symbolizes that you tend to interact the same way, generate emotional dependence, and seek love a certain way, oftentimes in a specific person.

Therefore, you often face similar problems despite being in different stages of life. Why does this happen? Because everything you run away from is condemned to repeat itself. If you don’t reflect and rethink your decisions or way of interacting, you’re condemned to keep making the same mistakes.

A sad face on a beach.

Accept change and move on…

“One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.
Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.

Paulo Coelho

When something breaks inside, nothing is ever the same

When you break down, when you feel a profound pain inside, you long for the stability and well-being you got with that person. Uncertainty ironically makes you certain that “everything is always better with company.”

Obviously, relationships dependent on an emotional bond are built on a dysfunctional attachment. But this is something you can modify by continuously restructuring your experiences and reflections.

Change is built on the formation of new bonds of attachment and the loss of certain bonds. If the experiences are very different and significant, the content of the representations, strategies, and feelings will change your tendency to look for relationships based on dependence.

A sad woman trying to fix herself after someone broke her.

Fixing your emotional emptiness is a personal task. Nobody has the power or the responsibility to do it or make us do it. Be aware that every process of change involves pain and effort.

Saying goodbye to someone doesn’t mean you’re taking steps backward. It means you’re separating what enriches you from what wears you down. It implies taking care of your worth and ceasing to chase the crumbs of a love that harms you.

Letting go of your pain nurtures your self-esteem

Detaching from anything involving selfishness or unjustified absences will help you begin a new stage. It helps you sow and reap sustenance for your self-esteem and grow emotionally.

Letting go and getting away from harmful relationships means going free. It means you’re growing and creating a new life. A new life that stands on its own and breathes psychological oxygen from a fertile atmosphere for change.

Throwing dirt on your pain won’t guarantee the prosperity of your relationship. Sometimes stories have ellipses that need two dots taken away to change it into a full stop. This goodbye means dislodging yourself for an undetermined amount of time. It may be hard, but the immediate consequence will be the reconstruction of your being and the harmony of your inner world. It’s not always easy, but it is necessary.

 

This text is provided for informational purposes only and does not replace consultation with a professional. If in doubt, consult your specialist.