I Am Not ‘Thankful’ You Broke My Heart So You Can Go F*ck Yourself

“I learned so much from that relationship that even though it broke my heart and I was in self induced exile for a week I’m so thankful that I had the opportunity to know them for the time we were together and to learn so much from the experience.”

I used to say this kind of thing to myself a lot when my heart had been broken. I’d look back on the relationship and think “what can I learn from this” in an attempt to make some kind of sense of it, to maybe make the pain go away faster, to become a better person.

I posted inspirational quotes on my Instagram. I ‘liked’ inspirational poems about how life is a journey and how we have many teachers. I read sayings that basically thanked the universe for providing a bad relationship as a way to grow. I did all these things almost as a lifestyle even though the guys I was usually trying to get over had simply been liars, not lovers torn away by circumstance.

In some cases they’d cheated on me with people I’d trusted. In other cases they just didn’t want to be with me anymore but couldn’t bring themselves to be honest about it. However, none of my relationships were taken from me by circumstances neither me nor my exes couldn’t control. It was all stuff being done to me as a result of choices they made. But still, I tried to make the best of it and stressed the importance of a life full of both sunshine and rain.

Then, one day, when I was really at my lowest, I asked myself why am I trying to be thankful for this kind of pain? Why am I thanking “the universe” for this opportunity to “grow”? Is this how I really feel or is it just how I think I’m supposed to feel.

When someone cheats on someone else it’s never the fault of the person being cheated on. When someone lies to you about who they are, how is that my fault? I finally realized that most of this being thankful for pain is Stockholm Syndrome, breakup porn. I wasn’t learning anything from being hurt except not to trust men and that people you love will still hurt you. NONE of my bad breakups remotely resembled any of the bittersweet poems I was reading.

Even more important, how could I get mad at a man for being dishonest with me if I can’t even be honest with myself about how I feel afterwards? So, I developed a new and, I believe, extremely emotionally healthy way of dealing with painful breakups that I had no hand in causing.

And what is this healthy way of dealing with pain when someone hurts you? It’s called “fuck you.”

You don’t want me? You want to hurt and embarrass me by having sex with someone else or making out with them at a party in front of everyone? You don’t have the courage to just break up and be done with it? Fuck you, you are a garbage person, not a lesson on how I can be a better person.

You want to break up? Fine, don’t insult my intelligence by telling me “it’s not you, it’s me.” We both know you just want to go bone someone else and you know what? That sucks! That really hurts! So go fuck yourself with your made up romantic notions of finding yourself. We both know you’re lying.

I know that people lie. I don’t need it as a “life lesson” to teach me what I already know.

So, you can fuck right off.

You want to convince me that breaking up is the “best thing to do” and that we can come to some mutual conclusion about the relationship when I’m 100% not on board with it? Well I’m not going to go around telling everyone that “it wasn’t meant to be” or some nonsense like that when the real deal is that you got caught getting a blowjob at a party. We’re not “holding each other back!” You’re a liar and can’t even own up to what you did.

Fuck off, asshole.

Most of the time there’s nothing to learn when you aren’t the one at fault. Don’t date guys that are liars or that cheat? I’m pretty sure that every woman alive already knows that’s a dicey proposition. I’m pretty sure that we aren’t going to learn any more than we already have from being dumped by a man who wants to sleep around or flakes every time you need them. I think we’ve got that figured out.

So, you know what? Fuck these “lessons”. I don’t need them. I don’t need a made up poetic story about how “the universe pulled us apart” or some other fantasy. I need a man who will love me and not hurt me. I need a man who wants me to learn from the love we have together, not leave me picking up the pieces and lying to myself about how they got broken.

I’ve left the fantasy behind because, in the end, I’m the one that was always getting hurt, not “the universe”.