Breaking up is especially difficult when only one wants to end the relationship. The one who is left is in a great deal of emotional pain from the grief and loss. He or she also feels powerless to do anything about their circumstances. Often they do not know how to handle the pain, which feels unbearable and seems never ending. For some people, shifting into anger seems to alleviate their pain. Actually, anger just masks pain. But masking the pain may be preferable to feeling it. The pain does not go away; it just goes underground and influences behaviors in negative ways.
Sometimes breakups turn ugly. One or both parties start behaving in ways that are inappropriate, perhaps even frightening. Behaviors such as stalking, threatening verbally and physically, name calling, complaining to your friends/co-workers, making unwanted phone calls, sending unwanted text messaging and emails, damaging property, stealing from your partner and worse, make a breakup ugly.
Scenario 1) John finally ended his two year and half relationship with Mary after months of vacillating back and forth. It was not working out for him and he did not want to invest any more of himself in it. Mary was devastated and she pleaded with John to give her another chance. John’s resolve weakened and they did reconcile for a few months. But the same unpleasant dynamics between them repeated, so he ended it again. Mary refused to accept the breakup. She kept calling John and begging him to reconcile. She kept driving by his home. She left messages on his car. She called his friends trying to solicit their help. She sent him ecards, long hysterical emails and emotional text messages. John felt sorry for her and would take her calls and answer her messages. He kept explaining in a caring way that the relationship was over for him. When John was nice to Mary, her hopes for reconciliation increased. She tried harder to have contact with John. She knew that her behavior was harming what little relationship they had left, yet she could not stop herself. John’s compassion for her shifted into disgust. He felt badgered and victimized. He avoided all contact with her and after several months Mary gave up.
Scenario 2) After breaking up and reconciling five times, Judy decided to end her 4 year relationship with Marty for good. As before, Marty begged and pleaded with her to take him back. When she wouldn’t, Marty became angry and bitter. He started making phone calls and hanging up. He started threatening her. At first he would make statements such as ‘You better watch out.” Then the statements escalated into “I’m going to kill you.” Judy was frightened and did not know what to do. She was afraid to talk to her parents. She talked to all of her friends trying to figure out what to do. She talked to him and told him that he was frightening her, but it did no good. Sometimes he would switch from bitterness to apology but when she would not agree to give him another chance he shifted back into anger and rage. He wanted her to hurt as much as he was hurting. When he saw the fear in her eyes and heard the fear in her voice, he knew he was still able to have an impact on her. It was not the impact he wanted to have but it was better than feeling powerless. One time when he saw her going into a pub with another guy he keyed her car. The destructive action gave him some relief from the pain of seeing her with another guy. (All scenarios are fictitious).
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