“When my girlfriend and I ended it after two years,” said a thirty-year-old pharmaceutical rep, “my first thought was, ‘I’m free, I’m finally free.’ For about a month, I went out like crazy. When people asked me if I was depressed about the breakup, I’d say something like, ‘No, it was time for it to happen; it was for the best.’ I sort of swaggered around, like none of it really mattered. I think I actually believed that I was happier. She tried to call me, to patch things up, but I blew her off. Then, six weeks later, the realization that she was gone slammed into me. Suddenly, nothing looked good. I was like, ‘What could I have been thinking? How did I let this happen?’ But by the time I got my act together, it was already three months after the fact. She had a new boyfriend. I was too late.”
Ah, the classic tale of the guy who will deny everything. What, him worry? Often overlapping with the escape portion of our program, heartbreak lag-time causes men to plunge immediately back into life, as though nothing ever happened. In fact, they actually believe for a while that nothing ever did happen. They convince themselves that they’re better than ever before. And when they finally discover that they’re not, the blow hits them doubly hard.
“When my girlfriend and I called it off, I thought I was glad it was over; the emotional fireworks were too exhausting, too much of a pain,” said a twenty-eight-year-old architect. “In two days, I was in bed with another woman. I relished my freedom. My ex called, and I didn’t return her phone calls. I figured that I must not have really loved her at all. I enjoyed dating, being single again. This went on for about a month. Then, one day, I was going through my desk and I found a bunch of old letters that she had written to me. She was a wonderful writer, incredibly romantic. The letters told the whole story of our relationship, start to finish. Suddenly, I missed her unbelievably. I called her, but by then she was angry because I had previously ignored her. I began to think about her all the time, even more than when we were together. When we had been going out, I had cheated on her, but now I couldn’t even look at another woman. For the next six months, I was completely true and devoted to her. The only problem was, she wasn’t my girlfriend anymore.”
Talk about bad timing. “Men can have a hard time recognizing their suffering,” says Dr. Eaker-Weil. “They think that losing a relationship isn’t supposed to mean that much—if they weren’t married or engaged, what difference does it make if it ended? But sooner or later, they realize that they can’t keep dodging the issue. They can’t keep running around it—it gets harder and harder to do that—and so they just have to go through it. And that’s when the going gets tough.”
So what happens after the big epiphany?
