Breakups

High school students believe that one breakup is the end of the world.  It's often their first love and they just can't deal with the separation.

My friend and her boyfriend of over two years just broke up this past week.  It's been hard for her.  Everything reminds her of him.  She sincerely thought that they would end up spending their lives together.  And it's hard not to think like that when you're young.  I'm not all that shocked that he broke up with her though.  He's going off to college next week.  Granted, the school is only a twenty minute drive from where we live, but he is going to become a completely different person.

Breakups are tough.  I've gone through two of them.  There's never really a right way to handle them.  There are definitely better ways to do it than others though, and I know this from experience.

My first relationship started early in my sophomore year.  He was my one of my best friends and he was the absolute sweetest guy I've ever met.  He finally found the courage to ask me out, and then I don't know what happened really.  I guess we were just too good of friends for anything to ever really work out.  After about a month I just was honest with him during lunch and told him how I felt.  I was sad about it, but he was my first boyfriend, and I knew we weren't going to be as good of friends again.

My second relationship was a lot different.  In the second semester of my sophomore year, I began to hang out with a strange group of people in one of my classes.  I quickly became really close friends with this one guy who I would have never expected me to ever even remotely like.  But he made me feel like he could relate.  The problem with this guy was that he has severe depression, suicidal thoughts, and a drug habit.  I didn't know about any of this until I started dating him.  In fact, I had to call the cops on him in the middle of the night because he was planning to commit suicide.  The entire relationship was just emotionally draining, and I felt like I had to stay with him to keep him happy.  I know better now.  In the end we sort of just stopped talking to each other, and I finally just ended things over a text message.

I don't view either of these parts of my life in a bad light.  Yes, I could have made better choices with the second relationship, but it will always be a part of my life.  I can't just erase all the memories.  I've taken away the best memories from both relationships so I don't regret anything.  

Again, there is no good way to breakup with someone.  And there is always going to be some pain when you are in the midst of a breakup.  But definitely try to handle everything as maturely as possible.  It is not the end of the world.  Things will get better.