How could they cut me off ‘just like that’?

How to make sense of an abrupt ending

Introduced to his family on Sunday — and dumped by Wednesday ….

Carmen, a beautiful young woman in her 30s came to see me a few years ago as she was finding herself in a relationship-rut. She would meet guys who would initially be charming and keen. They would tell her all the things she wanted to hear about building a future and having a family. In true avoidant fashion, they would usually start pulling away once there was talk of deepening the commitment. Carmen, who was insightful enough to understand her contribution to the dynamic, had done some really good work on addressing her boundaries and was starting to feel worthy and self-assured. She was in a really good place when she met Danny at a night out in a bar.

Danny was a surgeon and made it clear right from the start that work would be a priority in his life. Since Carmen worked as a management consultant she was no stranger to putting in long hours and sometimes even parts of her weekend to her job. Therefore, she almost felt a sense of relief knowing that he would be busy in his own right. She reported finding his high work aspiration very attractive.

After about three months of dating, the pair of them seemed very much in love. During the week when they would typically not have time to meet. Carmen would daydream and crave his contact. She was understanding of the nature of his work and the limitations it imposed on his ability to keep in regular contact. After all, how could she expect him to take time out of surgery to respond to menial texts?

On weekends, Danny seemed very keen to meet up and it became almost the norm that they would meet after work on Friday and then spend both Saturday and Sunday at his place. Carmen could barely curb her enthusiasm when Danny suggested that they go and visit his parents. Despite being in his late 30s, Danny had told her that ‘Nobody had been special enough’ to meet them for many years. She felt extremely flattered and special as she appraised this as a sign of a growing commitment from his end.

The following Sunday the pair of them drove to the countryside to attend a dinner in his family home. The dinner had been delightful and his parents had seemed like good people. She had left their house feeling warm and fuzzy inside as she was starting to believe that she had finally met someone who appeared willing to invite her into his life and to make her part of his long-term future. It all seemed perfect!

Two days later, on Tuesday, Carmen started to feel a bit strange about the fact that Danny had not been in touch since after the dinner. Normally, they would at least touch base by text in the evening, but after their return from his parents, she had not heard a word. When he did not even appear to be opening her messages, she started to feel almost sick from anxiety. He had been online, so she knew he was ok. Yet he had chosen to ignore her. Why would he be doing this? By Tuesday evening she tried to call him as well, but he did not pick up.

On Wednesday she woke up to a long message in which he explained that he liked her and that his parents had enjoyed meeting her and had said they liked her so much. He wanted her to know it was not anything she had done wrong. He had just ‘suddenly’ suddenly realised that the relationship did not feel right for him anymore. He expressed his sadness for hurting his feelings, thanked her for the months they had together and ended the message with a ‘Bye xx’. When a very perplexed Carmen read the message and was about to respond reactively- she also noticed that he had proceeded to block her from contacting him….

How do you make sense of getting cut off?

The short answer is — You don’t! For those of you who resonate with the story above, you would know the degree of ‘head-f*ckery’ this type of scenario represents. Nothing will help prepare you for the process of getting dropped from height in a relationship.

You will feel bereft, heartbroken, bewildered, angry, humiliated and the list goes on. You keep thinking that they could at least have explained to you what went wrong. Or have been a bit more democratic during their decision-making process. How could they not even afford you a sense of closure if they still walk away with a winning hand?

It pains to not be worthy of an ending

During the ending, you might try to use your own psyche as a point of reference for ‘how’ they were able to dump you out of the blue. What’s often striking in these scenarios is the brute force with which the cut-off happens. It makes no sense that they dumped you, yet feel the need to also block you from being able to come back with a reaction. Unfair does not even cut it but please know that your healing will depend on your ability to come to grips with some of the disturbing injustice of what has happened.

Do not try to fit their actions in with your logic

Although it may not feel soothing right now, it will help you long term to recognise that a person who acted in this way is going to be unfit and incompatible for a relationship with you. They may not be a cold person and they are probably not a bad person. However, the fact that they would choose to end a relationship a) without any prior warning b) without seeing you eye to eye and c) without giving you a chance to react and respond speaks volumes about their difficulties with attachments.

It is vitally important that you don’t get caught up in attempts of looking for clues from the past or spending meaningless energy and effort on trying to understand WHY they could walk away from you without any signs of remorse or conscience. Instead, pour all of your energy into accepting the facts as they stand.

No- you do not wish you could do what they did and just ‘switch off’

In this moment you might wish you too could rely on an ability to ‘switch off’ — just like the person who has just dumped you. You want more control than you have over your feelings and do not want to feel so much for someone who seemingly felt so little for you. Therefore, many people yearn for the ability to operate with the same level of indifference as you have just been treated with. Let me assure you of one thing: The fact that you are as reactive to this style of ending as you are, suggests that you are normal, human and that you are intact. You liked or loved someone and therefore you feel bereft when you no longer have access to them. It also hurts to lose someone’s love and affection.

If we take a good look at how human beings are wired, it will not take long before we understand that we come to this world fully equipped- and in search- of attachments. The ability to cut someone that we love off is suggestive of a background of disrupted nurturing, inability to trust and commit and a lot of childhood wounding. In some situations where I have seen the person who does the ‘cutting off’ — it is clear that they can dissociate almost entirely from what they felt a little while back. This is not a desirable way to feel and it may be worth understanding, that a person like that will have a lot of work to do on their wounds and past hurts.

Whilst I am not saying that you should feel sorry for a fully grown adult who has just broken your heart, I still believe it is important to understand that they may not be acting from a place of evil or malicious intent. More than likely, they are operating on an auto-piloted defence mechanism that was installed early in their life as a means of protecting them from getting hurt by another person they love. It needn’t change your behaviour towards the person, but I am hoping that it can provide you with some of the inner closure you feel you need to move on.

Their trauma- their healing journey, not yours

While you focus on accepting the situation as it is, you might notice that your mind tries to pull you back into overthinking a wide range of ‘why…’ ‘would have/could have/should have’ and ‘if only..’. This tends to be particularly prevalent at times of deep nostalgia and when you are reminiscing on old times. In a moment of madness, you might even think that you have the power to change their destiny and that perhaps you should try to make them aware.

Please accept that any attachment wounds they likely suffer from cannot be healed without their full intent and effort. As a Psychologist who has witnessed hundreds of clients go through similar situations there is nothing that you will be able to do to make them more able to tolerate your love consistently, get them to understand what has happened to them or in any way speed up their healing journey. One day they might decide to change — but you have to trust that it will be at a time when they feel ready and choose to get behind such a process.

Getting honest with yourself — is this behaviour ok regardless of what explanation they might be able to come up with

You must allow appropriate anger processing on your part! While you might be recovering from your denial of what has just taken place, it is commonplace to appease the mind with rationalisations and plausible explanations for why they chose to walk away. There can be something soothing about this, but typically it is also a slippery slope towards becoming overly understanding (even pitiful) of someone else’s conditions. In the process, you will risk suppressing your anger and appear overly at peace with what has happened to you. Nobody is asking you to exist in a state of rage, but do not lose sight of the fact that you were wronged. Irrespective of how much understanding you have for their reasons behind hurting you.

Emotional suppression is most definitely a problem for a partner who is now unable to tolerate being near you, hear from you or even take the risk of being reminded of you. But make no mistakes; there is a high likelihood that you are matching their pathology by attempting to rush to acceptance of this situation by squelching your anger too soon. You make sense of this by accepting that this event does not make sense to you. Try to acknowledge your feelings, validate any anger and allow it to fuel your hunger for getting treated better in the future.

Look inwards- did this experience poke holes into any old wounds?

Being cut off often results in reviving past wounds of abandonment and rejection. It can trigger pre-existing beliefs you might hold about being unworthy of true love to come to the forefront. The failure to accept that the ‘impossible’ has happened often keeps people stuck in a state of rumination where ‘looking for answers’ dominates and the belief that closure provided by them is a necessary criterion for letting go. To save you the pain, do know that you will never get adequate answers from a person who was able to do this.

Even if one came, it would still fuel your need to hear more, know more and understand a bit better. Let’s also recognise that someone who committed this kind of act, will not have it in them to see the value in giving you closure. Trust that they have enough preoccupation trying to run from their own emotions to find the time and ability to hold space for yours!

Process feelings and perform a boundary reset

Develop fixed and firm rules for what is acceptable and what constitutes yellow, amber and red flags in a relationship. I don’t know your specific situation, but would still urge you to examine closely whether you were picking up on all the clues that would have indicated that your partner was starting to struggle with intimacy and the growing commitment. If there were no such signs, you might still wish to check if there were areas where you filled the gap so well that you would have stood no chance of noticing if they were not pulling their weight anymore.

Choose not to internalise the rejection

It is a natural phenomenon to want a relationship to have meant something and with that, expect that there was a shared sense of meaning. If it is any comfort, it probably meant a lot for the person who decided to talk away abruptly as well. If there were no feelings involved they could have probably managed the ending with a bit more finesse. Whilst it will not feel much like a compliment, getting dropped during a good phase of a relationship tends to signal overwhelm on the other person’s part rather than dislike.

This should however not be interpreted as a cue to wait for them to ‘come around’ again even if they may well try. Indeed, you would be almost certain to be facing a repeat (or worse) again should you opt to take any bait from them in the future. Try to act with dignity and remember you deserve better than somebody who can do this to you without regard for the consequences you have suffered!

So in summary, don’t try to make sense. Make sense by accepting there is no sense to be made and work on letting go!

As for Carmen, two years after her horrible story unfolded she sent an email with a photo of her with her now husband getting married in a small private ceremony with a significant baby bump revealing itself underneath her simple gown. By trusting that she deserved better she had finally met ‘the one’. My heart smiled for her and I was yet again reminded of why I love my job so much.