Anatomy of a Break-Up (Day Two)

Today I woke up and I started to cry. And in what can only be explained as an attempt by my body to release all the excess tears I have built up over the years by just hating and/or laughing at people instead of crying over them, I couldn't stop.

My 8 year-old daughter jumped on my bed. I cried.
We tried to do a puzzle together. I cried.
I attempted to get dressed after standing naked and wet by the shower door for 12 minutes because I smelled his body wash which he cruelly left in the shower and I cried.

Who knew Matterhorn smelled like lost love?

After the bed and the puzzle incident, my insanely intelligent daughter started keeping an eye on me. So when she caught me standing by the shower bawling over the scent of Old Spice, I knew the jig was up.

I had to tell her, but I had to be tactful. I couldn't just yell "Guess which asshole just ditched us!?" so I tried explaining things to her like my therapist had advised.**

**Yes- that means I'd already talked to my therapist a few months back about how best to explain things to my daughter because I was already done with the relationship. I tried to convey in my previous post that I'm pretty sure I broke up with Assface months ago- that doesn't mean we can't join together and feel sorry for me right now. Also: I had already told my daughter's therapist because I wanted ideas from her about how best to deal with such a delicate sitch. Additionally: there's nothing wrong with my 8 year old having a therapist. It's called prevention over treatment, and if more people tried it then I wouldn't have to hear an ambulance whiz by every 2 minutes to resuscitate another pregnant, STD-ridden 12 year old, who just had a heart-attack because she exerted herself trying to reach her diabetes meds.

So I tried to mesh together the advice from our two shrinks: sometimes two people fall in love as boyfriend and girlfriend and everything goes really well for a while, but then they realize that they love each other more as really good buddies and decide to go their separate ways. That way, no one ends up really upset and everyone can stay super good friends.

 Such. A. Load. Of. Shit.

Pretty sure this guy could have phrased it better.

This is what I said in my mind: Sometimes two people are really into each other and like getting it on, so they move in together to save on cash and inadvertently involve a sweet little girl. Everything feels like it's going well for a while, but then the mommy realizes she's wasting all her pretty (and the few years she has left to snag Mr. Boat Shoes) on a boyfriend who has zero motivation, makes barely enough cash to keep mommy stocked on rum, and likes to talk about his feelings. The boyfriend simultaneously realizes that the mommy more closely resembles a robot than a human when it comes to expressing feelings or emotions. (Right here I'd like to point out that I'd rather have a non-whiny robot reppin' me in almost any situation rather than some emotional chick who cares if her boyfriend had a rough day or can't relate to an article in the New Yorker.) That's when they realize that they make awesome roommates but they don't love each other like that anymore and decided to go their separate ways. That way the mommy doesn't hurt the boyfriend physically and break him emotionally and the boyfriend can start saving his meager earnings again. All of this makes the little girl really, really sad and the mommy feels like shit for that. But the mommy also secretly hopes that the little girl is going to one day make use of all this pain by using it as material in her essay for early acceptance into Harvard, where the little girl will go on to fulfill all the broken dreams the mommy once had for herself.



My therapist and my daughter's therapist thought their speech was spot-on as far as break-up speeches go. They're fucking morons. My daughter elucidated these very valid points:

1- If you're such good friends why should he move out? Now we can all just get along and be really good friends together!

Spoiler Alert: Doesn't work.

2- If I wasn't really upset with him and we were going to be friends, why was I crying like a baby?

I told her to count her fucking blessings.

3- If we were breaking up anyway and he was moving out, what did it matter that we were good friends? Why were were ruining everything?

4- Was he going to take the TV?

It's what brings us together as a family. Don't judge.

5- Why would we break-up right before her birthday? (Such a valid point. One of my first thoughts was that I wouldn't get a boyfriend bday present this year...)

I had no good answers, except that he was, in fact, taking the TV, so I just cried a little more.

So to sum up, the day after I finally realized I was single, I cried a lot.

But I also did other things:

- I told the family it was over and in good form they all reminded me of his very worst qualities. Except for my mother who told me I should work out more.

- I Facebook ended it- which was just embarrassing because I forgot to take the status update off right away and didn't realize people could see that horrific "went from in a relationship to single" highlight until someone commented on it.

- I checked my phone approximately 333,000 times an hour so I could not answer when he called to beg my forgiveness.

- I watched "The Notebook" and got all worked up over how hot Ryan Gosling is and then cried because I didn't have someone to shag.

I only cried at the parts when Ryan was old. Otherwise, I was to busy pretending I was Rachel.

- I watched "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and cried because I couldn't afford a post-breakup trip to Hawaii.

- I took some of my fave RX's and passed out. Alone. In what was once our bed. Worse, in what would soon be his bed.