Some updates on a Monday

May 20, 2024

4 minutes to read

Today is my colonoscopy day.

I let everyone know when I’m having a colonoscopy (and talk about them a lot, in general) because both of my parents had colon cancer. One is fine now, but there’s a lot of family history.

Let this be my PSA to remind everyone that the guidelines are that you get your first one at 45. Anyway, the prep is intense (I’m doing it at 3 a.m. now!), but it’s worth it.

While I get this done, we have two updates from letter writers. Enjoy, and I’ll be back tomorrow.

The first update considers the concept of “limerence,” which I’ll let you read about here:

Hi Meredith,

I’m “He’s close with his ex” – with an update. After about nine months, during which I communicated succinctly about how his words and actions make me feel unimportant (and explained how to make me feel more loved), he began to grow away from his ex. I learned this term that I think described what was going on: limerence.

I’m no professional, but it seemed to fit. He despised me but cared at the same time now. I was the target for causing the sadness and loss he felt now. The anger and the tears were my fault. At the same time, we had close moments emotionally and bonded deeper. It was a relationship, but not a healthy relationship, for a few more months.

In this period of closeness, he confessed to physical abuse in his previous marriage, as well as with other partners. He said that in these cases, the abuse with initiated by the other person. I tried to stay calm and supportive with this new information and suggested getting help with anger management.

Breaking up had to happen for me that day. We both agreed that ending our relationship made sense now. I feel safe. I blocked him everywhere and moved on. I appreciate the 95 percent of commenters who said to do that for reasons that all finally made sense. Thank you.

I’m so glad that LW got out of that relationship. Interesting to consider limerence. I’ll need to think more about that.

This second updates involves getting through a breakup. The LW mentions how she got help from the Love Letters podcast, but I think it’s specifically the first season, in which tried to find a cure to the common breakup over eight episodes. If you need that kind of content, go back to the first episodes, from 2018. (This was my favorite ep from that season – because it’s about music.) Note: this update has been edited a little for length and anonymity.

Dear Meredith,

Longtime readers might remember me as “Betwixt” from my letter published on December 24, 2018. The same relationship gasped its final breaths in early October of 2023, after almost exactly five years. Though it did not end exactly for the reasons that some of your readers predicted. My ex was unfaithful, he lied, and never truly sorted his life out. In the past few weeks, I have revisited your column and podcast, and found both to be exactly what I need at this moment.

Instead of a detailed update, which would take many pages, I thought I would send some of what I learned over the past seven months.

Accept what you are feeling. In past breakups, I fought against myself for perceived weakness or shame for my feelings. It is never a fight that you can win, and always leaves you exhausted and sad. Though this is by far the hardest breakup I have experienced, somehow I manage to mostly function and still find enjoyment in life by just accepting what I feel in a given moment. Maybe this acceptance meant I stayed in the relationship for too long, but I can tell you that it is much easier to now live in my own head and find some sort of (fragile) peace most of the time.

Buckle up and ride the roller coaster. Sometimes we are afraid to just let the emotions and feelings wash over ourselves. The pain of a breakup is both familiar and terrifying, so it makes sense that we try to avoid it. Find the things that help you to cry when you need to. Find the people in your life who will let you talk about the breakup for hours on end.

Make this the year of you. As discussed in the first season of the podcast, it is critical to invest in yourself post-breakup. Though you loved sharing your life with your ex, remember that there were probably things they did not understand about you or enjoy doing with you. Enjoy the freedom of being able to do what you want when you want. For the first time in a long time, I am trying new things and putting myself back out in the world on my own terms.

Multiple things can all be true at once. I simultaneously hate my ex for what he did to me, miss him desperately, plot creative methods of revenge, and grow feelings for someone new.

I hope that your readers find this to be helpful, though I am by no means an expert, nor am I on the other side of this breakup. Meredith and readers, thank you for being there, both in my ears and on the page.

– Betwixt

Thanks to you Betwixt for sharing the update – and lessons. I hope the breakup recovery process goes smoothly. Just like I hope today goes smoothly on my end. See you tomorrow. Send your own updates – or question about relationships (dating, divorce, breakups, singleness, or whatever else) to the anonymous form or email
[email protected].