10 Life Lessons I Learned From Brutal Breakups

Breakups suck, and to a point, they seem almost inevitable in the modern dating scene. Our society has been seeing spikes in divorce rates, and in many cases, it seems like people tend to compete for the award of having the most brutal breakups in history.

We are the groups who invented ghosting, breadcrumbing, and so many more breakup methods that just seem to make things even worse. As bad as breakups are, they offer a lot of silver linings.

In a lot of situations, breakups act as blessings in disguise. Looking back at many of my exes, I realize I would have been miserable if I had stayed with them. In some cases, the full incompatibility we had was only revealed after I had gotten over the break.

Speaking as someone who's seen way more breakups than most other people, I've learned some major life lessons from past relationships. Here are some of the biggest.

As much as you can try, you can't force someone to love you or stay with you.

You might love your ex. You might want your ex to come back to you. You might have even treated your ex like a king or queen, and done everything possible to make them happy as a way to keep them by your side. Unfortunately, that won't guarantee they feel the same way.

Trying to force someone to stay with you is about as bad as it gets. It only makes you feel worthless and them feel resentful towards you. Forcing things, if anything, will destroy any chance of you getting back together later on.

Though this may sound like brutally honest dating advice you've heard before, actually living it tends to drive the point home.

It may be better to be alone than with the wrong person.

Much like the other life lesson I've learned from breaking up with an ex, this lesson was one that I really had to experience to understand.

One of my exes was very abusive and controlling. When I was with him, I thought I was happy since he we were always together. I thought we were going somewhere in our relationships.

However, he was isolating me from my friends and family. Nothing was ever enough for him. I became depressed, and eventually, after his parents started hurling insults, I left him.

Almost immediately, I felt better. With that, I realized that the relationship ended a lot earlier than I thought.

Looks do not turn into long term happiness, but they sure can tell you a lot about a person.

As much as I hate to say it, the adage about "not judging a book by its cover" isn't entirely advice. You can tell a lot about a person from their looks, and can even spot red flags.

My most recent breakup ended because my partner cheated on me. He was not a good-looking man, but he was always insecure about his weight. Eventually, that insecurity manifested itself as infidelity. I often would expect someone who is insecure about their looks but unwilling to change the type of person to cheat again.

Another ex I had was dressed to the nines all the time. We broke up because I had gained too much weight for him to find me attractive—despite me being a size 2 at the time. I should have noticed how much looks mattered to him from his attire.

There's a biological reason why people are shallow. It's a survival mechanism. Though looks aren't the be-all, end-all of dating, it'd be a lie to say that we can't figure out a lot about what makes a person tick through them.

When you're at your worst, you'll find out who your real friends are.

A lot of my exes had a tendency of dragging me through the mud post-breakup, especially when it came to the rumor mill. Without fail, many of my breakups ended up costing me a lot of friends who believed my exes over me.

I'm not easy to deal with when I'm grieving a broken relationship. My closest friends stuck with me, even when the overall social consensus put me on a blacklist.

Eventually, the truth came out about my exes. People came back into my life, but that doesn't mean I let them in anymore. Those who stuck by me were the ones I still hang out with, because they showed that they were my true friends.

Even if you don't see it right then and there, every breakup has a reason.

Many breakups I've had totally blindsided me. They sucked, I wanted to know why, they couldn't explain why. It hurt way more than a breakup that I would have seen coming.

As time passed, a lot of the "blindsided" breakups made sense. One guy who swore he wasn't cheating ended up admitting to it years later. Another admitted that he had a bad drug problem. Some just were headed in a different direction in life.

There's always a "why" to a breakup—even if you don't see it. No one who is totally happy in a relationship will just wake up and go, "Hey, I'm going to leave my partner."

While you might want to know the answer as to why, the truth is that it's often better to just accept it and move on. One of the life lessons I struggled with was realizing that finding the answer to "why" rarely ever fixes anything.

"When someone shows you who they really are, believe them."

Boy, Maya Angelou was spot on when she was giving that quote. You don't have to be the victim of a terrible breakup to realize why this is one of the best life lessons you can learn.

Most seriously awful relationships had warning signs at the start, but rose-colored glasses be damned, we tend to ignore the signs when they first start cropping up. This is never a wise choice, and is often the first step into an abusive relationship.

Friends and family are more important than significant others.

Too often, we tend to be told that "love comes first." This is only true when the person you love is married to you and now remains your immediate family. When you're still dating, you should prioritize everyone else. After all, if you break up, they're going to be the ones to be there for you—not your ex.

I can't name how many moments I could have spent with my family and friends that I wasted with boyfriends who never really treated me well. Looking back, one of my greatest regrets was not prioritizing the people who really mattered in my life.

If they only cared to change when they realized you left for good, they never really cared at all.

We all know the classic cycle of an abuser. They abuse, they gaslight, they expect the victims to tolerate it, and then when legit consequences show up, they start claiming that they'll change.

Hearing that your partner will finally change is one of the most tempting things to hear when you're in the process of leaving them. Victims often believe it because they so desperately want them to change, only to see that abuse get worse once they return.

The fact is that it should never have to get to the point of you leaving for them to care. If they wanted to, they could have corrected their behavior earlier on. They just didn't, because they didn't want to.

Never be too dependent on your partner.

One of my relationships ended because I became too dependent on my partner. My life revolved around him, and after having experienced similar from another ex, I realized how suffocating it is.

It's a pretty awful feeling to have someone depend on you for everything. What makes it so awful is that you feel like you can't even take a small step without your partner being around you.

Without a doubt, one of the most surefire signs that your relationship is turning toxic can be seen in codependency. If one partner relies on the other too much, it will make the more independent partner feel suffocated. The codependent partner, on the other hand, usually turns into a ball of anxiety.

This kind of relationship dynamic turns very ugly, very fast. If you don't want to learn one of the ugliest life lessons via experience, I suggest you keep a life outside your partner.

Finally, sometimes, things just don't work out—and that's okay.

You can be a great person, and meet another great person. You two could have a good relationship for a while, only to have things fall apart due to circumstances or a life choice that you really can't ignore.

Everyone's personal growth is a little bit different, and sometimes, you just grow apart. This doesn't make you a failure, nor does it make your ex a bad person. It just means that you're not right for each other, and that's okay.