The Everlasting Breakup

It happened again. I woke up this morning with that hard-to-describe agitation/anger/anxiety that sort of squeezes a vague area of the stomach and/or chest and then feels empty. Anyone who’s been dumped before knows the feeling I’m talking about.

But the thing is, the last time I got dumped was more than six years ago. It was actually an excruciating series of breakups and makeups over the course of two years, but I ended up marrying the guy and we’re currently in a happy marriage with a two year-old daughter to boot.  Even so, ever since I first fell in love with my man eight years ago, I keep having the same dream about us breaking up. This dream has evolved through the different phases of our lives together, but the emotions are always the same. For example, before we got married, I dreamed regularly that for no apparent reason, he decided that we couldn’t be together, and I was left packing up my things from our apartment in a state of anger and confusion.

Why was this happening?  I loved him, he loved me, why couldn’t we work it out? And, the worst thing was, in my dream he’d be standing right there in the room, smiling and looking so handsome and sweet, and still not giving me a single f#$%ing explanation as to why we were breaking up.

Then, usually, the dream morphs into me either dating or marrying my old high school boyfriend, and I think to myself that it wouldn’t be so terrible to maybe sleep with him one more time, but I certainly don’t want to MARRY the little punk!  I wanted my man back!

And that’s when I’d wake up, and look  over at my man faithfully lying next to me, and I’d still feel that sharp twinge of anger towards him even though he didn’t actually do anything wrong.  In last night’s dream, my husband actually divorced me, callously leaving both me and our adorable toddler without reason. Again, I awoke and looked over at the cold-hearted bastard with venom — before I processed the fact that he was spooning me lovingly in his sleep.

So, of course, I have to wonder why I keep having these dreams. Some might say it’s just the natural fear of losing the security of a solid relationship. Others might say it’s a subconscious longing for freedom from my marriage. After all, I was a strong, independent, world-traveling, free spirit who steered clear of romantic relationships before I became emotionally entangled with my future husband. But I think it may go deeper than that.  I think my mind and heart are conspiring to remind me — on a regular basis — of something important and essential. It may sound cheesy or obvious, but the immense power of love and the unbearable pain of losing it are fundamental to the human experience. My own experience with several tough breakups prevents me from diminishing or even dismissing the emotions of others who are in the agonizing fog of a breakup.  If I see a movie, or hear a song about a breakup, or listen to a lovesick teenager or an adult struggling through a divorce, I actually FEEL their pain – if not in that exact moment, it comes back in my dreams.

I’m finally starting to realize that this may be a good thing ­to really know this indescribable hurt.  I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, but at the same time, it makes me feel sort of grateful to have had the experience of multiple breakups, if only to know that it will help me understand and relate to my own daughter, who will inevitably come to me as an angry and confused teenager, needing compassion after some punk-ass jerk dumps her with no f#$%ing explanation.