Finding happiness after a breakup
Apocalypse. A Greek word that stands for “revelation”, the moment when everything becomes finally clear, no more secrets in the air, all the pieces of the puzzle of life fit in place.
That’s how I felt for months, after that Easter Monday 2019, when my sooner-or-later ex-wife decided to break up, after almost sixteen years of marriage. Two teenagers as kids. Need for finding new ways to be a family. A new life adventure begins.
Immediately, I felt like living in a post-apocalyptic world. “This is an exaggeration; you live it too dramatically”. This is sometimes the reaction. I tried to avoid people who reacted like this. It’s my feeling, how dare you?
Other people reacted differently. They gave me facts: for example, they say that in Western countries, breakups are frequent. These people don’t judge, nor comment; they say things that they genuinely think that can be useful to me. I am grateful to them, regardless of whether those things were eventually helpful or not.
— What is the primary source of happiness? Many people immediately say “money”. Well, this is not true.
Yes, if you are starving, it’s undoubtedly true. However, I assume that readers of Medium are not in such a condition. I am a linguist, and I trust science. And research results are robust on happiness. In sum, there are three sources of happiness, regardless of cultural difference:
- primarily, social bonding;
- second, status;
- third, money.
It can be hard to change your status or to get more money, but what you can do — in any case — is improving social bonding, which is the primary source of happiness.
In Dutch, there is a marvellous word for what I did immediately after a breakup that I neither wanted nor expected: co-ouderschap. It means “co-parenting”. Ideally, kids live in a house of their own, and parents alternate in living with them. This is not my case, but I achieved a reasonable approximation. The point is that I avoided people that makes me feel bad while looking for people that make me feel good, whenever possible. It’s a simple and effective strategy.
The other important point so to improve social bonding is dealing with common friends. Typically, some of my friends I met together with her, so the question arises. This relates to publicity: should you tell the world, or isn’t your breakup, on the contrary, a private fact? I do not have any off-the-shelf answer.
(I bought some self-help books in an airport on happiness; I stop reading after a few pages and throw them in the trash; if you are looking for the Meaning of Life, try Monty Python’s film. It’s more effective. What I can do is to tell my story, hoping that this sharing can be helpful, at least for one reader. End of parenthesis.)
First, I was in shock. I could not really believe that. So, I let her some adequate time to reconsider, with a deadline. I wanted to be sure that what was happening was for real. Deadline passed. Nothing happened. Damned, it was real. Deep breath.
Then, I went public. In particular, I changed my social media profile status accordingly and wrote a blog post explaining my situation — not our situation, my situation. In other words, no rants.
Going public is beneficial whenever common friends and contacts refer to her, talking to with me about an “us” that does not exist anymore. As if nothing happened. No. I stop them, politely but firmly. Everybody should respect me and my situation. I don’t care if they say that they are sorry for me/us/the kids, or whatever. I do not comment, and soon they drop the topic. I do not appreciate small talk on breakups. This is an important topic — even, controversial.
Social bonding is the bridge that connects the self to the surrounding society. A breakup is a social fact, too, it is not merely personal. The point here is to clarify what breakups mean, for the others. Again, let me tell my story. Recently, a man casually told me: “oh, I still have the book she lent to me, and I always forget to call her to meet and give it back.” So what? Why are you telling me? I don’t want to know anything about her daily life — if kids are not concerned. Her life is not my business. Not anymore. Please don’t. Thank you. (I do not go angry. I do not go against anybody. Simple like that.)
Sometimes people don’t even realise my new situation. They do not pay attention to social media. They are not in contact for months. They do not know. It can happen. And repeating the whole story several times can be annoying, if not painful, for me. In such occasions, the blog post mentioned above reveals to be very valuable: I paste the link in a personal message to the addressee, kindly asking to read it, before continuing the conversation. Written once, read many. Time spared for me. But it is even more useful than that. The implicit message is that there is no secret, so cut off the roots of gossip, which is a bad plant anyway. My small contribution to make the world a better place to live in.
“How do you feel? Are you happy?” This is the most straightforward and challenging question I receive. And very frequent, indeed. It took me months to find my answer, which is the following: “I pursue happiness. It’s not to be in a state; it’s to do something that makes you feel that way. It’s a daily practice. Sometimes I find it, sometimes not. It’s life. But when I find it, it’s not by chance, but because I actively work for it. Every day. Brick by brick.”
Did you like this article? If you think that my reflections can be useful to you or to someone you care about, give it an applause and let me know with a comment. Perhaps I will write more about the post-apocalyptic world I live in if there will be sufficient positive reactions. In any case, thank you for your time.
