If You Repeatedly Say the Post-breakup Phrase “I don’t know why…”

I’ll be married twenty-five years this coming year. Eeesh. I know. What's even freakier is that I'm actually happy. So, one Friday night my husband and I started “intellectually masturbating” about what makes our relationship functional and here’s one biggie we came up with: Never ‘knowing’ in a relationship signifies that you either lack self-awareness and/or you refuse to take personal accountability.

Don’t get on the defensive. We are ALL a bit self-unaware and a bit self-absorbed and a bit unwilling to take blame when due, every now and then. We are human, after all. What I’m talking about is a habit of self-unawareness and refusal to take accountability.

In a long-term relationship this can display itself in repeated statements such as:

“I never know what he wants from me.”

“I don’t understand why she’s mad.”

Meanwhile, post-breakup this often manifests itself in statements such as:

“I just don’t know why they left.”

“I don’t know why they were always unhappy.”

“I did everything.”

It is a very rare individual in this world that does not want to be understood and makes every effort to thwart the comprehension of their loved ones, so that they can be perpetually disappointed. The majority of human beings long for understanding from others, especially those closest to them.

So, for example, if you are saying “I have no clue why they were always angry with me,” then….did you ask? And when they answered, did you actually listen? Or did you turn the answer into a pre-conceived notion of what it should be, in your mind?

Here’s the thing: If you asked why they are angry, and they told you, and you thought their constant anger was out-of-line, or perhaps suggested issues in them that you didn’t want to deal with, and that’s why the two of you broke up, that’s ok. But…you KNEW. You knew why they were perpetually angry and you chose to end things. You weren’t sitting there clueless as they slammed the door and left.

A much too common phrase is “I just don’t know why they were unhappy. I did EVERYTHING for our relationship/for them.” Did you? Or were you the equivalent of my mother-in-law who bought me a broom for my birthday the first year my husband and I were married? Yes, that’s a true story.

To summarize, my mother-in-law actually researched brooms, and got this very ‘special’ broom, hand-made out of horse-hair, that she paid a large amount of money for, and gave it to me proudly for my birthday. She was then incredibly offended and hurt that she went to all this effort to get me this expensive gift and I looked shocked rather than overjoyed.

I’m pretty sure you understand why I was not overjoyed. My mother-in-law didn’t research my interests or my needs. She also chose to ignore the fact that we don’t have the traditional marriage she does. The gift wasn’t for me. It was for me to clean the house better for her son. The gift was for me to do what she wanted me to do. So, in effect, the gift was for her.

So, how about you? When you say you don’t know why the relationship ended because you did absolutely everything, was that everything you did really for the relationship? Was it really for the other person? Or was it to make the relationship (or your partner) what you wanted them to be, for you?

When you say that you have no idea what you did wrong, is it because it kind of sucks to admit what you did wrong?

Even if you were with someone and they were just plain mean to you, you shouldn’t be sitting there confused about why. Did they turn mean because you didn’t listen (as per the examples above) and they were tired of being misunderstood?

It is also possible that they were simply a toxic or abusive individual. In this case, how long did you stick around and enable them? Why? There are always red flags. Why were you attracted to this individual to begin with? What is your past trauma and what do you need to work on in yourself to prevent abusive relationships from becoming a cycle in your life? You should have the answers.

I’m sure that you’ve heard that no breakup is 100% one person’s fault. Even if you were only the enabler of certain behaviors, you need to take accountability for that. If you think about what went wrong in your past relationship/s and you can’t see the part that you, or your past trauma, played in it, then you still aren’t being self-aware.

If you are post-breakup, think about what happened and how you were a part of it. If you ‘don’t know’, then keep thinking until you figure it out. Do that before you attempt another relationship. Otherwise, you risk the chance of every one of your relationships ending with you sitting blank faced and confused.

Original published in Medium