Dear Susan,
I dated a woman for about 3 months and recently broke up with her. She has not taken it very well. There have been a lot of tearful phone calls and she emails me at home and at work. Her emails are numerous and time consuming. Last month, she called me at 3AM, said that she felt like taking some pills. She begged me to come over right away, which I did. However, when I got there, she seemed to have changed her mind, but asked me to stay for coffee. This is not the first time she has done this. I am a nice guy, I just don’t want to date her anymore, and this seems extreme since we dated for such a short while. Any ideas on how I can help her get through this?
Jeff, in London
Dear Jeff,
Breakups are never easy. Though most of us have experienced at least one painful breakup in our lives, how we choose to recover and how long it takes, varies from person to person. As well, the length of the relationship does not necessarily correlate with the recovery. Whether you dated for 12 weeks or 12 months, being rejected hurts and it can shake our sense of self worth, and lead to feelings of abandonment, isolation, and a loss of acceptance and control.
While you don’t mention why you broke up, or how long ago it happened, it sounds like your ex was very invested in the relationship, and is reaching out to you either in hopes of a reconciliation or as a means of reducing her own anxiety about being alone.
While you may want to help her, you are actually the last person who can. She needs to grieve the relationship in order to recover and move on. Part of the grief process may involve anger towards you and gaining acceptance that you are no longer a part of her life. Having you around, even though you are trying to be helpful, may provide her with a sense of false hope and actually prolong the grieving process.
What concerns me most about your situation, however, is that your ex girlfriend appears to be using emotional blackmail as a means of preserving contact with you. Her threat to take pills preys upon your fears, guilt and sense of obligation toward her. As a ‘nice guy’, it puts you in a terrible position, because although you may not want to attend to her, the threat of suicide is one that should not be ignored.
My advice to you is to set some very firm boundaries. When she calls next, explain very calmly and briefly, that while you understand that she is having a rough time adjusting to the breakup, you do not feel equipped to handle her emergencies, and in future will call 9-1-1 to ensure that she receives the help that she needs.
If your goal is to stop your ex girlfriend from emailing and calling you, it is also very important that you do not respond to her efforts to contact you. In fact, if you respond even sporadically, you are providing what is called ‘intermittent reinforcement’, and the chances are that the calls and emails will increase in frequency. Think of it this way; you go into a casino a dozen times, nothing happens and you feel bored out of your mind. However, the thirteenth time, something really wonderful happens, and you win a large sum of money. You are likely to keep coming back, over and over again, always hoping that that same wonderful thing will happen to you again.
In your situation, your attention is the reward, and each time you provide a reply, your ex is gaining a lesson in persistence.
So, be kind and empathetic, but direct and consistent in your ‘break-up boundaries’ and your situation should improve.