Albany, N.Y. – Splitsville, U.S.A.: probably the last place most people want to be.
It’s the opposite of Big Bob’s quaint little town of Pleasantville, and as deep down and dirty as Palookaville, where the tough-guy losers go – like Marlon Brando’s character in “On the Waterfront.” It’s the place where “your” song plays in a never-ending loop on the radio, and the streets and parking lots are stack-packed with cars like the one who had (and may still have) your heart – and no other vehicle.
The name tags on the employees in the groceries and restaurants throughout Splitsville are all the same – that of your ex – as are the characters in the movies and on TV.
It’s a lonely town, where the ghost of your ex haunts you at every turn. “It’s worse than a death at times, because it’s a misery you impose upon yourself by being so attached to the person,” says Marni Kamins, who co-wrote “The Breakup Repair Kit: How to Heal Your Broken Heart” with Janice Macleod.
“Except the person you’re mourning pops up every now and then.”
He or she will e-mail, call, text message or stop by to see how you’re doing. They’ll send something your way to let you know they were “thinking of you” or you hear through mutual friends your ex asked about you. If there wasn’t a mutual agreement at the break that you would have a friendship, making these behaviors normal, that check-in can spell trouble.
Getting over exes has a life of its own, says April Masini, a relationship advice columnist with AskApril.com. Sometimes a person can get over an ex on his or her own. Other times, it takes venting and rehashing the good times and the bad with a friend, a counselor, even a doctor.
That’s what Phyllis Becker did to heal her broken heart. Becker, who is 39 and lives in Albany, took about a year to get over the heartbreak she suffered when she and her husband split up in 2000, after being together for eight years. Talking with her friends, family and co-workers helped a lot. But sometimes it was too much.
“People were trying to push me to get out and date,” says Becker. “I wasn’t ready. Sure, I wanted to get over it as quickly as possible, but as healthily as possible.” Becker got rid of his clothes and other belongings and took down photos of the couple to help ease the transition.
“You invest a lot of time and energy in nurturing the relationship and it becomes woven into the fabric of your day and your life, and it’s where your thoughts are,” says Janet Siroto, editor and chief of Happen magazine, an e-zine that is part of Match.com. “When it’s gone it’s hard not to want to protect yourself by living in the past.”
But until you make history just that, you should not jump into a new relationship, says Donna Tonrey, a family and marriage therapist who runs a clinical training program at La Salle University in Philadelphia. She adds falling in love is easy – it’s nature, actually – but falling out of love is much harder.
“If one is still emotionally connected to another, although a new relationship can be formed, it’s usually based on the person needing to be in a relationship in order to feel more comfortable with regard to healing from the previous one,” Tonrey says. Then the relationship is based on need, rather than want, which isn’t fair to either person.
