When Romantic Love Ends

One of the most challenging experiences that we can have in life is a romantic breakup. For teenagers, this is the number cause of suicide in the USA. In this podcast, we examine ways to love others well, while maintaining our own happiness if the relationship ends.

(Please note, this is a lecture, not a guided meditation.)

Transcript

Welcome to the happiness podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Do you remember the first time you ever fell in love?

It can be such a beautiful,

Wonderful experience for all of us.

It just changes our world and makes us feel so warm and wonderful inside.

Love truly towards another person is one of the most exquisite experiences we can have as a human being.

And yet,

At the same time,

It can be one of the most painful,

Excruciatingly hard,

Torturous experiences we may ever have.

It may even lead to us contemplating and perhaps even taking our own lives when that love ends.

William Shakespeare,

Perhaps one of the greatest playwrights of all times,

Wrote a beautiful play called Romeo and Juliet.

I'm sure we've all seen it,

Read it,

Or even heard of it.

But the passionate,

Intense love between these two lovers,

Romeo and Juliet,

Ends in tragedy for so many reasons.

But one of them is just the pain,

The pain of the relationship not being able to go forward.

Relationships can be so hard when they end.

So in today's podcast,

We want to explore,

Are there ways to maintain our sense of peace and even happiness when romantic love ends?

And Shakespeare had it right.

The leading cause of suicide among teenagers is when romantic love ends.

But even if we don't contemplate suicide,

It can be so challenging when that person that we thought we were going to spend our lives with isn't there anymore.

They change,

So we ended the relationship.

Or they decided to end the relationship for a myriad of different reasons.

Either case is still very challenging.

But why?

Why is it so hard?

And is there anything that we can do to protect our hearts from this suffering?

Do we necessarily have to go through so much pain when our relationships end?

Because if we've lived long enough,

We may go through several heartbreaks throughout our life.

So let's start with why is it so painful?

I mean,

Of course,

There are many reasons when relationships end that cause us to suffer.

But I believe there are some key things occurring that make it so challenging sometimes and can even lead to death.

And it has to do with our expectations.

When we fall in love with someone,

We deeply enjoy being with them.

And our joy and our happiness can come from that other person.

So when that person leaves,

We feel we've lost our happiness.

And this is really where the pain and the trouble begins.

Because we're giving our sense of happiness to someone else.

And that is always dangerous.

Whether it be romantic love,

Whether it be wealth,

Fame,

Security.

If we put our trust in anything else besides ourself,

The problem we're going to have is that life is impermanent.

Life changes.

We cannot control what other people do or what happens in life.

So because of that,

If we look externally for happiness and love,

There are just too many factors that can affect this external love.

There's so many things we just cannot control.

Even if we were to meet our true soulmate,

And we both fell in love equally,

We stayed in love equally,

We got married and spent our lives together,

At some point,

Most likely,

One person will die before the other.

And if all our happiness is based upon that other person's love,

When they die,

Our hearts often die with them.

I had a neighbor who lost her husband and she was in her early 50s.

And she really loved her husband.

But when he died,

That was her life.

And I began not to see her at all.

She just come out once a week in her PJs to pull out the trash.

And that's all I'd see her,

Barely ever saw her.

And within five years,

She was dead.

She drank herself to death because she just couldn't live without the love of her husband.

It can sound romantic,

But it's also incredibly tragic.

This woman had so many years ahead of her.

But because her happiness was based upon her love of her husband's when he died,

She gave up on life and slowly died with him.

And my guess is,

If we're listening to this podcast,

We want tools to one,

If we are going through a breakup right now,

To be able to heal or to make sure that our life goes well,

No matter what happens,

Even when romantic love ends.

So the remainder of this podcast,

Let's talk about how do we do that?

How do we maintain our sense of peace and happiness,

Even in the face of romantic love ending?

Well,

The most important thing we need to realize is that joy,

That happiness that we're looking for really can't come externally.

I mean,

External things can add to it,

Like watching a sunset can be a beautiful experience.

But the joy and happiness that we're looking for resides inside of us.

We are in control of it.

Things add to our happiness.

They embellish it,

But they don't make us happy.

We take our happiness with us.

And the way we do that is seeing life as a beautiful banquet.

Each morning we wake up and we know there's going to be different adventures,

Different things that we're going to see and experience.

And we're glad for them,

But we don't hang on to them because we know tomorrow they may not be there.

Because life changes.

The sunset we saw today may not be there tomorrow because the clouds may be obscuring it.

It doesn't make our day any worse.

It just means we'll find something else to do instead of watching the sunset.

And life is like that.

In regards to romantic love,

Life is probably going to sooner or later bring someone,

Whether for a day or for a lifetime,

That we are going to love deeply.

But each day is a gift and it isn't something that we can grasp.

It is something that we can enjoy,

Like a beautiful meal,

Like the smell of a rose.

But we don't grasp that smell.

We don't try to hang on to that food.

We let it go.

And love is like that.

We're so thankful for that person being in our lives today.

But we know that tomorrow they may not be here.

So we really do celebrate them today.

And if tomorrow they're not here,

We'll be sad.

But we realize that there's other things that will come our way again.

Now sometimes we do get to stay with a person a very long time.

But we just don't know.

And realizing that that is how life works allows us to love deeply but without attachments.

Realizing that the love we experience from others may change.

And that's okay because that's how life works.

Today you may be here.

Tomorrow we may not be together.

That's just how life works.

And I think the beautiful thing about this is it really helps us to love better.

I mean when we take things for granted,

We often don't love them nearly as much as when we realize this other person is a gift.

And we don't know if they'll be there tomorrow.

So if this truly were our last day with them,

We would love them ever so deeply.

We would.

We all know people.

That their spouse,

Their love partner has been diagnosed with a illness,

A terminal illness.

And the love between this couple is so deep and so expressive because they know their time together is limited.

Yet why don't we all live that way?

Being so thankful for the person that we have in our lives that we so deeply love.

Knowing that there's no way this can last forever.

So deeply appreciating the other person for being in our lives right now.

Mainly we suffer because we're looking for happiness from this other person.

Our happiness can never come from others.

It comes from us.

From living life well one day at a time.

Accepting what is,

Loving what is.

And what is sometimes means change.

That someday this person may be in my life and it may be wonderful.

And some other day they may not be in my life.

And that still can be wonderful if we realize that the locus of control when it comes to happiness is within my hands.

If I give it to someone else and say,

I'm only going to be happy if you're here.

Then we're going to suffer.

Because even if they don't leave,

When they come home late one night or if we get in a fight,

Then those fears begin to creep in.

The fear of it ending.

But if we're not fearful,

If we're thankful for the beautiful person being in our lives right now,

Realizing tomorrow they may not be there,

Then we'll find that that love be far more stable.

You'll be far less afraid and it won't have the potential to cause us suffering when it ends.

So let's say right now we are going through a breakup and it is very painful.

I know we need to grieve when love ends,

Of course.

But the big question we want to ask ourselves is,

Why am I suffering this much?

Perhaps this ending of this love is something that could teach me about me.

Am I perhaps looking for happiness from others where I really need to look for it within myself?

So if I'm suffering right now from a breakup,

I think it could be a great learning tool.

And we could say,

Okay,

Why am I putting stock in this other person?

Why do I believe that my happiness is contingent upon this other person?

Because even if I think that's true,

I am going to suffer.

And I don't want to suffer.

I want to find peace and happiness in my life.

And the only way I'm going to do that is by changing this behavior.

This behavior that I think I need this other person to be happy.

That is not true.

We don't need others to be happy.

Other people are like gifts,

But not gifts that we possess,

Gifts that we're given to enjoy that day.

It's like,

If we like chocolate,

Because I really like chocolate,

We would enjoy it when we eat it,

But we wouldn't want to possess chocolate.

We wouldn't want to say,

I need chocolate to be happy.

We're just glad we have chocolate that day.

I mean,

If for some reason chocolate got taken away and we couldn't have it anymore,

Let's say we developed an allergy to it,

We'd find other foods that we would enjoy and we would enjoy them.

Could you imagine someone committing suicide because they couldn't have chocolate anymore?

I mean,

I know that sounds silly,

But in many ways love is like that.

Love is a gift that we're given,

But it's never permanent.

Never.

It will change.

If we live long enough,

One of us is going to die first most likely.

And if we've lived long enough,

We've known that we've been in relationships that have ended and with time our hearts got better,

But they can get better so much more quickly if we stop being so attached to the other person and we begin to see our relationship with them as a gift,

A gift we're given,

And we enjoy that gift when we have it,

But we find that there's so many other things that we enjoy in life when that person isn't there.

That's really the key of life.

It's being a contesor,

A true passionate lover of life.

Not one thing of life.

If we only love the smell of roses,

Again,

Another one of my passions,

Then if there's no roses,

That's okay because there's so many other flowers we can smell.

Life is like that.

We may deeply love this person,

But if they're not there,

That's okay.

We'll find other things that we can do for that love of life.

We'll get together with our friends more.

We'll perhaps adopt an animal or we'll probably fall in love again,

But when we're suffering,

We do need to ask ourself why?

What stories am I creating that are causing me to suffer?

And that's what we look at because the stories we're creating are the ones that are causing us to suffer and they're just not true.

I mean,

We may feel they're true at the time,

But the teenagers that kill themselves because they think their life is over because they've lost love,

As an adult,

We all know that's not true.

But if they're hearing that story,

Then their hearts will go down that route and they may commit suicide.

It's the same with us if right now we've lost love and we're creating stories that our lives are over,

That I'll never find love again,

That I'm not going to be happy.

We will suffer,

But those stories are not true.

So we have to challenge these stories.

We have to say,

Okay,

Life isn't permanent.

My happiness is never based upon one person,

One thing.

This thing has changed.

I will now adjust to this change and find other things in life because life is so replete with things that can bring me joy and I will focus on them.

Today,

This person isn't in my life and I will grieve that loss,

But I also know that happiness comes from so many sources and never can it be placed in one source or I will suffer.

And I don't want to suffer anymore.

I want to find joy and happiness in life.

So I'm going to not dwell on just this loss.

I'm going to get out there.

I'm going to do things.

I'm going to connect with people.

I'm going to find other things that I can focus on and find joy and pleasure with.

And what we'll discover with time,

The pain that we experience will become less.

The suffering we think that will be there forever will end and we'll find that life is a beautiful banquet.

And when love comes again,

We'll be careful not to be so attached.

And the way we'll do that is realizing that that love that we have is a gift today and that gift may go.

So I'm just thankful today for having it.

And I'll make sure that I don't put all my energy into that gift.

Instead,

I'll find balance in my life by enjoying my friends,

By doing things with lots of people,

And by just finding pleasure in the multitude of things in life that life has given me.

I never put all my energy into one person because that is a path of suffering.

And I choose the path of happiness.

Thank you for joining me on the happiness podcast.

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And until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Helpful

OMG thank you so much for your awesome healing insights

So profound ! Thanks for offering this podcast on this site. 🙏❤️

Thank you for your words of encouragement and reminder of all the beauty that life has around us, when we decide to look

awesome 🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻thank you sooo much

This was amazing and your voice us so soothing. There also is a cultural conditioning we need to get distance from...relate to the expectations. There is also this narcissistic wound that hurt before- during- after a break-up when the other is an avoidant or not interested in comitting. It's easy to feel rejected- not wanted and then suffer. Thank you. That was amazing 🌹

Thank you! This has opened my mind up to a beautiful insightful new perspective of life! 💖

Exactly what I needed today to hear which reaffirms everything I've come to believe in relationships 🤔 ❤

So much good advice, thank you 💔🙏🏻😢

That was amazing!❤️ Thank you 🙏

Such excellent, common sense advice that can help anyone in any situation they may be experiencing. Always get helpful advice from every podcast. 😊🙏

Really good points on keeping love in balance with the rest of life and viewing the lessons we are to learn from that love.
Everything we experience is for soul to learn.
Thank you for bringing these insights to my attention.
May the blessings be 💙

Very interesting! Thank you!

This podcast describes a beautiful truth. I have lost much love and people in my life through death and relationships being ended. And although it was painful and I mourned that person for a while I have a lot of healthy activities that I invest my time in and that makes me happy... Like hiking and travelling and reading. I choose to be happy and already made peace with the fact that life is not perfect and it changes all the time. Travelling helped me change my perspective a lot. It was life changing for me. Before I travelled my life was more self centered but once I saw happy, smiling people in poor countries I envied them. Happiness is not found in what you have! Things and people and love come and go... Its just life and I choose to enjoy the good times and learn from the bad times. This cycle of life intrigues me and I am always curious about my journey... What lesson am I going to learn next? What am I going to discover about myself next? Im on a journey that will never end.