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Why Breaking Up in an (almost relationship) is Worse Than an Actual One

The beginning of no beginning

Have you ever been an in almost relationship? When you start talking to someone, the goal is to date them right? We have this concept in our minds that things are going to work out and you’ll live happily ever after. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. We put all of our eggs into one basket. And we become obsessed with the idea that we have found our forever person. It’s not easy to move on from an almost relationship, and for some reason it hurts more than an actual relationship breakup.

When you fall for nothing

You fell head over heels for someone you weren’t even dating. And everything seemed so perfect and life was great up until it wasn’t. You two just clicked and it all felt natural. Natural, like everything you see in any romantic film, you know, the one where the guy gets the girl in the end? Then you realize you weren’t even dating this person. And that none of those feelings are ever going to be validated.

Here comes the judgement

You are judged for being sad after the breakup because you two were never actually dating. After all, when you end an almost relationship what are you ending?

“You guys weren’t even officially together.” Rolls eyes. While you two may never have “actually” dated, everything you did pointed to definitely sharing your lives together. The sleepovers, the date nights, the sharing of secrets, the vulnerability, it all made sense to the two of you. It felt real and now it’s as if you’re not entitled to be sad, because those feelings weren’t yours for the taking.

Here comes the advice

People tell you to just get over it because you guys “weren’t really together or talking for that long.”

Oh, how easy it is to be an outsider looking in, isn’t it? As an outsider, you seemingly wanted the best for us, but also did not really care when things ended. It’s so much easier to tell us to get an almost relationship  and invalidate all of our raw emotions following the split. This all goes back to not being allowed to be sad or cry over losing this person. Because you weren’t together long enough for everyone to view as a “justifiable” amount of time in order to be allowed to be upset.

You have to get used to a new normal 

Just because you were not dating officially, your life, for awhile, had revolved around that person. You aligned your schedules to see each other. And with joint effort, found time in between work and school to meet, anxiously looking forward to every minute. Thus, this became your sense of normalcy that you’ve been craving in your life.

And now you have to begin the adjustment. The adjustment of not waking up to texts from that person every morning. For you, it’s as if you’ve lost a limb and now you have to get used to your life without it. Without that person. Without your normalcy from an almost relationship.