I’ve noticed something I’ve never heard anyone talk about:When you break up with someone…How they react to rejection reflects who they are fundamentally.What do I mean?When you start dating someone, they have the maximum incentive to lie to you. The whole agenda is to keep your flaws under wraps for as long as possible.Hopefully, the other person will feel too invested in you by the time they figure out how much of a schmuck you are.Conversely, when you break up with someone, they have the least incentive to play nice and sweetly with you.How people react when you break up with them says a lot. Perhaps more than all of the late-night conversations ever could.When a person has no incentive to be kind to you, but they show you kindness anyway.That says a lot about a person.My ex-wife once told me she would be civil if we ever broke up.But when it came time for us to split up, she was the opposite of civil.Cruel. Bloodthirsty.She wasn’t just bitter—she was out for blood. Not content with the breakup, she wanted to destroy me.She constantly searched for new conflicts to incite and construe everything I did in some nefarious way. She tried to imply that I was stalking her.She went to court, claiming she needed a restraining order, fabricating a whole spectacle—when, in reality, she was still hoping I’d come back to her. I never looked back. Not even close.I moved two hours away to make sure the separation would stick.That girl wishes I was thinking about her so badly. Meanwhile, it’s babes everywhere.She was DELIGHTED when the judge sided with her and said that our house, which I’d put all my money into, wasn’t marital property.When she left my car unregistered for months without telling meI had to find out from the police who towed my car in the middle of the night, and I had to sleep at a roadside motel.She ran a giant smear campaign filled with lies and distortions.She enjoyed my downfall, like when she said she’d be happy if I got fired.Telling me my ex before her “was right about me.”Calling me Brian Laundrie…Calling me a pedophile.She always twisted the facts to fit her narrative.When you’re with someone who loves you, they don’t want you to know the side of them that is cruel, hurtful, and acrimonious. But that side of them, even if you have never seen it… If it’s there, it’s there.I’ve had the sobering experience on multiple occasions now of seeing a whole new side of a person come out only after the breakup, only after I stopped kissing their ass.It was sobering because I had no idea my exes possessed some of these traits while we were together.I find that so fascinating.It’s jarring to the point that I have to stop and tell myself if I knew this is what they were really like underneath it all, we would have broken up a long time ago.I had a similar experience with an ex who was all smiles and sweet like sugar while we were together, but the minute I broke up with her, she started treating me like a sworn enemy.She was always hostile when I saw her in public. She said terrible things about me…Even though she never complained while we were together.I could see in my saying hello that she was prepared to interpret anything I said as I tried to get her back. Even though I’d blocked her on every channel, including email, I never looked back.She expected that I would lock horns with her — when in reality, I went and became a Buddhist and sat in the zendo by myself for over a year—learning about compassion, forgiveness, and peace.One day, she loved me. The next, I was the villain in her story.The switch was instant—like a mask dropping.I wasn’t her ex. I was her enemy.That is one of the most baffling things ever. Being treated like public enemy number one.And, if I’m being sincere, I believe she stole something valuable from me. I don’t know precisely how or when, but my file folder with every document about my marriage went missing.It’s not something I would lose, and she’s the only person with access to it. She even once said to me ominously, “If you knew what I did, you wouldn’t want to be friendly with me.”This was a profoundly violating experience. I was depressed for a week.It tells me that what I thought was love could not have been. It couldn’t have been real if that person’s respect and goodwill for me could vanish in an instant like that. That type of treatment suggests that this person’s so-called love for me was entirely transactional and conditional to my performing a role. On me being who she wanted me to be. If my value, in your eyes, can vanish instantly like that, how could it have been real love?I broke up with you but shared much of my life with you. Things may not work out, and I may not even like how I was treated, but my desire to show that person goodwill and respect does not go away the minute they stop being my girlfriend.How are people like this?It’s as my therapist always says: most people are children ...
