Break Up - Missing Her, Songs of Missing Love

3 Doors Down - Here Without You

Davis Daniel - I Miss Her Missing Me

Brad Paisley - I'm gonna miss her

 

Avril Lavigne - I Miss You/Slipped Away

 

Incubus - I Miss You (Acoustic)

Incubus - Wish You were Here

 

You & Me

The Rolling Stones - Miss You

 

Love Hurts, & Men Feel The Pain Longer

Check out what our neighbors to the north have discovered: men are about twice as likely to report depression stemming from divorce than women.

According to the AFP news agency, men aged 20 to 64 who had divorced or separated were six times more likely to report an episode of depression than those who remained married, according to Statistics Canada. Women, however, were only 3.5 times more likely to have had a bout of depression after a marital breakup than those still in a relationship.

Neither the study nor the news report on it gave any real indication of why this was. What would have been interesting is if they paired these statistics with ones on who initiates divorce and reasons cited for the split. I wonder, for example, if women are initiating the divorces more because of cheating spouses and the like. In which case they are probably six times more likely to be pissed off after divorce than men. Or hey, vice versa.

But do check out that little happy nugget of news at the bottom. Turns out it takes only four years to get over the complete and utter devastation of losing the person you love. Well sheesh, if they can solve that one, now can they tell us how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop?


The Break Up Girl can offer solutions and advice for both men and women, whether together, apart, or working on it.

http://www.breakupgirl.net/advice/moveon.html

After the break-up, your "first love" never really leaves you, according to student research at UC Berkeley

   

After the break-up, your "first love" never really leaves you, according to student research at UC Berkeley

07 Feb 2001

By Kathleen Scalise, Media Relations

Berkeley - Whether your heart belongs to anyone this Valentine's Day may depend on what happened the first time you fell in love.

This new finding, by University of California, Berkeley, graduate student Jennifer Beer, challenges the notion commonly held since Freud that the stability of the parent-child relationship sets the stage for attachment later in life.

With romance, said Beer, "Some of the problems you have in the romantic domain may have more to do with your first love than with your parents." She based her work on the first-love stories of 303 UC Berkeley undergraduates, mostly juniors, collected in 1997.

By "first love," Beer doesn't mean a childhood crush on a teacher or movie star, but the first real relationship of a romantic nature between two individuals, often experienced in adolescence or early adult years. Those who remember the experience positively are more likely to consider themselves securely attached to their current romantic partners, she said, and to perceive their romantic partners as securely attached to them.

She now is looking at how such recent and distant "vivid" representations of self and partner are stored in different memory systems in the brain and what this might reveal about self-perception.

"Vivid memories are very detailed, self-defining, something you recall a lot, stories and anecdotes you dwell on or tell all the time," Beer said.

In the case of first love, such memories often range from bittersweet but fond - perhaps recollections of a poignant puppy love tinged with regard or regret for a long-ago sweetheart - to deeply painful, soul-crushing experiences.

Whatever happened, "it can set you up as thinking, 'This is what I am like as a relationship partner,' " Beer said.

People who recollect their first romantic experience as involving good feelings, for instance, citing memories of happiness, excitement, strength, inspiration, pride and enthusiasm, were more likely to be in stable relationships years later than those recalling hostility, upset, stress, guilt, fright or shame, Beer found.

"First love relationships often break up. So people say, 'What do you mean, good feelings? It was a breakup,' " she said. "But even though the relationship ended, which seems like it might be negative, the vivid memories surrounding the experience can be good or bad."

As an example of a good experience, Beer cited one respondent who suffered greatly because her former boyfriend dated other women immediately after their relationship ended. But, prior to that, the experience had been a positive taste of what love could be, and the woman learned what made her happy in a relationship.

Alternatively, Beer described a stormier experience that left the respondent years later with the unshakeable suspicion that all men were untrustworthy.

"This is wrong, but I cannot help myself," the respondent commented. "One negative experience has been enough to change my entire outlook on men."

Beer identified four patterns of perception surrounding relationships:

* Secure - A secure, positive sense of both self and partner in a relationship.

* Dismissive -A positive sense of self, but not of partner.

* Preoccupied - A positive sense of partner, but not of self.

* Fearful - Negative recollections of both.

Those with memories of positive emotion and outcomes from their first relationship "were more likely to have positive views of self and others in romantic relationships," Beer said. "Those with more negative emotions and outcome were more likely to show one of the other three patterns."

 http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2001/02/07_love.html

Break Up - Love Quotes: Moving On & Letting Go Of Your Love

Sometimes the cards we are dealt are not always fair. However you must keep smiling & moving on

Moving on, is a simple thing, what it leaves behind is hard.

To be able to move on, one has to learn to forgive not only the person (or people) who have done one wrong but also oneself

By forgiving and choosing to move on, one takes the power back to morph it into positive energy.

Life is about making the right decisions and moving on.

Forgiveness and letting go are steps on our road back to happiness.

That time plus distance equaled moving on from your ex.

What's the point of pointing the finger, other than to stall your own progress in moving on?

If you're serious about moving on in your life, all you have to do at this point is be willing to have your path be an enlightened one.

The fact is you can't escape the past by moving on, it just moves with you.

Often the thought of pain is actually worse that the pain itself.

You are responsible for your life. You can't keep blaming somebody else for your dysfunction. Life is really about moving on.

Take a second out to think about this: in your life you search and search for the right person for you. Every time you break up with someone you get one step closer to that person. You should look at moving on as getting closer to meeting the one.

Quietly forgiving and moving on is a gift to God ~ and yourself.

When you start to abandoning your old beliefs or values... you may be stuck at the threshold for two or three years. Before moving on, you have to clear away your cherished beliefs.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but simply moving on with dignity despite that fear.

You may have buried or repressed your own power for so long a time that you feel incapable of moving on without the strength and support of a lover, even the lover you just left behind.

Drinking, eating, shopping,revenge,,rebound sex,drugs or whatever your poison may be will number the pain - but that's all.

If you bury the pain deep down it will stay with you indefinitely, but if you open yourself to it, experience it, and deal with it head-on, you'll find it begins to move on after a while.

one shot at a time and then move on. Remember that golf is just

The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can and as often as you can, and keep moving on.

A graduation is a small but significant tradition that I think everyone should take part in. What a great way to symbolize a part of your journey and to represent your thoughts for moving on.

Moving On has allowed me to know who I am and to be present in all that I do. I take this forward in my work and in my personal relationships. It is a powerful program and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to move on with their life.

If someone you love hurts you cry a river, build a bridge, and get over it.

Letting go doesn't mean giving up... it means moving on. It is one of the hardest things a person can do. Starting at birth, we grasp on to anything we can get our hands on, and hold on as if we will cease to exist when we let go. We feel that letting go is giving up, quitting, and that as we all know is cowardly. But as we grow older we are forced to change our way of thinking. We are forced to realize that letting go means accepting things that cannot be. It means maturing and moving on, no matter how hard you have to fight yourself to do so.

Read more: http://www.finestquotes.com/select_quote-category-Moving on-page-0.htm#ixzz1fzkm8Z7Q

Joe Cocker - You Are So Beautiful

There is just no other,  no face, voice, hair, soul, or being that I see as having any beauty at all.

It's just too late for my recovery of what was lost due to lack of recognition.  For family and Anna, all so much beauty, once clouded by life's overwhelming demands and my confusion.

====================

Eric Clapton & Joe Cocker You Are So Beautiful Live ARMS '83

Brent Amaker and The Rodeo - You Ain´t Savin Me

Brent Amaker & the Rodeo - When Love Gets to a Man

Brent Amaker & The Rodeo - Doomed

Brent Amaker and the Rodeo is an American Country Western band from Seattle, Washington consisting of Brent Amaker, Tiny Dancer, Sugar McGuinn, Ben Strehle, and Bryan Crawford.

Brent Amaker and the Rodeo formed in Seattle, Washington, in 2005. The band’s image recalls influential country musician Johnny Cash, ‘The Man in Black’, as they dress head-to-toe in black with matching Stetson hats and cowboy boots. They are billed as influenced by art rock performers Devo and glam rock’s David Bowie.

Much emphasis is put into the band’s image as evidenced by a large collection of photos and music videos done by the band, fans, and photographers and videographers. The Rodeo have a cinematic quality and are often put in context of spaghetti western films made by Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone.

Their concerts often feature a dancing girl from local burlesque troupes and a phenomenon only known as the “Whiskey Baptism” where Amaker welcomes new fans into the “Church of the Rodeo” by pouring shots of liquor into their mouths.

Recently, they have been gaining notoriety from their cover of “Pocket Calculator” by German electro-pioneers Kraftwerk.

They also performed in the indie slasher film “Punch” directed by Jay Cynik. Cynik also wrote a comic book based on the exploits of the band on tour called “Mescal de la Muerte.” Illustrated by Portland, Oregon artist, Simon Young, the graphic adult novel was included in their 2010 release “Please Stand By.
Doomed

The best country music expresses profound things in the commonest of terms, and these postmodern cowpokes do a decent job approaching that. “In the end/ We’re all doomed/ Even if you’re living/ On the moon” on “Doomed” comes off as just careless rather than an endearingly glib take on mortality. But based on the hooting and hollering from the band during the interlude before the last chorus, that’s not their main concern. If country music really is for the everyman, why shouldn’t songs about the apocalypse two-step in on nursery-rhyme couplets? – J. Arthur Bloom – Tiny Mix Tapes

Doomed was featured in the closing song of Showtime’s series finale of Weeds on September 26, 2011.

In the end We’re all doomed

Even if your livin’ on the moon

We’re all doomed.

Super volcano near

Even if we get out of here

We’re all doomed.

We’re doomed.

Enjoy your stay while you’re here

We’re Doomed.

So take this time to pass some love around

And tell your friends before they’re dead

Love is the only legacy you leave behind

Love is the only legacy you leave behind

And we’re all doomed

In the end We’re all doomed (yee haw)

Even if your livin’ on the moon

We’re all doomed.

How ’bout the big line across the sky

If it’s here we’re gonna die

Everyone dies

So take this time to pass some love around

And tell your friends before they’re dead

Love is the only legacy you leave behind

Love is the only legacy you leave behind (yes it is)

Love is the only legacy you leave behind

And we’re all doomed

Audio from the 2010 album, Please Stand By:

 The best country music expresses profound things in the commonest of terms, and these postmodern cowpokes do a decent job approaching that. "In the end/ We're all doomed/ Even if you're living/ On the moon" on "Doomed" comes off as just careless rather than an endearingly glib take on mortality. But based on the hooting and hollering from the band during the interlude before the last chorus, that's not their main concern. If country music really is for the everyman, why shouldn't songs about the apocalypse two-step in on nursery-rhyme couplets?

GG Allin - Outlaw ScumFuck & Bite It You Scum - YouTube

GG Allin - Outlaw ScumFuck & Bite It You Scum - YouTube





GG Allin - Outlaw ScumFuck & Bite It You Scum


How to Cope With Cheating Girlfriend

Have You Been Cheated On

A little murdurous compilation I made using film footage from Beware (2011), Guy loses his job and boozes it up at a local, then heads home to catch his wife with her lover, and when she gets ballsy and reveals that he has fathered an illegitimate child, he reacts as he should in a world of better laws.

Skinhead Girl - Songs, Music & Videos

Skinhead Girl - Music & Videos
I always find it a pain in the ass to find some good skin girl songs for those of us who made the mistakes and lost a good one. 




# 1 FAVORITE !
Original Skin Music

Skinhead Girl by: Symarip

Evil Conduct- My Skinhead Girl

Evil Conduct (HOL) (2002) Eye For An Eye

http://www.4shared.com/file/3hOMyiHe/Evil_Conduct__HOL__-__2002__Ey.htm?aff=7637829

Evil Conduct Sorry No!

http://www.4shared.com/file/cLeKj7vT/Evil_Conduct_-_Sorry_No.htm?aff=7637829

Skinhead Girl

Skinhead Girl ... (1)

Skinhead Girl... (2)

Skinhead Girl ... (3)

Skinhead Girls

More 

Skinhead Girls

Bad Manners LIVE: 

Skinhead Girl

The Specials - Hey Little Rich Girl

Bad Manners - Skinhead Love Affair

curusbun skingirls

skinhead girl

Break Up - Salvaging A Lost Cause: Is there any hope of reconciliation?

I sit any constantly adk, "Is there any hope of reconciliation?"      

You are on the verge of breaking up, but you know you both still really love each other. While there is not much hope left of salvaging the relationship, you sometimes find yourself thinking about how much you would like to start again. The trouble is you have no idea how to start, or even if it is possible.

If the above scenario sounds familiar, then how did it go so wrong? By now you know that there is a lot of resentment between you, but how did you both let it get so far? Everyone makes mistakes and has done things that they regret. The problem is that once you start making mistakes and doing things wrong, the natural inclination is to cover your tracks.

Dishonesty and lies lead to feelings of guilt and resentment. Feelings of guilt and resentment lead to more lies and arguments. Once you start to get sucked in, this vicious circle kicks in and the lies and arguments start to build on each other. Pretty soon you start justifying your actions. How? By blaming your partner: they don't understand you, they are too snippy and argumentative, and they don't love you anymore. When this happens on both sides of the relationship, you are on a fast track to a breakup or divorce.

In order to turn this around, it is going to take a lot of soul-searching and communication. You have to rebuild the trust between the two of you and let your partner know without a doubt that you love them and are willing to take responsibility for your actions. Even if the relationship cannot be completely salvaged, you will at least make the breakup easier on both of you.

The first thing to do is to realize that there was a time when you really loved each other. Think back to how you felt when you first met or first realized that you had romantic feelings for your partner. Try to go back and actually re-experience those feelings. How your heart skipped a beat whenever you saw them or even thought of them. Think of some of the really good times you had together, when you were happy. Realize that at one stage there really was something special between the two of you and it is at least worth trying to salvage the relationship.

Next, really take a look at all the things you did wrong. Don't fall into the trap of blaming your partner for everything, you played a big part in it too, and at this stage you really need to concentrate only on your actions. It would be a great idea to get a sheet of paper and right everything down. The point of this excercise is to release some of the guilt and resentment you feel towards your partner. In order for it to work, you have to come clean - at least to yourself!

Thirdly, write a letter to your love. Explain to them that you are really sorry about the way things turned out and that you realize that you have had a huge part to play in the fact that the relationship turned sour. Talk about how you felt when you first fell in love and remind them of all the great things that have happened to you while you have been together. In order for them to trust your sincerity, however, you are probably going to have to tell them some of the things you have done that you are ashamed of. The important thing is to take responsibility for your actions, let your partner know how how you feel about them and make sure you tell them that you would really like the chance to make it up to them. Invite them on a special date, for just the two of you, so you can sit down together and clear the air, and at the very least, part as friends.

Once you have completed the above, it is really up to the two of you to sit down and discuss things to see if you have a future together. Don't try to rush things, as trust can take time to build again. But, if you at least come clean about how you feel and make an appeal to your partner's heart, you have a better chance of making it than if you didn't.

Break Up - Modern Guide to Recovery & "Getting Over It"

How to end affairs with dignity and minimal distress

Julie Spira isn’t just any writer. She bills herself as an expert on Internet dating, and wrote a book called The Perils of Cyber-Dating. When, in 2005, she met The Doctor on an online dating site, Spira was positive she’d finally found The One. “He seemed very solid and close to his family,” Spira recalls. 

He made it clear on their first date that, after the end of a lengthy marriage and a year of serial dating, he was looking for an enduring relationship. “That was very appealing to me.”

She took it as a sign of his integrity. It didn’t hurt that he was handsome, too. Eight months of exclusive dating later, The Doctor asked her to marry him.

They planned a simple wedding. But first, they put their individual homes up for sale so they could buy a place together. They went house-hunting together nearly every weekend. When her father got sick, The Doctor saved his life.

Fourteen months into their engagement, Spira received an email from her fiancé titled, simply, “Please Read This.” She put the message aside to savor after work and other commitments. When she finally clicked on it, she wished she hadn’t. “The email had an attached document. It said I was not the woman for him, that the relationship was over, and to please send back the ring. It said my belongings would be delivered tomorrow,” Spira says. “I sat there and my whole body started to shake.”
Spira had to plaster on a happy face for a few days—her parents were renewing their marriage vows at a family party on the other side of the country and she wasn’t yet ready to tell anyone about the broken engagement. “I wore my ring. I pretended my fiancé had an emergency and couldn’t make it. Then I went to my room and sobbed in secret.” Once home, she cried every day for a month. Then another electronic communiqué arrived from The Doctor. It said, in its entirety,
“Are you OK?”
That was all she ever heard from him.
The breakup left her socially paralyzed. She didn’t, couldn’t, date, even after many months. She remains single today, three years later. Disappointment ignites anger when she thinks about what happened. “It was cowardly and cruel. Where’s the human side of it? Where’s the respect from someone who was devoted to you for two years?” It’s scant comfort when people tell her that Berger dumped Carrie by Post-it note on Sex and the City. “With email, you don’t even have a guarantee that the person got your message.”
Saying good-bye is heartbreaking, and most of us are total jerks about it. Bad dumping behavior is booming, especially among the young. In one recent survey, 24 percent of respondents aged 13 to 17 said it was completely OK to break up with someone by texting, and 26 percent of them admitted to doing so. “It’s always been hard to break up with someone face to face,” says Stanford University sociologist Clifford Nass, author of The Man Who Lied to His Laptop, “but lack of social skills makes it harder. And we’re learning fewer and fewer social skills.”

As a result, remote shortcuts like electronic endings look deceptively appealing—although, at the very least, they chip away at the self-respect of the dumpers and deprive dumpees of a needed shot at closure. Little wonder that hypersensitivity to rejection is on the rise, and it’s contributing to large increases in stalking behavior, especially on college campuses. More than 3 million people report being stalking victims each year, the ultimate measure of collective cluelessness about ending love affairs well.
As drive-by breakups like Spira’s become more common, mastering the art of the ending is more necessary than ever. The average age of first marriage now hovers around 27, five years later than in 1970. Most people are having more and more serious relationships before they find the one that works. The emerging social reality demands some preparation for romantic rejection, given its potential to shatter one’s sense of self. For both parties, the experience influences how—or even whether—one moves on with life and love.
The best breakups, if there is such a thing, enable acceptance and minimize psychic wreckage, so that the pain of the ending doesn’t overwhelm the positive trace of the relationship. For the partnership will take up permanent residence in memory, likely to be revisited many times over the years. The challenge of breaking up is to close the relationship definitively and honorably, without devaluing oneself or the person who previously met one’s deepest needs. Yes, Virginia, people can fall out of love with grace and dignity—if only they learn how to give breakups a chance.

Battered by Biology

Because our brains are wired from the beginning for bonding, breakups batter us biologically. Initially, says Rutgers University anthropologist Helen Fisher, everyone reacts to rejection like a drug user going through withdrawal. In the early days and weeks after a breakup, she has found, just thinking about the lover who dumped us activates several key areas of the brain—the ventral tegmental area of the midbrain, which controlsmotivation and reward and is known to be involved in romantic love; the nucleus accumbens and the orbitofrontal/prefrontal cortex, part of thedopamine reward system and associated with craving and addiction; and the insular cortex and anterior cingulate, associated with physical pain and distress

As reported in a recent issue of the Journal of Neurophysiology, Fisher rounded up 15 people who had just experienced romantic rejection, put them in an fMRI machine, and had them look at two large photographs: an image of the person who had just dumped them and an image of a neutral person to whom they had no attachment. When the participants looked at the images of their rejecters, their brains shimmered like those of addicts deprived of their substance of choice.
“We found activity in regions of the brain associated with cocaine and nicotine addiction,” Fisher says. “We also found activity in a region associated with feelings of deep attachment, and activity in a region that’s associated with pain.”

Fisher’s work corroborates the findings of UCLA psychologist Naomi Eisenberger, who discovered that social rejection activates the same brain area—the anterior cingulate—that generates an adverse reaction to physical pain. Breakups likely stimulate pain to notify us how important social ties are to human survival and to warn us not to sever them lightly.

Although Eisenberger didn’t study romantic rejection, she expects that it actually feels much worse than the social rejection she did document. “If you’re getting pain-related activity from someone you don’t care about, it would presumably be a lot more painful from someone you sharememories with,” she points out.
The intensity of the pain may be what compels some spurned lovers to stalk their ex-partners; they’re willing to do just about anything to make the hurt go away. Fisher believes that activation of addictive centers in response to breakups also fuels stalking behavior, explaining “why the beloved is so difficult to give up.”

A Time of Broken Dreams

Biology is nowhere near the whole story. Attachment styles that emerge early in life also influence how people handle breakups later on—and how they react to them. Those with a secure attachment style—whose caregivers, by being generally responsive, instilled a sense of trust that they would always be around when needed—are most likely to approach breakups with psychological integrity. Typically, they clue their partners in about any changes in their feelings while taking care not to be hurtful.
On the receiving end of a breakup, “the secure person acknowledges that the loss hurts, but is sensible about it,” says Phillip Shaver, a University of California, Davis psychologist who has long studied attachment behavior. “They’re going to have an undeniable period of broken dreams, but they express that to a reasonable degree and then heal and move on.”

By contrast, people who develop an anxious or insecure attachment style—typically due to inconsistent parental attention during the first years of life—are apt to try to keep a defunct relationship going rather than suffer the pain of dissolving it. “The anxious person is less often the one who takes the initiative in breaking up,” Shaver says. “More commonly, they hang on and get more angry and intrusive.”
On the receiving end of a breakup, the insecurely attached react poorly. “They don’t let go,” says Shaver. “They’re more likely to be stalkers, and they’re more likely to end up sleeping with the old partner.” Their defense against pain—refusing to acknowledge that the relationship is over—precludes healing. They pine on for the lost love with little hope of relief.
Whether we bounce back from a breakup or wallow in unhappiness also depends on our general self-regard. In a University of California, Santa Barbara study where participants experienced rejection in an online dating exchange, people with low self-esteem took rejection the worst: They were most likely to blame themselves for what had happened and to rail against the rejecter. Their levels of the stress hormone cortisol ran particularly high. Such reactivity to romantic rejection often creates unhealthy coping strategies—staying home alone night after night, for example, or remaining emotionally closed off from new partners.
People with high self-esteem were not immune to distress in the face of romantic rejection, whether they were rejecter or rejectee, but they were less inclined to assume a lion’s share of the blame for the split. Best of all, they continued to see themselves in a positive light despite a brush-off.

The Clean Dozen: 12 Rules of Better Breakups

No question, breaking up is incredibly difficult because it involves giving, or receiving, bad news that engages our deepest vulnerability—the fearthat we are unlovable. Most of us are designed not only to minimize discomfort but to dislike rupturing attachments, priming us for sleights of avoidance in delivering or digesting such deeply threatening information. It takes courage to recognize we have a moral obligation to put aside personal discomfort in approaching someone we cared for and who loved us—especially when means of ducking that responsibility are so readily available. But courage pays dividends in self-respect and accelerated recovery.


Not only do our biology, psychology, and morality influence how we weather breakups, but so do the circumstances of the act. There may be little anyone can do to alter biological responsiveness, but everyone can control the way breaking up is conducted. Here, say the experts, is how to do it so that both parties remain emotionally intact, capable of weathering the inevitable pain and sadness.

1. Take full responsibility for initiating the breakup.

If your feelings or needs have changed, your dreams diverged, or your lives are going in opposite directions, don’t provoke your partner into doing the breakup. Shifting responsibility is not only a weasel tactic that diminishes the doer, says Paul Falzone, CEO of the online dating service eLove, it’s confusing. Adds Russell Friedman, executive director of the California-based Grief Recovery Institute and author of Moving On, “Trying to manipulate your partner into breaking up, like suddenly giving one-word answers in an attempt to make them say, ‘The heck with it,’ creates a sense of real distortion.” The partner may not initially get the message that you want to break up, but “will start to question themselves: ‘Am I not a valuable human being? Am I unattractive?’ ” The target may also question their own instincts and intuition. “You’re setting up the sense that the other person is to blame. You have bypassed their intuition—they can’t trust what they felt, saw, heard in the relationship.” That kind of uncertainty can cripple them in future relationships; they may not be willing to trust a new partner’s devotion or suitability.

2. Do it only face to face.

Humans evolved to communicate face to face, which provides some built-in consolations. We may experience many nonverbal cues that reassure us of our essential lovability—the quick touch on the arm that says you’re still valued even as the relationship ends. Anything less than face-to-face sends a distressing message: “You don’t matter.”
Some dumpers might think that delivering the news by email, text, or even a Facebook statement is less cruel than directly speaking the truth. But remote modes of delivery actually inflict psychic scars on the dumpee that can impede future partnerships. “When you don’t get any explanation, you spend a huge amount of time trying to figure out what’s wrong with you,” says eLove’s Paul Falzone. “And you’ll be hesitant about entering another relationship.”
Being on the receiving end of remote dumping can leave us stuck in emotional limbo, says University of Chicago neuroscientist John Cacioppo. “The pain of losing a meaningful relationship can be especially searing in the absence of direct social contact.” With no definitive closure, we’re left wondering what the heck happened, which can lead to the kind of endless rumination that often leads to depression.
“Situations where you have an incomplete picture of what’s going on are perfect ground for the development of rumination,” says Yale University psychologist Susan Nolen-Hoeksema. “It can send people into a tailspin.” Many dumpees emerge from the tailspin distrustful of others, making it difficult for them to establish closeness with future partners. “When you begin to distrust others, you make less of an investment in them,” adds Bernardo Carducci, professor of psychology at Indiana University Southeast. “So the person you meet next is going to suffer for the sins of a stranger.”
Dumpers themselves may come to re­gret surrogate sayonaras once they realize how badly their vanishing act hurt their former partners—and how little concern they showed. “Five years on, you don’t want to be ashamed of how you handled this,” says John Portmann, a moral philos­opher at the University of Virginia. Guilt and shame encumber future interactions.

3. Act with dignity.

Since a breakup is a potentially explosive scenario, resolve in advance to bite back any insults that are poised to fly out of your mouth. Preserving your partner’s self-respect has the compound effect of salvaging your own.

4. Be honest.

“I’m not in love with you anymore” is actu­ally OK. But honesty need not be a bludgeon, nor does it demand total disclosure. If you secretly think your partner is a complete snooze in bed, you’re probably better off keeping that opinion to yourself. “You have an obligation to watch out for the other person’s self-esteem,” Virginia’s Portmann says. “Do not cut them down in such a way that it’s impossible for them to have another successful relationship. Why rub salt in their wounds? That’s torture.”
“The message to get across is, ‘You’re not what I’m looking for,’” adds Florida State University psychologist Roy Baumeister. “That doesn’t imply that there’s something wrong or deficient about your partner.” It’s simply straightforward.

5. Avoid big, bad clichés like “It’s not you, it’s me.”

Such generic explanations ring false and communicate a lack of respect. You owe your partner a genuine explanation, how­ever brief, of why things aren’t working. One big caveat: If you suspect that your partner might react violently to your decision to end the relationship, don’t stick around to justify your reasoning; safety comes first.

6. Avoid a point-by-point dissection of where things fell apart.

“It’s not a good idea because there’s never going to be agreement,” says Russell Friedman. “I’ll say, ‘This is what happened,’ and you’ll say, ‘No, no.’ ” Prolonged back-and-forth often degenerates into a fight—or worse: If your partner gains the upper hand, he or she may succeed in luring you back into a dysfunctional relationship you’ve decided you want to end.

7. Make it a clean break.

Do not try to cushion the blow by suggesting future friendly meetups. “Saying ‘Let’s be friends’ might be a way for the rejecter to try to handle their own guilt, but it’s not always good for the person being rejected,” Baumeister observes. Such a misguided attempt to spare a partner pain can leave him or her hopeful there might be a chance at future reconciliation, which can hinder the efforts of both parties to move on.

8. Communicate ongoing appreciation of the good times you shared.

In exchanging good-byes, it’s even desirable, says Friedman. It’s equally fine to confide disappointment that the hopes you shared for a future together won’t be realized. Such statements convey a continued belief in your partner’s inherent value.

9. Don’t protest a partner’s decision.

And don’t beg him or her to reconsider later on. The best thing a dumpee can do to speed emotional healing is to accept that the relationship has come to an unequivocal end. In her neuroimaging studies, Helen Fisher found that the withdrawal-like reaction afflicting romantic rejectees diminished with time, indicating that they were well on their way to healing. But the recovery process is fragile, says Fisher, and last-ditch attempts to make contact or win back an ex can scuttle it. “If you suddenly get an email from the person, you can get right into the craving for them again.” To expedite moving on, she recommends abstaining from any kind of contact with the rejecter: “Throw out the cards and letters. Don’t call. And don’t try to be friends.”

10. Don’t demonize your ex-partner.

It’s a waste of your energy. And avoid plotting revenge; it will backfire by making him or her loom ever larger in your thoughts and postpone your recovery.

11. Don’t try to blot out the pain you’re feeling, either.

Short of the death of a loved one, the end of a long-term relationship is one of the most severe emotional blows you’ll ever experience. It’s perfectly normal—in fact, necessary—to spend time grieving the loss. “Love makes you terribly vulnerable,” Portmann says. “If you allow yourself to fall in love, you can get hurt really badly.” The sooner you face the pain, the sooner it passes.

12. Resist thinking you’ve lost your one true soul mate.

Don’t tell yourself you’ve lost the one person you were destined to be with forever, says Baumeister. “There’s something about love that makes you think there’s only one person for you, and there’s a mythology surrounding that. But there’s nothing magical about one person.” In reality, there are plenty of people with whom each of us is potentially compatible. It might be difficult to fathom in the aftermath of a breakup, but chances are you’ll find someone else.