Breaking Up After 10 Years Of Commitment

Breaking up after 10 years

Breaking up after 10 years of being with someone is extremely challenging. Breakups are hard as they are, but when you break up with someone you’ve known for that long, the world comes crashing down on you.

Suddenly, you feel unworthy and completely lost. You don’t know if you should fight for the relationship, beg your ex to think things through, or blame yourself for making mistakes and letting your ex fall out of love.

All you know is that a decade of the relationship has intertwined your life with your ex’s and that you got so used to being with your ex that you can’t even imagine being with someone else.

Pleasant memories of your ex make you nostalgic and hinder you from accepting reality and letting go. They constantly tell you that your ex was the best you ever had and ever will have. That plus overwhelming separation anxiety and all kinds of intrusive thoughts make you put your ex on a pedestal and prevent you from focusing on yourself and moving on.

Holding onto hope feels extremely empowering as you don’t want to believe that your ex has detached and changed so much that he or she doesn’t feel any love for you. Deep inside, you want to think that your ex got the grass is greener syndrome and that he or she will come back when nostalgia and regret kick in.

Although your ex could indeed come running back, you need to understand that it could take a while. Your ex will need to go through all the stages of a breakup and fail in some painful way. Only then could your ex start to notice that he or she developed false perceptions of you (or of someone else) and took you for granted.

Until then though, your ex will crave freedom and independence. Your ex will want to be left alone and do the things he or she has been meaning to do for some time. You shouldn’t expect your ex to miss you just because you’d spent 10 years together.

10 years is indeed a lot of years. But you shouldn’t underestimate the power of detachment. When the dumper loses feelings (whether it’s after a year or 40 years of a relationship), the dumper is done and over with the relationship.

He or she fancies other things or people and doesn’t want to be persuaded by you or reminded by you. Memories don’t affect your ex the way they affect you because your ex emotionally disconnected from you and can’t feel nostalgic right after the breakup.

Your ex can only feel relieved (if you back off) or pressured (if you refuse to back off).

So if you and your ex broke up after 10 years, don’t tell your ex what he or she is missing out on and try to force your ex to feel sentimental. This won’t work until your ex has processed the breakup and entered an emotional state that allows your ex to question his or her thoughts, feelings, decisions, and actions.

I know it’s hard to just let go of a relationship that lasted for 10 years. I know it’s painful not to convince your ex to give the relationship another chance. But if you do that, you’ll push your ex into a corner and make your ex respond in ways he or she responds when people pressure him or her.

Many people, unfortunately, don’t respond well to pressure and disrespect. They never learned to control such emotions, so they respond emotionally and instinctually. This usually means they lose their patience and get angry.

Some people even argue with their ex, call their ex names, and threaten their ex with blocking.

Regardless of whether your ex has experience with smothering emotions, you mustn’t think you have the power to change your ex’s mind. As a dumpee, you lost the power to charm the dumper. All you can do now is make things worse.

And making the breakup worse entails receiving an unwanted response from your ex and getting your reconciliation hope crushed.

If you want your self-esteem not to plunge more than it already has, you have to follow the rules of no contact and let your ex come to you when or if your ex is ready. That’s the only way you’ll win.

In this post, we talk about couples who are breaking up after 10 years. We discuss how 10 years of a relationship can help your ex change his or her mind about the breakup and share some crucial tips with you.

Breaking up after 10 years

Breaking up after 10 years of commitment

If you’re breaking up after 10 years of being with your partner, the first thing you should do is accept the breakup. You don’t have to like it and pretend you’re over your ex the moment you get dumped, but do show that you understand the situation, that you know your worth, and that you won’t try to force your ex to love you.

Exuding self-worth will instantly make your ex respect you or at the very least, stop your ex from feeling trapped, despising you, and thinking you’re desperate for love and recognition.

Your ex needs to see that you’re not crazy obsessed with him/her and that you value yourself above all else. Failure to prove your worth will not just result in another painful rejection, but it will also decrease the chances of your ex wanting to be with you ever again.

Once you’ve proven that you can handle the breakup, stand up for yourself and cut your ex out of your life for good. If you didn’t have an ugly breakup, your ex might try to keep you around as a friend and slowly wean off you.

By “wean off,” I don’t mean that your ex needs to go through painful breakup stages and learn to accept the situation. That’s your job as you were the one who was painfully rejected.

What I’m saying is that your ex has a connection with you, gets along with you, and might want your help letting go of guilt.

Although there’s nothing wrong with helping the dumper forgive himself or herself for dumping you and hurting you, a lot is wrong with staying friends with your ex just to help your ex move on with a clear conscience.

It’s extremely unfair to you as you don’t get anything positive out of it.

In fact, every time you communicate with your ex, you reopen your wounds and become hopeful. Hope, unfortunately, significantly delays your recovery time and lets your ex see that you’re willing to settle for less than you deserve.

So if you’re breaking up after 10 years of being with this person, let him or her leave. Open the door for your ex and let your ex know you’ll be focusing on yourself and that you don’t want to communicate anymore.

Say it’s not personal, but that you need to do what’s best for you.

Your ex might try to guilt-trip you into settling for friendship, but don’t let your ex manipulate you. A friendship with your ex will only give your ex more power and further strip you of your worth.

Instead of letting your ex have the cake and eat it too, remind yourself that your ex broke a 10-year commitment and that he or she doesn’t deserve the second-best thing.

Your ex deserves nothing but space and quiet.

A person who leaves you after 10 years, takes a part of your life with him or her. The dumper acts selfishly, refuses to work on himself/herself and the relationship, stops seeing your value, and thinks someone else will do a better job than you.

That doesn’t sound like someone you should be friends with. You can be friends (or occasional friends) with an ex when you break up mutually and don’t have any feelings left. But even such a friendship should be limited as it wouldn’t be fair to your next partners.

If you’re having a difficult time accepting the breakup, accepting your mistakes and flaws, and feeling better, you should take a pen and paper and write down everything your ex did poorly. Start by writing down your ex’s shortcomings, vices, mean/unhealthy words and behaviors, and how your ex dumped you and why.

When you understand that your ex quit a long-term relationship and get your rational thinking back, you’ll stop blaming yourself for “letting the breakup happen” and start viewing your ex as a quitter.

This change in thinking will allow you to stop feeling anxious, depressed, and scared for your safety and future and enable you to see reality as it is. It will help you acknowledge that the relationship wasn’t as great as it needed to be to survive its problems.

Even if you didn’t argue a lot as a couple, you’ll see that your ex lacked the commitment, perseverance, and/or communication skills necessary for resisting temptations and dealing with relationship difficulties.

Breakups happen for a reason. That reason may not have much or anything to do with you, but it does have a lot to do with your ex. If your ex was self-aware, mature, and capable of identifying personal flaws and resolving them before they snowballed into big issues, your ex would have fixed the things that needed fixing and avoided breaking up.

But because your ex didn’t understand himself or herself, your ex probably associated his or her problems with you and quit when the relationship became difficult to maintain. Even a 10-year-old relationship can become difficult when a person neglects himself, refuses to take accountability, and projects his own issues onto his romantic partner.

You have a slightly different problem if your ex’s communication was good but you refused to listen, change, and grow. In that case, you were the one who took your ex for granted and thought your ex would just tolerate anything and everything.

At some point, people start feeling unheard and unimportant and get tired of hurting and explaining the same things over and over again. When they reach the boiling point, they start planning their way out of the relationship and sometimes even start thinking about getting into a relationship with someone else.

If you didn’t do anything to show you were on the same page as your ex, your ex slowly lost feelings and decided he or she was going to be happier without you or with someone else.

Despite that, you still need to leave your ex alone so that your ex can have the space to think, feel, and do anything his or her heart desires.

Telling your ex you’ve learned your mistakes and fixed them will only annoy your ex as your ex will feel trapped and think you’ve started taking things seriously way too late.

So if your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend broke up with you after 10 years, identify your flaws and allow yourself to grieve. Remember that you’re attached to your ex and that you and your ex both want different things right now.

Your ex wants space and you want another chance. The only way you can get another chance is if your ex also wants another chance. And your ex will want that if your ex processes breakup emotions and encounters a challenging problem he or she needs your help with.

Here’s what you must do if you’re breaking up after 10 years of commitment.

Break up after 10 years

How long will it take to let go of a relationship that lasted 10 years?

Long-term relationships take longer to let go of than relationships that lasted just a few months. That’s because long-term couples combine their lives and abandon parts of their pre-relationship identity. They become one person and get comfortable and safe around each other.

When someone pulls away, though, that changes very quickly. Their safety is immediately put at risk, leaving their vulnerabilities exposed.

In other words, if their self-esteem is low, they tend to take the breakup very personally and suffer immensely.

An attached person always suffers the most as he or she has romantic expectations and depends on the other person for safety and validation.

It’s hard to say how long it will take you to let go of a relationship that lasted 10 years.

But the time it will take you strongly depends on:

  • your coping mechanisms
  • your support system
  • your post-breakup mistakes
  • your ex’s willingness and ability to give you closure
  • how good your self-esteem
  • Whether you’ve been through a breakup before (the first breakup is usually the hardest)
  • How badly your ex treated you after the breakup
  • how insecure, attached, or codependent you are
  • how great your life is and what you do to distract yourself

Dumpees who recover the quickest typically stay in no contact and avoid dating (rebounding). They focus on themselves and friendships, improve themselves, and set goals that have nothing to do with their ex.

Such dumpees know their ex can’t help them heal and that they need to take their minds off their ex. It doesn’t matter how they do that as long as they distract themselves and understand the breakup will take some time to get over.

On average, a breakup takes around 8 months to process. But super long-term relationships and relationships where the dumpee was codependent can take twice as long or even longer. A year and a half of recovery time is usually enough for the dumpee to detach, let go of hope, and feel ready to enjoy life and start a new relationship.

Breakups are a marathon, not a sprint. They require lots of reflecting, self-distracting, and participating in activities you may not feel like joining. The more you do these things, the more identity you regain and the more confident you feel.

Breaking up after 10 years is no joke. It’s a big portion of your life you won’t get back. But what you can do is practice forgiveness and self-forgiveness and avoid chasing your ex.

If your ex wants to be with someone else, that’s your ex’s choice. It doesn’t mean you’re not worth committing to but that your ex has other plans. Your plans must also not be about your ex. They must be about you so you can rebuild your self-esteem and realize your ex gave you an opportunity to grow and figure out what kind of person you want to be with.

Are you breaking up after 10 years? What’s the worst about breaking up after being together with your ex for so long? Share your experiences and feel free to ask questions in the comments below.

And lastly, if you’re looking for 1-on-1 breakup guidance, check out our breakup coaching services.

9 thoughts on “Breaking Up After 10 Years Of Commitment”

  1. My ex left me after 10 years. It was like his love switch was turned OFF. I suffered a bit, but I met an amazing boy who’s literally saving my life. I couldn’t believe my ex would turn his feelings for me from love to gut hate, but I also hate him now and I love my new boyfriend so much…

    1. Hi Kile.

      I’m glad you’re doing well, but try not to hate your ex. Hate hurt you, not your ex. It may give you a feeling of strength, but it’s not the kind of feeling you want or need. Let go of anger focus on the positive things with your new partner.

      Sincerely,
      Zan

  2. “Suddenly, you feel unworthy and completely lost. You don’t know if you should fight for the relationship, beg your ex to think things through, or blame yourself for making mistakes and letting your ex fall out of love.” Zan, seem you wrote this for me. I was in a 10years thing with my ex and when she dumped me., it was nothing to her. She started back with another man that happens to be my birthday mate and they are married now. I am happy for her but I feel bad like i djdnt mean a thing to ber at all over those years. Wow. That realization keep hitting me hard like very hard because we had history together and boom it’s gone. That relationship taught me lot of lessons especially that its a thin line between love and hate and people change, people are dynamic, nothing also last foreveer .It shaped my thinking and how I perceived life. People change and love fades away… Only the real. Ones stays no matter the storm. This article was for me OMG… Wow… Thanks Zan🌷🌹 🌷

    1. Hi lb.

      So sorry you went through this. Nobody should have to go through so much pain because of another person. 10 years of being with someone is a lot! She should definitely have shown you more respect and kindness just for taking the journey with her.

      People can go from love to hate very quickly. Especially exes because they feel smothered.

      Best regards,
      Zan

  3. John, Rick, I can really feel you here.

    For me it feels like a lifetime is gone but as times goes by it also feels like I have a second chance in life.

    I had ten years before and another 14 married, also have a kid together, he is 13.

    I was blindsided as we had endured a lot together and they way she dumped me showed minimal respect to the marriage, her own choices with me and the family.

    Rick, in the beginning I too wanted to prove to her, to her folks and to myself I can do miracles

    Now, a year later I am glad I understood these choices of mine are here to stay and actually were the best for me, and I managed to prove myself to me and my son above anything else.

    Training, reading, socializing with friends, devoting to the kid, and so much more

    I gained muscle while losing weight, last week I run a marathon successfully with minimal preparation

    Same time I see in real life what Zan writes about all the time , I evolved as a dumpee and I will keep on no matter what. Did she evolve ? Seems hardly if any at all.

    She cheated, failed to even acknowledge her own issues and even told me she wanted the divorce but not so fast as I did.

    It hardly hurts now compared to a year back, meanwhile I feel healthier, live to the fullest and enjoy my new life.

    Zan, I notice women are less sentimental than men nowadays, agree ? This is an idea for an article of yours, women and men as dumper or dumpee

    Very different.

  4. Hi Zan,
    Thank you for this article, you just described the situation I have gone through.
    After a 9 years relationship (4 years living together + 5 years of marriage) my wife told me she wanted a divorce. I was totally blindsided by this and did not really understand at the time the reasons for her decision. I still don’t actually.
    Just a few months before our separation, I had realized that something was wrong by how distant she had become, but she never brought up the topic and never did I, so things continued until she said she was done and she wanted to move out.
    I had also found out that she had an emotional affair behind my back with some guy at work, but I never confronted her, I just tried to make things better by trying to spend more time together, going out on dates, etc..
    My biggest mistake was I think, like the dating guy once sais in one of his videos, that « i had lost interest in myself, and that I had lost interest in her ». By this, I mean that I had gone a little bit out of shape, and that I had started to spend more time enjoying different hobbies of mine than spending romantic time with her.
    But hey, after 10 years together, isn’t it an easy trap to fall into ?
    And above all, is that a reason to ask for a divorce ? To treat someone like that after 10 years together ?
    It’s been three years now and I still think about her. One of the reasons I guess is that I still have not found a new partner. I live in a big city and dating is a complete nightmare here. and i find it more and more difficult to find a descent girl with whom I could build something.
    I must say that I am a bit lost at the moment.

    1. I’m in a pretty similar situation Rick. It’s been a nightmare I’m slowly waking up from after 2+ years of this. I am trying to focus on myself now. I lost the extra pounds, got a better job, and did everything to prove my worth to her. She is much the same. I am, slowly, coming to the conclusion that you know what, she’s the one who gave up, she doesn’t deserve a guy like me now. Going to be cutting her out of my life as much as possible. Long road ahead though. Best of luck.

    2. Hi Rick.

      All couples go through ups and downs and deviate a little bit. We all neglect ourselves and our partners to some degree (some more than others, of course). The important thing is that you talk about feelings and problems with your problem. By talking about them, you can avoid falling out of love and developing feelings for other people. Your ex didn’t communicate these things with you, hence why you don’t need to blame yourself at all. Remind yourself she was responsible for opening up to you and that you aren’t supposed to guess her problems.

      Best regards,
      Zan

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