Were You Blindsided By A Breakup?

Blindsided breakups are the worst. They hit dumpees out of the blue and leave them with tons of pain and separation anxiety. Unlike dumpers who are detached and don’t care about their partners, dumpees are attached and care more than ever.

They love their partners inside out and don’t expect to get broken up with.

They have a positive relationship mentality and a false sense of control that makes them think they can talk about problems and fix them before the breakup ensues.

Because they’re emotionally invested and convinced they can resolve relationship problems before they snowball into unresolvable issues, dumpees remain loyal to the relationship and expect their partner to be communicative, respectful, mature, and patient.

They believe their partner will express problems and concerns like them and act how they would act.

Little do they know that their partner isn’t wired and developed the same way as them. Their partner has a mind of his or her own and doesn’t think, feel, or behave like them. Their partner behaves in line with his or her own values, upbringing, beliefs, and behavioral patterns dumpees aren’t aware of.

They may know their partner’s positive personality traits or even some bad ones, but they never saw how their partner dealt with overwhelming stress, suffocation, and a loss of romantic interest.

They’re completely oblivious in that regard, so they assume their partner will always express difficult emotions and problems the way he or she did throughout the relationship.

And that’s a very dangerous way of thinking because relationships and breakups are two separate entities. In relationships, people care, love, and respect their partners. They need to respect them and stay connected to them to get love from them.

In breakups, however, that’s not the case. Dumpers don’t need anything from their exes because they don’t have any romantic expectations. They just want to be left alone to their own devices and think and feel what they want.

Freedom and peace of mind are their top priority.

Dumpees tend to forget that people’s feelings change in relationships. Their perceptions of their partners change according to their thoughts, emotions, and experiences. If they have their life under control because they have the tools to keep it under control, they remain level-headed and think positively about their partner and life in general.

But if they’re unhappy, miserable, depressed, angry, and resentful, they tend to project their discontent onto their partner and associate unhealthy thoughts and emotions with their partner. They make their partner into someone they can’t benefit from and think of him or her as a liability.

When their partner becomes a liability in their eyes, they quickly initiate the breakup and transform their partner into an ex-partner. That’s when they try to disassociate from their partner completely. They don’t want to talk about getting back together or anything related to the breakup.

That would be extremely uncomfortable for them as the breakup significantly increases their discomfort and brings out the very worst in them.

Often, “the worst” entails never before seen outbursts.

These outbursts indicate that dumpers have been thinking and feeling relationship-destructive thoughts and emotions for a while and that they want to run away from their ex as quickly as possible. The quicker they get away from their ex, the quicker they can feel relieved and in control of their life again.

Dumpers simply don’t want to stick around longer than they have to. They’re emotionally exhausted from prolonging the breakup and trying to make things work. In their mind, they’re convinced they’ve done everything they could to change their partner and make the relationship work.

They don’t understand that relationships require communication, openness, acceptance, patience, gratitude, understanding, and a strong conviction that their relationship makes them happy and that they’re responsible for maintaining it.

Most dumpers just tell themselves that their relationship shouldn’t be as hard as it is and that abandoning it brings them way more joy than staying in it. This is the belief that causes them to put themselves first and their dumpee last.

So if you were blindsided by a breakup and wonder why your ex broke up with you so suddenly and irresponsibly, keep in mind that your ex suffered long before he or she broke up with you. Your ex just didn’t express it to you because your ex wasn’t the best communicator.

Or if he or she did inform you, you didn’t think it was as bad as it was and/or couldn’t do anything about it.

Today, we talk about blindsiding breakups. Many dumpees seem to be completely blindsided by them, so let’s debate why that happens and what you can do about it.

What’s a blindsided breakup?

I frequently hear dumpees say their relationship was good and that they were blindsided by their ex. But when I dig deeper, I often discover that their relationship wasn’t as great as they say. Dumpees tend to make it sound great because they’re devastated by the breakup and think about the things that made them happy.

After talking to them, I discover that their ex had been treating them poorly for months, that romance and intimacy were non-existent, that their ex wasn’t emotionally receptive and around much, and that things haven’t been as great as they thought.

Most dumpees I talked to could tell something was off but didn’t willingly admit it at first.

That’s why we need to clarify what a blindsided breakup is. First of all, all breakups are shocking and denial-causing. People get hurt by romantic rejections and instinctively try to protect their emotional well-being and security.

Breakups cause them to lose control over their partner’s love, so they experience a distressing hormonal withdrawal and try to understand what went wrong. By understanding the cause of the breakup, they can begin to grieve, heal, and lose false hope.

But despite dumpees being in a lot of pain, that doesn’t mean their breakup is blindsiding. A blindsided breakup is a breakup dumpees don’t see coming. They get hit unexpectedly by it and suffer immensely because of it.

Whether this is because their ex hid their thoughts and emotions from them or because they were naive or bad at picking up signs of detachment, the breakup took them by surprise and made them wonder why it happened. Such a breakup can be considered a blindsided breakup and generally takes longer to deal with than a predictable one.

You see, many dumpers show at least a few signs of detachment before they abandon the relationship. Even dumpers who ghost usually show or express unhappiness and suffocation.

They spend more time on their own or with their friends and family, bond less, appear online late at night, make excuses not to meet up, look tired, stressed, or angry, decline intimacy, and show very little interest in their partner.

They do these things not to punish their partner but to do what feels right to them (rest). Space and alone time feel liberating to them as they make them feel calm and safe. That’s why they eventually realize they’ve been happier since they’ve distanced themselves and that they must muster up the courage to tell their partner the bad news.

On the flip side, not all dumpers deploy the slow fade. Some dumpers keep their thoughts and emotions to themselves and make their detachment unknown to their dumpee. They’re so good at hiding their behaviors/emotions and justifying them that their dumpee doesn’t even realize their love is gone.

If the dumpee does realize it, the dumpee often thinks their partner is going through a rough patch and that everything will work out in the end. The dumpee is more invested in the relationship, so naturally, the dumpee is much more patient and optimistic than his or her significant other.

The dumpee is hopeful and ready to talk/fix things whereas the dumper is hopeless and eager to focus entirely on himself or herself.

This is one of the reasons dumpees get blindsided after the breakup.

A blindsided breakup causes them overwhelming shock and trauma and forces them to get in denial. Denial then prevents them from coping with the breakup properly and accepting the truth necessary for healing.

So if your ex blindsided you, your ex made it seem like everything was fine until the very end. He or she refused or failed to communicate unhealthy thoughts and feelings and chose to internalize them instead.

And because relationships require tip-top communication from both parties, your ex got tired of staying in a relationship and concluded that the relationship couldn’t be saved and that it was better to break up and focus on yourselves.

The thing with dumpers is that they focus on the bad things in the relationship instead of the good ones. By doing so, they take their partner for granted and let doubts and fears destroy their weakened feelings and commitment to the relationship.

To stay with their partner, they need to do the opposite of what their heart tells them. They must realize they’re detaching from their partner, get rid of people or things confusing them, and wholeheartedly practice forgiveness, self-forgiveness, and gratitude.

That’s how they can stop themselves from falling out of love with the person they’re with. To my awareness, there are two kinds of romantic love. The first kind is the emotional one. This love is what most people refer to as love. It’s a feeling in the gut that tells you you want or need your partner in your life.

The second kind of love is more rational but just as important (maybe even more). It’s an understanding that love isn’t all sunshine and rainbows and that relying on emotions for love is a bad idea.

Relationships need commitment and determination. Without the will to persevere, a couple breaks up the moment they feel stressed and overwhelmed with negative feelings.

So keep in mind that there is no such thing as a sudden breakup. To you, it seemed like it happened overnight because you didn’t anticipate the breakup. But to your partner, it dragged on for ages.

Here’s what a blindsided breakup is.

The dangers of being blindsided by a breakup

Blindsided breakups are very dangerous for dumpees because they shock dumpees and make them deal with rejection. They give dumpees no time to prepare for the devastating consequences of a breakup and force them to begin accepting the breakup the moment the breakup occurs.

That is the hardest thing for dumpees to do.

Dumpees hoped to stay together with their ex but were instead indirectly told they weren’t good enough and that they must forget about the feelings, time, and plans they’ve put into the relationship.

They must let go of everything just like dumpers have and focus on themselves.

The hardest thing about blindsided breakups is that they often traumatize dumpees. They surprise them and hurt them so badly, dumpees can’t eat or sleep, go to work, and do their daily tasks. Sudden breakups tend to shatter dumpees’ self-esteem and stop them from enjoying their lives for a while.

Some dumpees get out of denial and back on their feet after a week or so whereas others need weeks or longer to recover.

How long it takes them to process rejection depends on:

• How blindsided they are
• What their self-esteem is like
• What post-breakup mistakes they make
• What they do to accept the breakup and relieve anxiety
• And what their ex does to hurt them, confuse them, and string them along

I’m not saying a slow-fading breakup is better than a blindsided one, but at least a slow-fading one shows the dumper stayed and fought for a while. The dumper was rationally committed to the relationship until emotions overwhelmed the dumper and forced him or her to give up and go separate ways.

Both breakups cause immense pain and grief and affect the dumpee’s self-esteem. But the slow-dying relationship is the lesser of two evils as it comes as less of a shock. Dumpees are better prepared for the worst and have somewhat of an idea as to why the breakup occurred.

In other words, they blame themselves less and feel less anxious.

How to deal with blindsided breakup trauma?

Dealing with a blindsided breakup requires lots of self-control and breakup knowledge. You need to understand that the reason your ex blindsided you has nothing to do with who you are as a person. Your personality is irrelevant to your ex as your ex chose to hide things from you.

Although your ex didn’t have to give you warning signs that the relationship was ending, he or she needed to be more expressive, empathetic, and willing to explain how he or she felt and didn’t feel.

Had your ex done that, you would have been aware of the problems and might have had enough time to fix them.

I can’t say with certainty that you would have stayed together with your ex, but at least you wouldn’t have gotten blindsided and hurt so badly.

To deal with a blindsided breakup, you need to get closure (figure out why the breakup happened). Having some sort of explanation for the breakup (whether it’s true or not) is essential for your heart to start accepting the breakup and letting go of your ex.

If your ex isn’t communicating with you and explaining what happened, don’t try to get closure from your ex forcefully. You’ll probably get rejected and hurt again because you can’t force an ex to do what he or she doesn’t want to do.

Instead, you must get closure on your own by talking to people about the breakup and figuring out what or who might have been responsible for breaking up. Once you’ve learned what caused the separation, you must then stay away from your ex and let no contact heal your wounds.

It will take time to process blindsided breakup trauma, but rest assured that no contact is the most effective method. It will help you forget about your ex and gradually prepare you for a life without your ex.

So start no contact the moment you get closure (or fail to get closure from your ex). Your healing from this traumatic experience strongly depends on your self-respect and the things you do to accept the breakup.

Were you blindsided by a breakup? What did your ex do and how did he or she make you feel? Let us know in the comments section below the post.⬇️⬇️

And if you don’t know what went wrong in your relationship and want to talk to us for closure, sign up for coaching with us.

Zan

My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.