My first memory of every hearing the words “losing someone” occurred when I was 6 years, and my cousin (who was nearly 17 years my senior) broke up with his long-term girlfriend.

Apparently, he took it quite hard, and several members of the family were worried about him. (I can still recall the hushed, concerned conversations between my mother and aunt wondering if he was going to be okay.) Given my age, there was little I could do to help him nor could I even relate to his situation. Still, as someone who was a very literal thinker, I assumed that if you lost someone you could find them again much like the many times I misplaced my lunch box or my favorite teddy bear.

I remember even asking my mother: Was he looking for her?

Fast forward many years later, and I found myself in a similar situation. Without going too much into the backstory it was extremely traumatic, and it was one of those break-ups where everyone around me was saying that I had done nothing to “deserve” the abrupt, callous way this man had left me.

The words of my therapist whom I saw afterwards to deal with the abandonment issues often echoed in my head:

It’s not your fault. Nothing you could have done have would have kept him from leaving you. It wouldn’t have mattered how patient, kind, or loving you were. He was going to leave.

Two months on, though, I was still unconvinced.

While rationally I knew what the therapist said was true, I nonetheless blamed myself. Journal entries from that time reflected that: If only I had been kinder, less emotional. If only I had been more special to him, then he wouldn’t have left.

As someone who always considered herself an emotionally strong woman, it was downright cringe-worthy to admit these thoughts to myself, but it was how I truly felt at the time.

I soon discovered that I was hardly unique in feeling this way.

As time passed and I began to share my story to others, I was surprised to hear how many people-especially women-tended to place the majority of blame on themselves for “losing” a significant other.

Much like myself, it didn’t matter how many people told them it wasn’t their fault or pointed out that it’s impossible to control another person’s behavior: they were convinced that somehow they had failed or at the very least, hadn’t tried hard enough to keep them in their life.

While no two relationships or break-ups are ever alike, I eventually came to realize that in my case, the tendency to lay all the blame on myself was actually a form of self-protection. The truth was this man that I had lost really wasn’t the person I thought he was.

All the projections I placed on him such as him being a nice, caring man who acted with integrity really weren’t true or at least was not evidenced by his actions.

Admitting that I was very wrong about him would in turn make me question everything about the entire time we spent together namely, who really was this person that I thought I knew so well? Thinking that I may never have really known this person was actually worse than thinking that something I had done had caused me to lose me.

At least the latter suggested some measure of control that I had possessed whereas the alternative suggested I really never had any control at all.

However, the truth is that none of have control of another individual’s actions. Sometimes we do meet and fall in love with people who are nothing like we thought they were or wished they were. As one friend bluntly put it, sometimes we get screwed over by the ones we love the most, and there is nothing we can do about it. The only thing we can do is determine how we are going to move forward and hopefully, avoid similar situations in the first place.

While the latter is another subject entirely, the moving forward bit can be helped by the power of forgiveness. In this case, the forgiveness I am referring to isn’t about forgiving the person who left us (though that is great if it can be done) but rather forgiving ourselves for any failings-real or imagined-that we believe caused the other person to leave the relationship.

In my case, the words of my therapist became my mantra. I surrendered to the notion that I had no control over his actions or any other person’s beside my own. And while I cannot say that it took place overnight nor was easy, I eventually came to believe them and see how they were true. Eventually, I even became to see his leaving as one of the biggest favors he ever did for me.

At the very least, it made me stronger and made me see that not everything was under my control or my fault.

It also taught me that every cloud-no matter how dark-really does have a silver lining even if it does take awhile to show.

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Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: vatobob at Flickr