Breakups Part 1: Shattered Expectations, and What Do to with Them

Did I just get dumped??? The question 21-year-old me could not wrap her head around.

“My heart’s just not in it anymore.”

That’s what Jake said to me when he called me out of the blue at 11 p.m. my time, 1 a.m. his time. This was the night of my first break up, and the night my whole perspective on dating changed for a time—mostly for the worse.

I don’t remember what I said back to Jake that night as he explained he wanted to end our eight month long relationship, but I was most definitely awkward. He gave me a few minute spiel about why he knew our relationship wasn’t going to work out. And because I didn’t want to come across as caught off guard, I heartily agreed with everything he said: we should break up, that would be best, we want different things. I agreed and agreed and said everything was fine. In desperation to sound chill, I may have even suggested my own reasons for why this was a good move. Then we hung up the phone and I dropped to my bed—completely bewildered at what had just happened.

I just got dumped?

This wasn’t part of the plan. Jake was tall, dark, and handsome. He planned to go to medical school. He spoke Italian for crying out loud! I met him at an institute activity just a few months after my mission. This was the classic set up and the perfect timing—so how could it have just ended? Sure he was my first real boyfriend, but plenty of girls I knew married the first boy they dated after their mission.

As naïve as it seems looking back, that night every expectation I had for dating felt flipped upside down. I was going to graduate college in a year from the time Jake broke up with me. That wasn’t enough time to start dating someone new and be married before graduation. Jake and I had been together for eight months and now I’d have to start all over? I began doing math in my head, but there was no way to make this work. I was going to graduate with my undergrad degree without a husband. What was I supposed to do now? My life was about to look a lot different than the beehive sitting around the campfire thought it would.

And perhaps the sad fact is that this shattering of my “plan” is what made me the most upset about the break up. Deep down I knew Jake and I weren’t very good for each other. But I was so sure that I was going to follow the path I’d seen so many others take of getting married within a year or two of their missions that I didn’t really allow myself the option of Jake not being the one for me.

With the mocking clarity of hindsight, I can see that I thought that if Jake and I just kept trying, eventually I wouldn’t feel nervous around him and eventually we’d be able to have real, deep conversations, instead of the more frivolous surface-level talk we usually found ourselves in. I believed eventually we would fall in love. I would feel loved. This had to be God’s plan for me, so it would work out . . . right?

Well, it most definitely didn’t work out. I actually found out a few months later that Jake had started dating another girl from his hometown that summer (before breaking up with me) and was engaged to her by the end of the year. That stung more than the actual breakup because it seemed a testament that I was powerless to figure this out. Any naïve ideas I had about how dating would be simple and magical were shattered, and I had no idea what to do with all the pieces.

My panicky feelings lasted for months, often affecting my sleep and my mood. I realized I had never had to put my trust in God like this before, and I didn’t know how.

But as I made important decisions in my last semesters of college and then entered the workplace, trust in God’s goodness and involvement in my life became a very precious concept to me. I came to see that trust is having no idea how something is going to work out, or if it is ever going to work out, but still living by the belief that God is guiding your path. It means believing that God has an exciting work for you to do, and to live your life in a way that prepares you to recognize and jump on opportunities when they come.

I was nervous during my last year of college wondering what would happen next, but my first few years in the workplace brought deeply meaningful experiences and opened my mind to more possibilities of what my life could look like and how I could contribute to the world—perspectives I don’t know if I would’ve ever had if I’d married Jake

Just because something didn’t go the way you planned, doesn’t mean there is no plan. There absolutely is. There is joy, beauty, and the thrill of accomplishment waiting for you, but not if you retreat back in fear and stop trying to move forward. Instead, keep an open conversation going with God and be patient as His plan unfolds.

This was my last week with the Church magazines in SLC (where I interned after college). An experience I will treasure forever!

A few years after that break up, I came across a video from Laurel Day, the CEO of Deseret Book Company, and her words rang deeply true to me. She talked about how we sometimes experience emotional pain when we feel like our lives have drifted away from our “plan A.” Here is portion of what she said in the video:

“I didn’t get married until I was 41, which sometimes in Church culture feels like 400 and 1. . . I had served a mission, I graduated from college, I’d even received my master’s—I did a lot of cool things. I had a pretty sweet single life. And I also missed out on a lot of things that my heart really wanted, in other words, I know a thing or two about disappointment. . . .

 “And I spent a lot of time dealing with a lot of circumstances and wondering if I’d missed my plan A. I even sat down and mapped out all my life plans with some friends and I’m pretty sure we got through A to Z and ended somewhere in the Greek alphabet.

“But I came to learn a really important lesson as I was finally preparing for my sealing in the Salt Lake Temple. I was finally getting married, and God let me know I was living plan A. I just had no idea this was plan A.”

Don’t you love that?

Our plan A’s, or those deep desires of our hearts, are very special, tender things, friends. God is very aware of you and wherever you are right now in relation to your plan A is no surprise to Him. Not everyone can be trusted to hold our hearts and dreams, but we can always trust our tenderest hopes to Him. God will never break up with us or let His attention fall to someone else.

You are on plan A right. now.

Sister Michelle Craig said something I am grateful to be learning because of breakups:

“Wait and trust in God and in His timing, because you can trust His heart with all of yours.”

Let’s leave behind those shattered pieces of expectation and look with clearer eyes and more humble hearts for the good that comes “to them that love God” (Romans 8:28).

In part two next week, we’ll talk about more truths from Jesus to help us feel calm and optimistic on our ride on what I call the breakup struggle bus.

The extra blossoms

Hi! This is where I share a few random things I love, hopefully to add a little extra pink to swirl around your day.

1. Smartly All-Purpose Cleaner. This stuff smells SO good that I want to spray it around my apartment like air freshener. (But don’t worry. I won’t.) Make the boring things in your life a little more fun with things that smell good. Shout out to Lauren for introducing me to this stuff.

2. If you want to smile, watch this video of Nathan Pacheco singing in a park in Brazil. I owe you five solid compliments if you don’t smile. (If you make it through this without smiling, then you probably are in real need five solid compliments, so call me.)

3. The “Don’t Look at Me” fresh face mask from Lush. Shoutout to Em Major for giving it to me! You keep this one in the fridge, so it is SO refreshing. I feel like I just woke up from the world’s best powernap when I use it. If you need a gift for a friend, you’re welcome. This is it.