Because Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Break-ups suck.

They are also hard to handle. Most of my friends did everything wrong during their splits, which lead to a longer, more painful recovery.

Luckily I had my mom on my side, gently guiding me past the landmines.

A new website has launched to help women through break-ups — Pink Kisses. The faux-girlie girl site has all the pre-packaged “you go girl” gumption to make it immediately dismissable.

But the tagline caught my eye — “… because moving on is the best revenge.” Could there be nuggets of wisdom in all this?

You, or a friend, can purchase packages designed to move you forward. There are gimmicky things like downloading your exes picture to watch it burn, but there are also potentially helpful ones too, like their action plan or the offer of life coaching.

Since the site launched it has come under fire for presuming that women need help when their relationships end.

At Jezebel, Sadie complains:

I think this site could have a real market with very young girls, or with those who’ve ended something superficial. But for real heartbreak, for the real end of a serious adult relationship, could anything be more remote?

Sometimes a relationship can leave you shattered, gutted and in need of assistance. If we are lucky we have friends and family around to help us get through. Because when a serious, adult relationship ends, in a lot of ways it is like your partner has died and you need to grieve. Suddenly everything is different and often, in the midst of all that chaos, you have to make major life changes — like move.

At those times, whatever support you can get is helpful. Clearly this site is designed to make money for its creator but that doesn’t mean it can’t help people. What would I have done without my mother’s life coaching and my friends indulgences?

I would have gotten through it, which brings me to the second complaint about the site, that it reinforces the idea that break-ups are hard on women and easy on men.

Sadie says that during her big break-up she didn’t want to fall into that stereotype:

“I’m fine!” I would say brightly when anyone turned sympathetic eyes on me. I put together jaunty outfits. I went running – and I hate running. In the privacy of my vacant evenings I might have listened to “Walk a Thin Line” on repeat, but no one knew this. The expectation of feminine fragility – perceived or otherwise – became so threatening to me that I went in the other direction.

Fine plan if it worked for her, but I don’t see the point of toughening up and “taking it like a man” if that means you end up having a harder time of it. There is a perception that women need more support than men and that needs to change, but in the other direction.

Getting plastered at a strip-joint and taking a stranger home might not be enough to help all guys through their break-ups. They have hearts too, and might even need help mending them.

Pink Kisses is useful, but would be really awesome is a Blue Punches-On-The-Shoulder site to help men deal with their own feelings of sadness. Sometimes the worst pain is the one that you think you shouldn’t feel.