What Happens When You Find Out Your Ex Just Died
No hyperbole, just lessons learned from processing the experience
I got a text from a friend from college who I hadn’t spoken to in a few years. We exchanged pleasantries, doing the usual “How’s life in a global pandemic” exchange, and then she asked me if I had heard the news about one of my ex’s, who we’ll call Beth (obviously not her real name). I definitely hadn’t heard the news as we don’t run in the same social circles, but given the title of this piece, you are assuming right — Beth died yesterday.
To get this out of the way, given the times we’re in, no, it wasn’t COVID. I know people who have died from COVID, but this was not one of those cases. My friend didn’t have all the details (she’s friends with Beth’s friends), but apparently it was some sort of disease and not an accident that took her life.
I had no idea how to react, as Beth and I hadn’t necessarily broken up on great terms. At the time we were dating, I was still hung up on a different ex, and Beth and I were definitely not a good fit for one another. While we didn’t split on good terms, I had the emotional awareness of a sentient log and was fairly indifferent to her leaving my life. She didn’t seem too broken up about it either, so I assumed the feelings were mutual.
If not being emotionally attached and thinking it was also a big deal sounds contradictory, you’re probably right, but emotions are not often logical.
So even though I hadn’t really thought of this ex-girlfriend for a vast majority of the past 18 years, it’s always a weird thing to suddenly be confronted by the death of someone who you dated seriously, even if it was only for a few months.
Looking back on my relationships during college prior to meeting my wife, I realize that though most of them were relatively short, most of them less than a year, they felt really impactful. With Beth, I had met her parents, gone on road trips together — to my emotionally stunted 19 year-old self, it had seemed like a big deal even though I don’t think we were together for more than five months and I obviously wasn’t too emotionally attached.
If not being emotionally attached and thinking it was also a big deal sounds contradictory, you’re probably right, but emotions are not often logical.
Even with this general confused indifference, I always respected Beth’s creativity, work ethic, and ambition, even if we there’s a lot of other things we disagreed on. At the end of the day, for me a human life is a human life, so it bums me out that she died. It makes me sad that she’s gone from the world, even though I had never been sad about her being gone from my life specifically.
The permanence of death is weird. It makes you reflect on that idea that you’ll never ever accidentally bump into an ex anymore. Reflecting on it now, out of all of the women I’ve dated I probably would want to run into Beth the least. Mainly due to the guilt of how I treated her.
And maybe that’s what this sadness is really about.
As much as I would rather avoid running into most of my ex’s, I’ve also changed drastically since my immature college years. While the encounter would probably be awkward and weird, I wouldn’t mind it if I ran into them because I could apologize for being such an asshole.
I wish I could tell her how sorry I am for wasting her time. Sorry for not being thoughtful, for treating her poorly, for often putting my friends and status over her. And even though I wouldn’t expect her to accept the apology, I would want to make it.
I was an especially terrible boyfriend when I was with Beth, and while she definitely wasn’t perfect or without fault, I do realize that I was a total fuckboy at the time who was immature and didn’t value her nearly as much as a boyfriend should have.
Now, that chance to apologize is gone forever. Even though I was never hung up on her, maybe I’m still hung up on who I was when I was with her.
After all, when I look back at how I wasn’t a great listener, I want to kick my past self. I think of that time I blamed her at my birthday party when she brought my favorite fruit, left it unattended for a few minutes and then the fruit got stolen. I think about how I should have thanked her for her thoughtfulness and blamed whoever took the fruit instead of rolling my eyes and yelling at her. I think of all the other times I was emotionally unavailable, selfish, and a general asshole, and I feel a lot of regret and a lot of shame.
I wish I could tell her how sorry I am for wasting her time. Sorry for not being thoughtful, for treating her poorly, for often putting my friends and status over her. And even though I wouldn’t expect her to accept the apology, I would want to make it.
I would want to make that apology because I realize now that while I sort of blamed her for the breakup, it was really my fault the entire time.
I wonder if she’d even want an apology, or if she’d prefer to think of me as some jackass she dated for a bit when she was younger and made bad decisions. I’ll never know because she’s gone now, and I get to live with the memory of my poor treatment of her.
By the sheer luck of not dying, I have the privilege of making this about me, about learning from my mistakes, about writing about the relationship and my own failings in some sort of self-flagellating ownership of my own fallibility. Because I have the privilege of still being alive and able to reflect and learn and grow and she doesn’t.
Maybe the lesson is that we need to treat people well while they’re still alive. That even if we’re not meant to be life partners, we should remember that people are still people, and that everyone deserves kindness and care.
Perhaps this is not really about grieving the death of an ex. Perhaps it’s about realizing how fortunate it is to be alive.
I’ve almost died twice now, and could have easily become paralyzed in another accident. Each instance has made me deeply grateful for even the opportunity to live another day, to be able to walk to the bathroom, to be able to type this out.
Human life is fragile, and while it’s tempting to think that we’re never going to die, the reality is that death is the one big uncertainty in life. We never know when we’re going to go, and we’re lucky if we’re even ever given an estimate.
Maybe the lesson is that we need to treat people well while they’re still alive. That even if we’re not meant to be life partners, we should remember that people are still people, and that everyone deserves kindness and care.
At the end of the day, I’m feeling both apologetic and grateful to Beth. Apologetic for not only who I was, but for not letting her know how sorry I am for who I was years ago. Grateful for being gifted this chance to reflect, at the immeasurable cost of her life. Honestly, I wasn’t sure about publishing this thinking it might just be for me to process my feelings, but I’m sharing this in the hope that this will serve as a reminder not only for myself, but also for you, the reader.
I hope her loss can remind us of the fragility of life and inspire us to be kinder. To forgive more often. To appreciate those who are still alive, and to not put off the hard, awkward, or weird conversations or apologies that we might want to have.
Believe me, having those conversations isn’t easy, but with life this uncertain, it’s something that’s worth doing.
