The really long ones (5 years plus): I got dumped.
A couple of short ones (1-2 years): I let her go.
I am still not totally okay from the times I got dumped, but I hardly thought about it after I did the dumping. In both cases where I called it I was moving on to the next, had already smashed the new girl, and it was all over but the shouting. I suspect the same happened to me when I got dumped but I just didn't know it
Either way, it never started out like
and went to