Love and Relationships: Rising from the flames

Break ups are evil. Whether it’s been a long-term thing or that bit shorter, but accompanied by high hopes, deciding that enough is enough, or worse, having someone decide that for you, is one of the least entertaining things you can do with another person. You may know, in your heart of hearts, that things need to end because they haven’t been ‘right’ for a while, but accepting that and acting upon it is a whole different ball game.

I may be talking out my proverbial behind, but there’s a phoenix factor involved with the end of a relationship (maybe not one that only lasts 2 weeks I’ll admit, but longer intervals…). As the dumped as opposed to the dumper, you can feel burnt, your spirit all but extinguished, with serious self-worth questions hanging over your head. When you’ve invested so much emotionally and physically (there are times when you have to include financially) into something, and it’s just popped out of existence, you go into shock. You know you have to find some way to cope, but exactly what you can do to help isn’t always terribly clear. So you get a new haircut, find a new hobby, heck, change jobs and move countries, and you examine your life in a different way. You don’t need to reinvent yourself, just reacquaint yourself with the fact that no, you are a damn cool person who has been underappreciated for far too long. You can’t exactly put it on a resume, but you will be a stronger, better person having gotten over a relationship than you ever were when in it. Learn about yourself, and become better through the experience.

Now it might not be a popular thing, but I also want to send out a little bit of love to the people who have done the breaking up, the heartbreakers, if you will. As long as someone’s not a serial destroyer of souls, I feel like it’s all too easy to forget, as you’re in your own personal pit of despair or witnessing the complete emotional breakdown of a friend, that the relationship has ended for the other party too. In most cases (unless things are really f**ked up) someone doesn’t end a relationship because they actively hate their partner and want to see them suffer as much as possible. On many levels it’s a very brave thing to break up with someone knowing all the crap that will entail. By breaking up with someone, you are inviting animosity, vitriol and the possible loss of shared friends, all whilst knowing you have caused someone you like (just not as much as you thought you did) pain. You think they want to go through that?

There will perhaps be arguments about ‘why didn’t you talk to me about x – we could have sorted it out’, but surely that’s a pretty good sign that the relationship wasn’t in that great of a state, if your partner didn’t feel comfortable even mentioning that they weren’t happy. At that point talking things out probably won’t help. It may take a while, but look back over things, and you’ll sometimes find yourself wondering why the hell things weren’t over sooner. It’s the whole ‘hindsight is 20-20’ thing.

A little part of you may always want to scream at ‘the Ex’, but you might also want to shake their hand. Think about where and who you are now. How did your relationships/break-ups get you here?

And you never know, you might eventually remember why you did get on in the halcyon days of your relationships, be able to separate that from the naked-writhing aspects of the entanglement and, shock-horror, be (dare I say it?) friends.

Disclaimer – If someone has another piece of derrière to hop onto all lined up when they break up with you, ignore the above. As a very pragmatic person I will accept that if the subsequent relationship lasts for at least 6 months (and that’s being nice), the Ex might not be a dick, anything less and drag them over hot coals because they deserve it for breaking your/your friend’s heart. There’s nothing admirable about wandering eyes.

I.C.