Breaking Up FAQ’s

Tuesday, 10 February 2009

Breaking Up FAQ’s
Breaking Up FAQ’s
As I’ve gone through the journey of dating, there have been several profound ideas that have stuck with me about the whole breaking up process. As I’ve mentioned before, I am a big fan of Greg Behrent’s “It’s called a breakup because it’s broken” despite the fact that the book is geared towards the female population. Several ideas and truths that have stuck ever since my first time reading the book that I will share and explore more thoroughly. All of the ideas have a core of common sense but as we all know, common sense isn’t always so common. These truths include:
1) What types of breakups are the worst to go through?
2) How much you put in a relationship determines how much it will hurt in the end.
3) “Why can’t we still be friends after the break up?”
Question: What types of breakups are the worst to go through?
There are typically 3 different types of breakups that will cause much heartache and agony to go through. Those 3 include relationships that 1) End suddenly and without warning 2) End through betrayal such as cheating and 3) Breakups that are drawn out and unclear. The first are relationships that end suddenly and without warning. This ending is hard to deal with because you’re totally blindsided by what is happening. The relationship seems to be going fine until out of nowhere, the relationships ends. The difficulty of getting over this type of breakup is that you’ll never have all the answers about what had happened. You may be left wondering if you had done anything wrong or did it have to do with the other person. The difficulty of the situation is that you’ll probably never know what happened. That’s hard to accept and be able to move on from the relationship because you’re left in the dark. When you are unable to find the answers from without, you tend to look within yourself to find the answer, but the answer may never be found.
Next are relationships that end messily, become drawn out, and are very fuzzy. These types of breakups are extremely hard to get over because you never have a clear answer to anything. You’re continually in a state of limbo because one minute the signs may be pointing positively whereas another minute, things are going horribly. When the boundaries are unclear, you may be just pulled along with no real results in the end. These types of endings share a similar situation as those that end suddenly because you’ll probably never find a clear, easy solution to end the breakup once and for all. These types of endings are hard because you can never truly move on from the past relationship because there may be a small inkling of hope that you’re hanging onto. With “bad” breakups where you end up hating each other’s guts, at the very least, you know that you’ll never be with them ever again. Like I’ve mentioned before in previous posts, extremes of hot or cold are much better than being lukewarm. What that generally means is that you’d rather have a yes or no answer rather than a maybe. Lukewarm's and maybe’s don’t give you clear answers to where to go after the relationships but to remain stuck in the same place and never having the ability to move on.
Lastly are relationships that end in betrayal and deep hurt. Of the three types of breakups, these cause a lasting scar on the person being cheated on. Within a romantic relationship, no one ever wants to be the person cheated on because it causes so much pain and hurt to have your trust, loyalty, and beliefs in that person overturned on you. Of all the horrible things that you could do within a relationship, cheating would be one of the top major causes of hurt and ongoing relationship baggage. Betrayal and cheating causes much devastation because this was supposed to be a relationship of trust, caring, and love yet all of that is found to be false. There are no easy solutions to this type of ending and the scope of hurt caused by cheating cannot be succinctly covered here.
Question: How long does it take to get over a past relationship?
                The amount of time to get over a past relationship really varies for person to person and depending upon the situation. Some people say to measure how long the relationship was and that would be how long it would take to get over the relationship. They also say that finding another person that you’re interested in greatly reduces the time to get over the last person. However, that does not always work because sometimes the relationship may not last long yet the time it takes to get over the breakup seems incredibly long. Time is only one factor in how much a breakup will hurt and in effect, determine how long the process of getting over an ex will take. This brings us to the more complete answer to the question above.
Answer: How much you put into a relationship determines how much it will hurt in the end (this translates into how much time you’ll need)
This answer makes a lot of common sense because relationships are measured in more than just time. There are many ways of being vested in a relationship such as emotionally, time, energy, effort, love, and more. The more you invest into a relationship the more painful the end will be for you. If you have invested little to nothing into the relationship then more likely than not, the relationship does not mean much to you. When you’ve invested so much time, effort, emotions, love and everything that you have, then that makes losing the relationship seem more like losing a limb. When you’ve put so much of yourself into a relationship it becomes incredibly hard to leave the relationship and not feel emotionally vested in the relationship. There is a term to those who are familiar with poker called “pot committed”. Pot committed is basically a situation where you have so much money tied into the game that you essentially cannot back out or you lose your large sum bet. The same concept applies to relationships as well when you’ve become “pot committed” in a relationship and cannot leave the past behind.
As stated before, the dynamic cannot really be measured in time because that is just one component. There are several different ways of “investing” into a relationship. To name a few, these ways include:
·         Time
·         Energy/Effort
·         Emotionally
·         Financially
·         Psychologically
·         Self Esteem/Self Worth

The truth of the statement is surprisingly clear. When you’ve never really put anything into a relationship then why should the end matter? The real question should be: what can you really do about the situation? The answer is not to put anything into a relationship so that you will never get hurt in the end. There are people out there who have this attitude towards dating and relationships. In order to not get hurt then they don’t want to put anything of themselves that would leave them vulnerable to being hurt. Usually, this person has been badly burned in the past and that past still continues to haunt them. This attitude stems from fear of the unknown and of being hurt again, such as a wounded animal seeking protection against the world. As we may all know, relationships cannot survive or thrive under such stifling conditions because you will not get anything out of a relationship unless you put something in.
On the opposite end are those who put all of themselves into a relationship. They devote so much time, energy, and effort into a relationship hoping the relationship will last. Contrarily, no matter how much you put into a relationship, this alone will not guarantee that the relationship will work out in the end. So, eventually the breakup comes around and they end up heartbroken and feel devastated afterwards. This is not the answer as well. As you may have guessed, the answer lies somewhere in between the two extremes. A quote from Nathaniel Brandon’s “6 Pillars of Self Esteem” is very relevant to the solution is having, “a present that does not disrespect the future nor a future that disregards the present.” He is stating that you do not want to have a dream of a future that sacrifices the present nor a present that will hurt the future. Applied in this situation, both of the above are losing situations because they either disrespect the present or the future. Taking the best of both worlds, we want a more complete and balanced answer. Therein lays the solution to the problem: balance. Being able to balance out how much you’re investing into a relationship will greatly reduce how much hurt you’ll go through if the relationship eventually ends. On the other side, you will be taking a calculated risk but not completely jumping into the deep end. You want to be able to see the relationship for what it is and act accordingly rather than blinding putting all of yourself into a relationship that has no guarantees.
Question: Can we still be friends after the break up?
Answer: To put it succinctly, No.
Before anyone has the chance to go on the offensive with, “well, I was still friends with my ex after we broke up so I think you’re totally wrong”, I’m going to share my thoughts on the matter.
                First of all, in an ideal world then we would all wish to still maintain a respectable relationship with all of our ex’s, at least most of the them. Despite our best intentions of trying to make a friendship work, we do not live in an idealistic world and there are realities that we have to face. This friendship usually is not easy especially when the breakup ended on bad terms or you totally hate the person. This friendship requires a special list of requirements in order for the friendship to actually work. These include:
1.       Both parties no longer have any romantic feelings for each other. When one or both still have feelings then the friendship will essentially be doomed to fail. The reason is that when one person still has feelings for the other, even the most ordinary actions may send the wrong signals. “Wow, he called to talk to me. Does that mean he still has feelings for me?” Romantic relationships and Platonic relationships are two completely different beasts. To think that one can easily translate between one and the other is a big mistake. Sometimes it may work, but most times this crossing between the lines won’t. When one person still has feelings for the other, then they cannot see their ex as just a friend; it’s just too hard until they can get over their ex completely.
2.       You have to look at the motivation for having the friendship because if you guys were destined to be friends, then why does friendship have to start right after the breakup? If the friendship was meant to be then why not give each other more room to think things through? If it’s meant to be then it’s meant to be, even in a friendship. Most of the time, the motivation is more selfish in nature because one side doesn’t want to sever the relationship completely so they can leave room for the chance of possibly getting back together.
3.       Consider the terms of the actual breakup and what the relationship meant to each person. If the relationship ended on bad terms, then what’s positive of still staying friends with the other person? If a relationship ended on bad terms, then a “friendship” is highly, highly not recommended. You can still be cordial and pleasant without trying to be anything more, just like a stranger you’ve just met. Why force the situation when there really isn’t much to gain?
Oftentimes, friendship can be used or manipulated so that both parties stay in touch with each other and therefore have a higher chance of getting back together. If the friendship is that important then surely a couple months to a year will not be detrimental to the platonic relationship. On the flip side, being friends creates much more awkward situations than it solves. If one party still remains friends then seeing each other will only make the pain worse rather than make things better. Most people have very good intentions in remaining friends after a breakup but the reality of the situation may not be the best. Oftentimes, the best solution is to cut ties off completely and leave things as they are rather than try and create a faux attempt at friendship that may not be in both people’s best interests.
Conclusion:
                In conclusion, these are some interesting questions regarding the breaking up process that may not have been covered previously. These are neither end all solutions to the problems of breaking up but rather to explore the many, many issues faced during the breakup process.
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