Breaking Up is Hard to Do

I can hear the words and melody in my mind, even though I can’tremember the group that sang the song,” breaking ‘-up is so hard to do.”  Is it? If you put it in context, ‘One of the hardest decisions we ever make in life is leaving a long-term relationship/married or not. You have committed and yet it just isn’t working. Even after you’ve done all the work to correct what isn’t working and why. It remains hard to leave. You hear the reasons; you recognize the issues, and still, you’re unable to repair or work out those affairs that aren’t working. The matters that make the difference between, “is you or is you ain’t  my baby?” So, there you stand at the crossroads in the flux. You know that it may be time to examine moving on and all that it means. But what happened to ‘love conquers all?’ Is that just ‘talk ‘or what?  

The real question is what are the two of you willing to do, sacrifice and fight for?  In my relationship, from where I stood, I felt that I was giving or sacrificing all of the emotional contextualeffort while my mate felt that such was too demanding and took away from his ability to focus on his art which was his first commitment because it was an extension of him. The question of love was never in doubt. We had expressed our mutual love for one another in so many ways over the years.

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The hard truth was that we had grown in our viewpoint of shared experiences differently, each feeling unique to our personal views as they impacted us and our future as individuals. We not only felt differently about the impact of those experiences, but we were also different.  Both of us were left feeling unappreciated for our different personal surrender. It was the aftermath where we found ourselves on two different sides of the equation when we had once stood side by side as one. . . no afterglow.

We are emotional beings, and when our heartstrings are tied to those of another, separating from that person can feel like an act of self-inflicted suicide. But is it?  Perhaps it’s an act of courage to be self-expressed whereas you may feel oppressed, forced to suppress your unique expression within the relationship in orderfor your partner to be all that they can be. It is not something most of us will take lightly, and many of us will not even recognize the glaring glitch.  We struggle with our desire to remain in a relationship that is unfulfilling simply to avoid emotional pain as well as the mental pain of failure. How could we have been so wrong when it felt so right for two decades?

If we can’t make it, is an illusion or is it delusional to imagine that such a thing even exists? We may go there and question whether or not we might be better off simply settle where we are; accept the situation because we do like each other. Yeah, so we choose to make the best of what we have even though it’s not working. I recall the make-up moment--we had taken a trip that united our closest married friends... three couples plus us. What a good timewe had. But when my man asked of me what I was not ready to give which was my unabandoned intimacy, I couldn’t. I heard him, “You have to forgive me, you have to forgive me, you have to forgive me.” And I knew that he was right. In my heart, I had forgiven him but in my mind, I couldn’t forget. . .. There was that. Memory had sealed my heart.

On the one hand, we embrace the fairytale of the prince charmingand the princess; but we also hold on to the possibility that it’s all a farce. We almost savor the idea that true happiness is not out there so that we can avoid the pain of change. On the other hand, we feel within ourselves a yearning to fulfill our desire for relationships that are vital and healing. We note that they are natural and part of the human story. By and by, most of us will follow this call, because deep within ourselves we know that the deep yearning to be happy is innermost what we believe we deserve. Happiness is in our inheritance if we in fact live life openly of a sane mind, no matter where we find ourselves in this moment, and we are all justified in moving toward the light. With our heads lifted in the direction towards the sun, we are led to reach for our greatest fulfillment. To get there may mean walking away from one relationship and moving toward the future. From that stance when you’re open and ready, your future will reveal itself because you have released all that appeared to beholding you in purgatory.

Taking that first step will be hard, it may feel like an asthmaattack, as you search deeply for that grasp of air; but breathe indeeply and take in the happiness that is yours to have, once we have freed ourselves from a situation that has drained our energy. Inner peace will outshine any hardship we undergo to get there. Take that deep breath while keeping your eyes wide open and focused on the horizon. Now, right there, in that moment is when we begin the work of disentangling ourselves from theentanglement of what was once a relationship that no longer wraps around us snug, warm and comfortable. Every step after takes us closer to a relationship that will work, because we arenow in a relationship with ourselves first. That nuance will aid and abate us from the neediness of being with some-body, any-body to feel good about our-self. You are not looking for a mate to make you whole. But someone with whom to share life. When you are in a relationship with yourself, you are open to the freedom we need to find the happiness we deserve.  

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