emotionallandmines

We’ve all seen them.  They’ve been a couple forever it seems, to the point where invitations for special events come to both of them.  But yet she seems resigned to the fact that they are going to date forever.  Why do we stay in relationships that have long since become stagnant and aren’t living up to our emotional or physical needs?  The answer is familiarity.  There is nothing more daunting than the thought of starting all over again with the meet-and-greet process after being in a long term relationship.  Yeah we are always gonna have well-meaning family members and friends reminding us that we “aren’t getting any younger” and that good men are hard to find.  Gee, tell us something we don’t already know.  Like how to get the courage to sever ties with someone who has now become a different person from the one we first knew and fell in love with.  Like how to communicate that our needs have changed or that we’ve grown apart and no longer feel connected.   Is there any easy way to tell someone goodbye when you’ve been together for a long time and have so many shared good times to reflect back upon?  No there isn’t.  It takes a courage that many of us don’t have.  And so we stay.  And grow increasingly dissatisfied and miserable.  But we don’t say anything because we are afraid of starting over with someone new.  Or perhaps we have not reached that point where we’ve had enough yet.  Sometimes it takes an extreme situation to shock us out of our complacency, our despondency, our boredom, our resignation.  And once that catalyst has been reached we are finally ready to leave.

But now we face another dilemma.  For the first time in goodness knows how long, we are no longer part of a couple.  Perhaps our identity was strongly tied into that relationship.  Your friends may be cheering you on for finally parting company, but now you feel lost, adrift and unsure of yourself.  This is a very critical and vulnerable time because you may be tempted to call your ex up and say you made a mistake and want to go back to them.  DON’T DO IT!!  Remember why you left in the first place?  At some point along the way you stopped communicating your needs effectively to each other.  And the chasm between you grew wider and wider.  One day you woke up and realized that this person you once knew and loved has been replaced by a stranger.  Relationships whether professional, personal or otherwise require maintenance.  If not they can wither and diminish.  As we grow older and mature, our needs change.  We may begin to develop outside interests, new friends or new hobbies.  Sometimes as a result of these changes we don’t include our significant other and this causes a breakdown in communication.  Before things reach that point, why not attempt to include our significant other be they our spouse, boyfriend, fiance or best friend in those new interests?

Trackback URI | Comments RSS