Relationship Lifecycle, Part 1
Some relationships have a definite lifecycle: they emerge, grow, mature, decline, and die. Sometimes, it’s not about good people and bad people. Sometimes, it’s about personalities and incompatibilities.
I have found — through personal experience and observation — that the key to forming close friendship bonds with exes is the timing of the break-up. If the break-up occurs during the “Decline” phase, a friendship is possible; however, if the break-up comes at the “Death” phase, there’s just nothing left.
It takes a world of maturity and foresight to see the end before the end arrives, to know when to abandon the romantic aspect of the relationship. I think our tendency is to work at it, fight for it. But, the more effort we put into sustaining a dying relationship, the less we have to forge the friendship that would greatly benefit both parties.
Resentment takes hold as we start to change who we are to accommodate someone. “Love,” here, is really familiarity and the fear of the unknown. This sort of false-love is a phantom, leaving us cold at night.
We cling to memories and shared events, to mementos, anecdotes, photos, and songs. We cling to these artifacts because we know we can no longer cling to our partner/lover. Here, with apologies to Plato, the idea of love is more real than the actual emotion. And, we die a little.
I’ve learned that each day, each hour that we cling to the apparition of past-love with a current lover we rob ourselves of an opportunity to find the real thing. It’s like endlessly panning for Fool’s Gold. It’s shiny but worthless — and we’re never able to successfully convince ourselves that it, in any way, approximates the precious metal we seek. So, we die a little.
So, quit dying. Open your eyes. When it’s over, it’s over. Be gracious, be kind, be realistic.
We’re only here for a little while. The search for love is infinitely more important than sustaining false hopes and fools’ dreams.
