So you know that it’s best put a big wedge of space between you and your ex, that you really have to stop obsessing, that you’ve got to stop fearing the pain of the break up and confront it, that you’ve got to stop doubting yourself and get angry, and that you need to be accountable. So what now?
Well it’s all very well knowing why the relationship went wrong and being accountable for your part, but all of this means nothing unless you do something with your new found knowledge and start making changes to move forward and heal. Thou must learn from the experience and move forward.
A lot of people talk about life being an education and chalking things up to experience. This is fine, to an extent, but if you chalk things up to an experience but do nothing with the knowledge and learn from it for your next relationship, you are going to find yourself on one big merry go-round, taking two steps forward, two steps back. Then to steps forward, one step back, then forward one step, then back two steps, and you kinda get the idea.
The problem of finding yourself in the groundhog day of Breakupsville is that if you’ve been at the same crime scene several times, you’re not learning jack from the experience. You’re forgetting the lessons learnt, forgetting about your gut and your judgement skills and hoping that fate and the fairy tale will come along and save the day…eventually.
Hence, if you realise that you habitually date the same type of guy, that behaves in much the same way, and leaves you feeling the sh*tty lows with a few fleeting highs, this is a sign that something about you is motivated to continue to make the same choices and continue the same pattern.
So…
If you know that you chose this guy because you would rather be with a guy than be single, this means that accountability wise, you set yourself up for a fall by being more concerned with having a relationship than the quality.
But then you have to ask yourself why?
This is the reason behind the reason, or the trigger.
When I speak with readers they tell me that:
They don’t feel worthy of the relationship so when it looks like it’s failing, they believe it’s something they have done wrong. But if you don’t feel worthy in this relationship, you’re unlikely to feel worthy in the next one until you get to the reasons of why you don’t feel worthy. Plus if you don’t feel worthy of the relationship and the guy, you’ll often choose an inappropriate man to exasperate those feelings by reflecting the negative things that you believe about yourself.
None of this changes the fact that he may well be an assclown but you need to understand why you make the choices that you do so that you can break the pattern, learn to be more positive about yourself, love, and relationships, and set the tone before you even begin a relationship with the next man.
Other readers tell me that they didn’t want to appear needy so when they saw poor behaviour, instead of stating their upset or opting out, they decided to ride the pony of the relationship until it collapsed. But if you ignore poor behaviour it sets the tone for the relationship and whilst you are not to blame for their behaviour, if you’re in a relationship that has clear red flags, you have to be accountable for staying anyway, but you also need to understand why you would stay.
So, for example:
Guy has drink/drugs/sex addiction. This is a regular problem that readers have with partners and often being with men with an addiction is about trying to right the wrongs of the past. For instance, having a parent who was an alcoholic and having to care for them. Or the same situation, but not being able to help them.
Many of the things that motivate us, albeit negatively) to stay in a poor relationship are not actually about the current relationship…but about past relationships, whether they are with lovers, family, or even friends.
That’s why it is important to look at the bigger picture and not just be accountable but deal with the issues that govern your relationship decisions so that you don’t keep repeating your mistakes.
Do you understand your past and how it is influencing your relationship choices?
Do you truly understand they why’s of the break-up and how you ended up where you are?
Your thoughts?
Check out Commandment 1: Thou shalt cut off this ‘Let’s be friends’ mallarky
Check out Commandment 2: Thou shalt not obsess
Check out Commandment 3: Thou shalt stop fearing the pain of breaking up and confront it.
Check out Commandment 4: Thou shalt stop doubting yourself and get angry.
Check out Commandment 5: Thou shalt be accountable
Check out Commandment 6: Thou shalt understand WHY and do something with the knowledge
Check out Commandment 7: Thou shalt forgive…but not forget…but don’t cling.
Check out Commandment 8: Thou need to get a life!
Check out Commandment 9: Thou mustn’t give up on love.
Check out Commandment 10: Thou must close the door and move forward
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I couldn’t agree more. If you don’t like the results.. change what you’re doing. With out change we/you will get the same results over and over again. We can’t change the past..but we control out future and destiny by what we are doing right now!
NML – great post! I think us finding our underlying motivation is crucial here & it will be different for each one of us as we have all had different experiences. Life is not perfect. If it were we would not be a prozac nation! So what if we may not realize it is a poor relationship to begin with based on what we have to compare it to? My EUM said & did things that my ex-husband never thought about. I had no realtionship with my ex-husband., none of the same interests, no physical attraction. I have tried to take the lessons in my life, learn from them & change for the better. I married my ex young & for the wrong reasons. He was a rebound from my EUM. I went into this last relationship not wanting to repeat patterns from my failed marriage as I admitted & understood what I did to contribute to the demise of it. I know it takes 2 to make it work & fail. That is the hardest part. At my age I’m supposed to know by now. I thought I was older & wiser & this last relationship had a huge chance of working not only because of the knowledge I now had but because of the history I had with this person. We had things that I never had in my marriage. Compatibility, attraction, chemistry, religion, friendship, similar family backgrounds. It was everything my marriage wasn’t . For me I didn’t realize it was a poor relationship THAT is part of the problem. Maybe that is the key here – I didn’t have much to compare it to so on the outside it seemed great. That coupled with wanting a relationship so much after all I had been thru but not with just anyone, believing in the dream, taking in all of the attention & flattery. It was the rest of it I didn’t understand . Trying to decipher what felt like love, flattery & attention with the withdrawing, ego stroking & selfishness. I didn’t understand the flags or what to do with them. So now I do. Back to therapy! Thx for enlightening me!
You know what they say about the definition of insanity right? It’s repeating the same behaviors over and over expecting a different result. And yet, somehow we manage to keep attracting the same assclowns over and over because we don’t take the time to learn from the assclown before.
I have been so guilty of this in the past bouncing from one relationship to the next without so much as a breath in between. I never took the time to heal and to figure out what the hell happened and then learn and grow from it.
I’ve gritched often about being single as long as I have and yet I know that it is the single best thing that could have happened to me. I needed the time to learn and grow and break the patterns that kept me in relationships with my mother. Yep, drama mama was my biggest trigger and I chose men just like her trying to get from them what I never got from her. Thank Jesus that’s over!