By MD
Talking with a friend of mine, I realized that there is a common trait in long-term relationships that suddenly take a turn for the worse. There is often a lack of short-term memory. There are plenty of people in relationships that are only in them because they’ve “been together for so long”. If you are constantly complaining about your significant other and your only explanation for still being together is the aforementioned reasoning, then you should re-evaluate how you would like this relationship to end. Far too often, people feel that have come too far to go backwards. In response to that, I’d like to ask you, how far have you actually gone if you’re still arguing about topics from the first month? Even though the equation “you + me = us” does make sense, it does not help predict the life expectancy of a relationship. “Us” is a variable, not a constant.
If you are one of the unfortunate members of the majority that are forced to face the fork in the road with one side showing a stop sign; and the other side not showing an end in sight, which road do you take? If the relationship ends before one person picks out baby names and china patterns, the two people involved are not left wondering, “what happened?” If the relationship is ended right before a weekend getaway at the family cabin, then angry and emotional status updates via Facebook may become a part of both individuals near future. Either way, the end result is the same. The downward spiral of complacency has come to a halt. Although one scenario leaves one person hating the opposite sex for a month or two because “they finally opened up”, it provides an opportunity for both people to continue on with the rest of their lives and avoid a predestined dead end.
There are plenty of adults who do not realize this is the case until they are knocking on the door of being the woman with all the cats or the old man that hates everyone. According to your support group, the fact that s/he will not fully commit and you are “running out of time” to get married at a “decent” age is a great reason to abandon ship. When, in actuality, you have been setting sail without a breeze for years! Personally, I do not believe in a small window of opportunity to get married or an age where you should adopt animals and become the next Bronx Zoo. Experience has shown me that, as humans we try to see the potential in people, but we all know that potential that does not soon become apparent will eventually be seen as underachievement. Although you may think that underachievement is only being performed by the person who has the memory span of a goldfish, it is in fact underachievement by both persons involved. Allowing someone to hold you back and use you as a crutch hinders your own ability to grow. Think back to the kid who cheated off your test and then got a better grade than you because they screwed up one of your answers.
Looking back at the end of a relationship, we will always have a spot in our hearts for that companion that never became what we needed; but, creating a feeling of regret within the relationship is much worse. Relationships can either be quicksand or rolling hills. You can either completely lose yourself in the sinking pit of bullshit or be lucky enough to endure ups and downs on a hillside. This article is not to suggest that you should break up with someone because they picked up the wrong type of milk. The point is that if they keep forgetting your birthday/anniversary, you may need to reconsider that double sink and man cave you two have been designing. Allowing someone to stay on life-support within a relationship can be defined as cruel and unusual punishment. R.I.P Terry Schiavo.
Showing posts with label Breaking Up. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Breaking Up. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
The Bees: Deciding to Choose
By a Member of The Birds and the Bees' Staff
There is an idea about time that suggests that time is not linear and in fact branches off into separate and unique timelines every time we make a decision. Perhaps this is really an idea about parallel dimensions. No matter. What is important is the focal point of decision-making. We would typically assume that it would only be big decisions that could affect the direction of time. Time is not so shallow.
What is it that makes a decision a big one? Immediate degree of importance? The long term affect of the consequences on a person's life, psyche or emotions? Only in retrospect can we interpret a choice's impact. The availability of interpretation makes it such that all decisions must diverge into different timelines. Regardless of what we see as a “big” decision, they are all decisions we make and thus all of those made and those paths untaken must have consequences of some sort. If this idea has any truth to it, then we must every day, every moment, every instant decide to choose and follow the path of that choice to its end. Why? Because once the direction of time has been set we must travel its course. All attempts to undo will fail; you can't turn back the hands of time.
What does this psuedo-metaphysical bullshit have to do with relationships and communication? I'm not there yet.
There is an idea about a girl (or boy) that suggests that (s)he is the one. The perfect center between Mr(s). Right and Mr(s). Right-Now. Surely, it seems contradictory to say that since The One would be assumed to be Mr(s). Right. That is after all what makes them The One, right? Well, no, not always. This again is one of those things we can only know at relationship's end through our interpretation of the ending and our memories of all time before that. From what I've seen, The One has walked in and out of my life many times with just as many names and faces. And each time I was wrong about her. I only know that to be true today, of course, having had the time to reflect upon it. Our choices brought us together and our choices made us part ways. It would be impossible to pinpoint every “big” decision, but when you can see the Great Wall from space you can't deny its existence.
We believe choices like “Let's stay together” to be big decisions, especially when that means enduring the states' distance between us and many long-distance phone calls. We ignore the many small decisions that support that larger choice. Here's where it gets messy. We don't understand what is and isn't a small or big decision. Cheating and telecommunicating are both small and large decisions, respectively. Read that twice. See what I did there?
The decision to stay faithful in a long-distance relationship supports the meaning of your original decision to stay with your significant other despite what may come between you. It is the only thing that you do that genuinely decides whether or not you are still in the relationship you decided to stay in. Telecommunication is how you decide to play the character of a person in a relationship.
Similar to the government being the people with the monopoly on violence, your significant other is the person that has the monopoly on your physical intimacy. Now displace that person out of reach of your body for long periods of time and that monopoly is only rhetorical. You once again have the ability to do as you please so long as you are playing the part via text messages and lengthy phone calls. “This seems like the ramblings of the amoral,” creeps a whisper over my shoulder. No matter. This is the nature of the main decision to stay together. What become “big” decisions are those smaller choices to uphold the foundation of that rhetorical power over one's physical intimacy; those decisions that (s)he will most likely never know of.
These small choices have the largest impact on your relationship even if your partner is completely unaware. Keeping a steady flow of communication is the necessary and “big” decision, but your tone of voice when introduced to a new young (wo)man in the bar is a small decision of grand import. The choice to engage with the tone of voice you had locked away when your significant other was still here to maintain the monopoly is small in the moment. It was just a conversation... a really pleasant conversation. It is nice to be back out there talking to new people, getting fresh compliments, having your ego boosted and being told in different words that you “still got it.” Cheating is, in the end, a small decision that determines the truth of your Facebook profile's declaration that you are “in a relationship with...”
This is, of course, just one example to support, not an idea about time, but rather an idea bout decision-making. While time might diverge, we walk one path seamlessly unaware of what the decisions we didn't make could have brought to us. We can only know the consequences of the choice we did make, so it is of the utmost importance that we make the conscious decision to choose and follow that choice. When you choose to be with who may or may not be The One, you cannot know if (s)he is, but you must follow as if (s)he were because in the present you believe it to be true. When you make the “big” decision to stay together despite distance, it is only to your benefit to make the small and larger decisions necessary to maintain that to the full extent to which you actually decided to choose that direction in the fork in time. When you decide to choose you must follow that earnestly to its end. But if not, that is a new and separate choice that redirects the flow of time, with a path you must follow and a path you will never know.
There is an idea about time that suggests that time is not linear and in fact branches off into separate and unique timelines every time we make a decision. Perhaps this is really an idea about parallel dimensions. No matter. What is important is the focal point of decision-making. We would typically assume that it would only be big decisions that could affect the direction of time. Time is not so shallow.
What is it that makes a decision a big one? Immediate degree of importance? The long term affect of the consequences on a person's life, psyche or emotions? Only in retrospect can we interpret a choice's impact. The availability of interpretation makes it such that all decisions must diverge into different timelines. Regardless of what we see as a “big” decision, they are all decisions we make and thus all of those made and those paths untaken must have consequences of some sort. If this idea has any truth to it, then we must every day, every moment, every instant decide to choose and follow the path of that choice to its end. Why? Because once the direction of time has been set we must travel its course. All attempts to undo will fail; you can't turn back the hands of time.
What does this psuedo-metaphysical bullshit have to do with relationships and communication? I'm not there yet.
There is an idea about a girl (or boy) that suggests that (s)he is the one. The perfect center between Mr(s). Right and Mr(s). Right-Now. Surely, it seems contradictory to say that since The One would be assumed to be Mr(s). Right. That is after all what makes them The One, right? Well, no, not always. This again is one of those things we can only know at relationship's end through our interpretation of the ending and our memories of all time before that. From what I've seen, The One has walked in and out of my life many times with just as many names and faces. And each time I was wrong about her. I only know that to be true today, of course, having had the time to reflect upon it. Our choices brought us together and our choices made us part ways. It would be impossible to pinpoint every “big” decision, but when you can see the Great Wall from space you can't deny its existence.
We believe choices like “Let's stay together” to be big decisions, especially when that means enduring the states' distance between us and many long-distance phone calls. We ignore the many small decisions that support that larger choice. Here's where it gets messy. We don't understand what is and isn't a small or big decision. Cheating and telecommunicating are both small and large decisions, respectively. Read that twice. See what I did there?
The decision to stay faithful in a long-distance relationship supports the meaning of your original decision to stay with your significant other despite what may come between you. It is the only thing that you do that genuinely decides whether or not you are still in the relationship you decided to stay in. Telecommunication is how you decide to play the character of a person in a relationship.
Similar to the government being the people with the monopoly on violence, your significant other is the person that has the monopoly on your physical intimacy. Now displace that person out of reach of your body for long periods of time and that monopoly is only rhetorical. You once again have the ability to do as you please so long as you are playing the part via text messages and lengthy phone calls. “This seems like the ramblings of the amoral,” creeps a whisper over my shoulder. No matter. This is the nature of the main decision to stay together. What become “big” decisions are those smaller choices to uphold the foundation of that rhetorical power over one's physical intimacy; those decisions that (s)he will most likely never know of.
These small choices have the largest impact on your relationship even if your partner is completely unaware. Keeping a steady flow of communication is the necessary and “big” decision, but your tone of voice when introduced to a new young (wo)man in the bar is a small decision of grand import. The choice to engage with the tone of voice you had locked away when your significant other was still here to maintain the monopoly is small in the moment. It was just a conversation... a really pleasant conversation. It is nice to be back out there talking to new people, getting fresh compliments, having your ego boosted and being told in different words that you “still got it.” Cheating is, in the end, a small decision that determines the truth of your Facebook profile's declaration that you are “in a relationship with...”
This is, of course, just one example to support, not an idea about time, but rather an idea bout decision-making. While time might diverge, we walk one path seamlessly unaware of what the decisions we didn't make could have brought to us. We can only know the consequences of the choice we did make, so it is of the utmost importance that we make the conscious decision to choose and follow that choice. When you choose to be with who may or may not be The One, you cannot know if (s)he is, but you must follow as if (s)he were because in the present you believe it to be true. When you make the “big” decision to stay together despite distance, it is only to your benefit to make the small and larger decisions necessary to maintain that to the full extent to which you actually decided to choose that direction in the fork in time. When you decide to choose you must follow that earnestly to its end. But if not, that is a new and separate choice that redirects the flow of time, with a path you must follow and a path you will never know.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
The Birds:Defibrillation is a Hell of a Drug
By Mr. SR...C
“You abandoned me, love don’t live here anymore. Just a vacancy, love don’t live here anymore.” Now that lady, Rose Royce, knows what she is talking about. The problem is that many cannot bring themselves to vacate that love. People want to hold on to that love, that painstaking heartache, that struggle for constant heart fluttering, but eventually the heart drops. It seems so many of us fall in love, but when that love has failed to be fruitful for us or our partner many cannot logically accept that that one time love has now soured, changing into a past love and no longer the love we once knew. Having loved or still loving someone does not mean that the love is meant to be consummated in relationship form.
Relationships end, yet it is so irrefutably clear that denial of that possibility in a relationship littered with “I love you” and “I love you too” hardly allows the relationship to end cleanly or even end definitely. Now I understand that when you love another person and they love you that it is very hard to rid yourself of those deep rooted and intense feelings. Feelings that make your body actually physically react to any situation concerning the other, so serious that if they hurt you your heart begins to ache, so embedded that when you look at them in the morning you cannot help but smile. Rose says it best “when you lived inside of me, there was nothing that I could conceive that you wouldn’t do for me.” That is some serious stuff, some serious, serious feelings. I do not know how many people have felt that way, but I know there are readers out there who have. A love so strong that you would do anything for the other person, short of taking a bullet, but then again there are those that would take that bullet willingly for the one they love. That’s the type of love that is rooted in one’s soul and that’s the type of love that if the relationship ends has to be channeled out of the very fabric of you’re being. Think colon cleanse; whole lot of shit to get rid of.
I am all about love and all that good stuff (like apple sauce and Aladdin), but when relationships that make it to the “Love Dimension” end they need to stay ended. On and off relationships in the “Love Dimension” from my experience are just relationships that have no actual possibility of progress. What I mean by that is even if after ten to eleven break-ups you end up getting married and\or having kids there still will be those reasons why you broke up the first, fifth, and eighth place. Missing someone and still loving them does not always justify going back into a situation that was broken. Your relationship ended because one or both parties had an issue that could not be resolved within the realm of the relationship ,so one or both parties ended it. The key is the phrase “break-up”. To “break-up” is to scatter, disperse, separate into pieces, ceasing to function as an organized unit, et cetera. You get the point. There are a multitude of reasons a “break-up” can occur, but, none the less, in a relationship where love is involved there usually is a serious enough reason for the parties to be separated because if you are in love only serious issues should drive you apart, right? So it just would make sense that even with that love, if you felt, your partner felt, or you both felt it was necessary to “break-up”, it would follow that getting back together would be a bad decision, right?
I do not know how popular my theory on this is going to be, but when such a drastic cut is made as to bludgeon the life out of a relationship full of love there should only be death. This is not a cartoon. This is not the Bible. There is no resurrection here, and if there is a resurrection the relationship is going to look like a zombie. Yes, the living dead. A grotesque version of what once was; Heidi Montag comes to mind. People seem to try to use the love once held or possibly still held to repair an already too damaged relationship. You have to get over it. Your heart’s going to be tugged by good memories, but remember if everything was always good you would not be single. Your soul is going to be screaming for you to go back to the familiar, but you have to remember to tell yourself “love don’t live here anymore” because the same love does not live there. You may think it is the same love but once you break-up with someone the love changes. It is no longer the first and purest strain. It is a muddied, bastardized version that you must realize is going to be weaker than the first go around. Dr. Frankenstein’s resurrected wife/girlfriend seems like a fair analogy. With love and break-ups it only makes the love weaker not stronger, you are just getting used to how easy it is to leave each other.
Rose Royce is talking about her lover finding another home and abandoning her, which is real specific, but she moved on as did her previous mate. You cannot believe in that old pure form of “love” that you had, because there is “just a vacancy” and that love you knew “don’t live here anymore”.
“Now time to sit down and unwind to the smooth vibes of the groove you jive sexy thangs. A love lost means there's love to be found, chocolate treats and body heat, call the fire department," Issac Hayes voice.
“You abandoned me, love don’t live here anymore. Just a vacancy, love don’t live here anymore.” Now that lady, Rose Royce, knows what she is talking about. The problem is that many cannot bring themselves to vacate that love. People want to hold on to that love, that painstaking heartache, that struggle for constant heart fluttering, but eventually the heart drops. It seems so many of us fall in love, but when that love has failed to be fruitful for us or our partner many cannot logically accept that that one time love has now soured, changing into a past love and no longer the love we once knew. Having loved or still loving someone does not mean that the love is meant to be consummated in relationship form.
Relationships end, yet it is so irrefutably clear that denial of that possibility in a relationship littered with “I love you” and “I love you too” hardly allows the relationship to end cleanly or even end definitely. Now I understand that when you love another person and they love you that it is very hard to rid yourself of those deep rooted and intense feelings. Feelings that make your body actually physically react to any situation concerning the other, so serious that if they hurt you your heart begins to ache, so embedded that when you look at them in the morning you cannot help but smile. Rose says it best “when you lived inside of me, there was nothing that I could conceive that you wouldn’t do for me.” That is some serious stuff, some serious, serious feelings. I do not know how many people have felt that way, but I know there are readers out there who have. A love so strong that you would do anything for the other person, short of taking a bullet, but then again there are those that would take that bullet willingly for the one they love. That’s the type of love that is rooted in one’s soul and that’s the type of love that if the relationship ends has to be channeled out of the very fabric of you’re being. Think colon cleanse; whole lot of shit to get rid of.
I am all about love and all that good stuff (like apple sauce and Aladdin), but when relationships that make it to the “Love Dimension” end they need to stay ended. On and off relationships in the “Love Dimension” from my experience are just relationships that have no actual possibility of progress. What I mean by that is even if after ten to eleven break-ups you end up getting married and\or having kids there still will be those reasons why you broke up the first, fifth, and eighth place. Missing someone and still loving them does not always justify going back into a situation that was broken. Your relationship ended because one or both parties had an issue that could not be resolved within the realm of the relationship ,so one or both parties ended it. The key is the phrase “break-up”. To “break-up” is to scatter, disperse, separate into pieces, ceasing to function as an organized unit, et cetera. You get the point. There are a multitude of reasons a “break-up” can occur, but, none the less, in a relationship where love is involved there usually is a serious enough reason for the parties to be separated because if you are in love only serious issues should drive you apart, right? So it just would make sense that even with that love, if you felt, your partner felt, or you both felt it was necessary to “break-up”, it would follow that getting back together would be a bad decision, right?
I do not know how popular my theory on this is going to be, but when such a drastic cut is made as to bludgeon the life out of a relationship full of love there should only be death. This is not a cartoon. This is not the Bible. There is no resurrection here, and if there is a resurrection the relationship is going to look like a zombie. Yes, the living dead. A grotesque version of what once was; Heidi Montag comes to mind. People seem to try to use the love once held or possibly still held to repair an already too damaged relationship. You have to get over it. Your heart’s going to be tugged by good memories, but remember if everything was always good you would not be single. Your soul is going to be screaming for you to go back to the familiar, but you have to remember to tell yourself “love don’t live here anymore” because the same love does not live there. You may think it is the same love but once you break-up with someone the love changes. It is no longer the first and purest strain. It is a muddied, bastardized version that you must realize is going to be weaker than the first go around. Dr. Frankenstein’s resurrected wife/girlfriend seems like a fair analogy. With love and break-ups it only makes the love weaker not stronger, you are just getting used to how easy it is to leave each other.
Rose Royce is talking about her lover finding another home and abandoning her, which is real specific, but she moved on as did her previous mate. You cannot believe in that old pure form of “love” that you had, because there is “just a vacancy” and that love you knew “don’t live here anymore”.
“Now time to sit down and unwind to the smooth vibes of the groove you jive sexy thangs. A love lost means there's love to be found, chocolate treats and body heat, call the fire department," Issac Hayes voice.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)