Liebster Blog Award

My humble little blog has been nominated by Jeff for the Liebster Blog Award. Thanks for the nomination Jeff, your support is much appreciated! (check out Jeff’s blog here: http://jeffmares.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/liebster-blog-award/)

 

 

Top 5: Ways to get over heartbreak (well, stages of really)

Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth – or burn down your house, you can never tell.  — Joan Crawford

I share my bed with a laptop and an iphone, not a person, so relationships might not be something I’m all that qualified to write about… but break-ups? Oh, I’m the doyen of break-ups. I’m a freaking guru when it comes to leaving a trail of human wreckage in my wake.

This time around though, the universe played a prank on me. I was the one who got burned by the love supernova, destined to fade-out like a white dwarf star (*snort* collapsing inward under my own gravity — sorry, bit of a self-indulgent nerd joke there).

If you’re familiar with the Five Stages of Grief (courtesy of Kübler-Ross) you may not be at all surprised by this post-mortem advice I wrote to help myself get over my recent heart-break:
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Stage 1: Denial

What you tell yourself: It’s not happening. They’ll come back to me. We were made to be together. It’ll be FINE, you’ll see.

How to move forward: Admit how you feel. To them. To yourself. You don’t want to waste your life pondering what may if happened if only you’d had the kahoonas to embrace the risk and tell them how you feel about them, or that you wanted to fight for the relationship. Yes, it hurts like hell when they don’t feel the same way, but at least you will have been true to yourself.
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Stage 2: Anger

What you tell yourself: How could this be happening to ME?! I’ll show them! Right, that’s it. I’ll punish them. I’ll punish myself. I’ll punish everyone around me. Pfft! I didn’t need them anyway! I’m over it (but you’re not).

How to move forward: It may surprise you to learn that striking out in fear, hurt and resentment at everyone who walks past isn’t the answer. In fact, a whole heap of those people want to help you. Take the time-out that you need to lick your wounds and find a safe way to discharge your negative energy. Take up a boxing class or some form of exercise. Avoid your happy-couple friends for a few weeks until the urge to puke and/or punch them in the face passes.
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Stage 3: Bargaining

What you tell yourself: If only I was smarter, funnier, prettier, thinner — THEN they’d love me.

How to move forward: The urge to make a deal with the universe for one last shot at it is irresistible at this time. We’ve all seen those messed-up mutually destructive relationships that get stuck in this cycle for months (or years) where they break-up and get back together over and over again. Once someone wants out, it’s just prolonging the inevitable. The relationship isn’t healthy, won’t last and you’ll ultimately wind-up even more emotionally down-trodden. It’s not about you. There’s nothing more you could have done; nothing better you could have been. It’s time to recognise that the relationship is over. OVER.

Which leads to…
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Stage 4: Depression

What you tell yourself: Romeo and Juliet didn’t hurt like this. No-one in the entire history of the WORLD has ever hurt like this. No-one was more perfect for me. I’ll never love again. There’s no point.

How to move forward: We all know this stage — chick-flicks, sad songs, ice-cream and tissues abound. Sometimes our friends try to cheer us up when we’re in this stage – or worse — try to set us up with someone else. Grieving is healthy. We must process and come to terms with the loss we’ve just suffered in order to be able to move on. While it can be difficult to determine a proportionate amount of time per relationship, if it spirals into clinical depression, as opposed to deep sadness and grieving, seek professional support. Otherwise, be gentle with yourself while you allow yourself to heal.

In this stage, it’s important to maintain routines and try to find pleasure in the everyday experiences that you would normally enjoy (walking the dog, painting, reading a book, spending time with friends). If you find yourself out socially (or on dates) and the ex is still your favourite topic of conversation — you’re not ready to date!
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Stage 5: Acceptance

What you tell yourself: I loved, I lost, I learned. I will move on, and I will love again, taking what I’ve learned with me. I’m over it (and you are).

How to move forward: You know you’re over someone when you’re no longer angry, no longer sad. Once you’ve reached the ‘acceptance’ stage, you’ve begun to comprehend the certainty of the situation. You know that the relationship is over. You know that you will get through this. Logic starts to creep back in, and you may well recognise the ways in which you’re better off without them. You may even come to realise that it’s for the best.
It’s time to find who you are outside of that relationship. It’s time to embrace all the things they didn’t appreciate about you! Enjoy all those favourite foods of yours that they didn’t like, or hobbies they loathed, that musical instrument you wanted to learn or dance class your wanted to take.

Having learned and grown from this experience, you are ready to move on. It’s time to step out of the cocoon and stretch your wings!

Stuff and nonsense (the pain of unrequited love)

‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. — Lord Alfred Tennyson

If there‘s anything good about having your heart broken, it‘s learning that you still have one.

Such an experience is especially poignant for a dedicated commitment-phobe, such as myself, who likes to keep a guarded heart and a full dance-card.

I had an affair with a married friend. (If you’re the judgmental type, let me skip to end and reassure you that they went back to their spouse, leaving me to forever wallow in self-loathing and shame.)

It was all of those things one solemnly swears never to fall prey to: lustful, destructive and full of sordid, stolen moments. It was angst-ridden, guilt-laden and heart-breaking.

My (ex)friend is in a straight marriage, so the likelihood of us falling for one another was low. Perhaps that assumed safety fuelled our situation by allowing us to let our guard down more than we otherwise might have. Our level of mutual understanding (that elusive ’click’ for which we all yearn) was immediate and intense. We began finishing one another’s sentences and speaking on behalf of the other right away. On the surface, our shared geeky-tendencies and cultural references forged an instant camaraderie. More deeply, our like-minded political convictions, intellectual interests and philosophical bent strengthened the bond. Instinctively, we saw through one another’s defences, confronted one another’s weaknesses and acknowledged one another’s needs. We fit together. Effortlessly. She got along famously with my kids (no small achievement!) who still want to adopt her.

This being a tragedy, let us call her Othello; one that I loved not too wisely, but too well. I fell fast. I fell hard. Alas, my depth of feeling was not reciprocated (how could it be, when her heart and hand rightfully belong to another?). Still, the connection was undeniable. And so began the emotional affair. As the Other Woman, I was completely dispensable of course, a mere understudy for her spouse; who failed (fails!) to meet her emotional needs. My propensity to uplift and support her was no-doubt incredibly useful to her (still she acknowledges my belief in her as being “greatly appreciated”– OUCH!); a great boon to her flailing self-confidence. Sexually too we were intensely compatible – electric! spine-tingling! – but I won’t bore you with that!

The real challenge, for me at least, is moving on. Othello, not really caring for me at all, ultimately had to put an end to it (thus returning to the ruse of being in a fulfilling marriage – until next time). As tiresome as I usually find dating, this was not a game for me. I wanted happily ever after. I wanted the white picket fence. Instead, I found myself cut adrift on the cold stagnant waters of the platonic ocean. That too was short-lived, the awkwardness of our situation out-weighing my serviceability as a confidant and emotional substratum.

I remain in awe of her. I long for her with every fibre of my being; and I fight — all day, each day c to pretend not to give a damn that she doesn’t want me.

To have every aspect of one’s psyche and soul be completely, utterly, unfathomably understood (all of one’s complexities, inconsistencies, foibles and failures) by another human being is a beautiful, rapturous, uplifting experience. It’s no surprise then, that to be so understood, so soulfully naked in front of another, and then rejected out-of-hand, hurts unspeakably. Each little reference that no-one else gets (yet she seems to comprehend telepathically) serves as a reminder that no-one else will understand me with the same effortless osmosis as she. Every calamitous anecdote of dating miscommunication, a terrifying reminder that no-one sees through me, knows what’s important to me, the way she does.

Haunting stuff. Desperately romantic, and yet – ultimately – pointless, as she cares not a jolt for me.

All this is compounded, as is the Shakespearean irony of such affairs (A Midsummer Night’s Dream comes to mind) by each misplaced romantic gesture, every woefully inadequate flirtatious interaction with any one of the long line of incomparable, incompatible, inconsequential others I have since buried myself in to dull the pain.

It sucks.

And so, to the point… How does one get over the break-up of a relationship one was never in? How to fill the gaping wound left in one’s life by an extraordinary person who was never really in it?

Celibate? ME?!

One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself. — Leonardo da Vinci

Nosce te ipsum (Latin: “know thyself”). All manner of great (and not-so-great) sages have banged on about the importantance of knowing ourselves. Socrates also taught us that the unexamined life is not worth living.

Knowing oneself is often much harder than we’d like to admit. It’s a confronting experience to be slapped in the face by our own inconsistencies or brazenly accosted by our own failings. Humiliated by the long list of things we should know, or have done, by now, and the stinking corpse of the poor choices we’ve made, the road we’ve taken and now have to live with.

I fell deeply and desperately in unrequited love — with a married friend.  I’d like to say they cared for me too, that what we had fundamentally deepened their sense-of-self and opened them to what it means to love and be loved… but the truth is, I was an understudy for their parter; satisfying their unmet emotional needs; mere ego-stroking wank fodder…

Unaccustomed to not getting what I want, I didn’t handle it nearly as well as I would’ve wanted to. Which is to say, I didn’t handle it at all.

So, as part of the inevitable mopping up process after my heart was stomped on, I’ve embarked on a bit of an emotional spring-cleaning.

Psychiatrist at hand, I’m learning how to relate to – and connect with – other people. I’m learning how to form, foster and nurture meaningful relationships.

The first step is not using people for gratification (especially now that I know how heartbreaking that can be). No more one night stands. No more putting my sexual needs ahead of my emotional fulfilment. I shall be, in the ancient wisdom of Seinfeld, “master of my domain!”

I’ve decided to take a break from sex. (Could those who know me in person please stop laughing?)

The plan is this — I will be chaste until next financial year (1 July 2012). That’s just over six months to get in touch with my emotional self and learn how to more maturely identify, articulate and express my emotional needs.

This is ample time to learn how to balance the needs of my young family with my desire to grow my career. Ample time to learn how to simply BE with people, without treating them as a consumable resource. I will learn not to live in my own head (or others’ pants). I will learn how to be both more human and more humane.

So, know any good board games?