Breakup Advice

Today we respond to a question from a reader.

She had an on-again/off-again relationship with a particular man over the course of many years. When they were together, the situation was often stormy and she was never really able to fully invest in the relationship and its potential. But now that he is seriously dating someone else again, she is really suffering realizing what she may have lost.

She writes:

I’ve been struggling with the loss of an ex lover/best friend for months now after he met someone else.

We had a complicated 12 year history. We met at work when we were both in other relationships. We got out of those but had trouble being in a real relationship with one another. He always wanted more than I did. I felt a lot of guilt about how we met.

When we finally started dating, I could feel his resentment toward me. We both met other people with whom we dated for a couple of years. We remained friends and at some point he expressed that he was still interested. Again, we broke up with others to try to be together and it was rocky. We had an amazing connection physically and psychologically. Very deep connection. But that made it more tumultuous when things weren’t going well.

He was always trying to get me to go to therapy to work on our issues and I would start looking for someone “better.” I always thought that something new, not filled with the history, would feel better.

In the last couple of years, he lost both of his parents. I didn’t know how to help him. He was so depressed and I selfishly didn’t want to be depressed as well as it just underscored the fact that our relationship was always so heavy. Rightfully so, he developed resentment toward me for that.

We grew apart last summer and in December he started dating someone we both met through mutual friends. I found out early February and have not handled it well. I tried getting him back but of course he said that seemed reactionary and he didn’t trust it. He told me that this new thing is light and fun and refreshing after everything we had. He told me he loves me very much and will always feel connected to me but he is so angry with me for everything. He said he wants to see where his new relationship goes.

He has been with her now for over 6 months and they seem serious. He doesn’t reach out to me anymore and we don’t talk. This is a man that I never lived with, but he lives a  block away and we talked or texted almost everyday. We were close on many levels and now it’s just gone. I cannot seem to get past the pain of losing him in my life and I realize now that I let something wonderful wilt before my eyes and now I can’t revive it. I want to let him go but I’m finding it impossible to do so. I’ve tried everything from reading books, psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, acupuncture, etc. Nothing takes away the pain. How can this be? We never even had a normal relationship.

And our response:

It sounds to me like the two of you kept being drawn to each other because you had unfinished business to resolve together, but then, each time the opportunity to do this was there – perhaps by going to couples therapy or by actually doing a method like Imago together – you instead got triggered and upset and backed away again. This sounds like an example of the repetition compulsion playing out for both of you. I recommend you read this article to learn more about this. It seems like you yourself were often playing the “minimizer” role in this relationship which you can learn about there.

Now that he has strongly moved away from the relationship, the part of you that realizes you really do need someone like him to work through your issues with is hurt and scared. What if you never get another chance to work through your issues?

The “bad news” is that there is no guarantee of what this particular person will do. If you become very clear about how you’d want to proceed with him given another chance – for example, if you learn about Imago and commit that you’d want to work the program, perhaps along with seeing an Imago therapist together – it’s possible you could propose this to him and he might give things another chance now or in the future. But of course there is the possibility that he won’t. And that is something painful to accept.

The “good news,” though, is that, as much as the feelings may seem to be about him personally, they aren’t completely about him. He is a symbol, a representative of a type of person that your unconscious needs to work with to heal – the type of person you can project your unconscious onto for the purpose of growth and healing. He isn’t the only person that can serve this role. There are others out there.

So a possible way to approach it is this:

1. Learn more about Imago and the way the repetition compulsion works in relationships. The article I mentioned above can help with this.
2. Decide how you would want to proceed with this man differently given another chance so that the same cycle wouldn’t play out again and again, but you’d actually work to experience some real healing and resolution together.
3. Decide if you want to propose this to him. If you do, I would recommend doing it in a way that communicates and accepts that this is his choice, that you can’t force him or pressure him into it and that, if he does choose to return, he would have to do it on his time when he feels comfortable. You could also suggest that he read about Imago too, but that also would be his choice whether he does that.
4. If he returns, carry out this new plan with him. If he does not, instead spend that time, aided by a deeper understanding of Imago relationships, looking to get clearer on what it is about him that makes him such an attractive mate for you and seeking others that can play a similar role.

Having gone through this process, whether this partner returns or you eventually find another partner with whom you have the possibility of psychological resolution, you will be much more conscious and equipped this time to do what is necessary to achieve that resolution than you were in the past.

Finally, realize that underneath these strong attractions there are often wounds and traumas and neglects from your past and, while it can be difficult to fully resolve these by yourself, you will be healthier to the extent that you can work on them even on your own.

I hope this helps. And if you – or anyone reading – would like more direct and personal help, I do offer coaching so feel free to contact us and we can discuss working together. In coaching I would help you as much as possible myself, as well as be better able to determine what other resources I can recommend that might be helpful to you.

I’ve often heard people wonder why the person who they get the best relationship advice from is single. After all, if this person understands relationships so well, why aren’t they successfully having one?

It may sound logical that anyone who understands relationships well would be currently living out that understanding with a partner. But when you think about it more deeply, you realize that there are actually many reasons why a person, despite being single at the time, may offer a wealth of valuable insight to those dealing with a boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse or a breakup.

This isn’t to say that all single people offer great advice. Some really are single due to having poor understanding of relationships. Others are single for different reasons, but just happen not to be wise in this area. Also, there are plenty of people who have great relationships but, if asked how or why, wouldn’t be able to articulate it to anyone else.

Below are some reasons that great relationship advice can come from someone who is single:

• Teaching and doing involve different skills – There are some great coaches in sports that aren’t actually great at playing that sport. The necessary abilities are different. Someone can have a great mind for strategy, but simply not be strong enough physically to enact it themselves, for example. There have been some great NBA coaches who were very small physically. They could never have made it in the NBA as players, but do a very good job as analysts and strategists. The same logic can apply to relationships.
• Being single can allow for distance and objectivity – Sometimes when a person is not with a partner at the moment, they have an ability to see things more clearly since they are outside the dynamics of relationships looking in. This could especially be true if they’ve been in relationships before and now have experience from the inside and from the outside afterward, as well. They have now seen a relationship through all steps of the process from being single to courting to partnership to breaking up to being single again. This can allow them to have more knowledge than someone might have that has only been in a relationship and not yet gone through a breakup, for example.
• Sometimes being single is evidence of relationship wisdom – There are plenty of times in life when the wise choice is to be single, at least for some period of time. Someone who constantly jumps into relationships or stays in a relationship that is unhealthy may not be single, but that doesn’t mean that they are making wise choices or know more about relationships than the single person. If a person is single for the wrong reasons or because they are making misguided choices, then this might be a sign that they are a poor person to take advice from. But many people are single for all the right reasons.

• Singlehood may be wise for one person, while a relationship may be wise for another – Building on the previous point, everyone’s situation is different. Perhaps the single person is busy with work and school and doesn’t really have time to commit to a relationship at the moment, while the person they are advising has a less stressful life. The fact that the first person’s current situation is not conducive to a relationship right now doesn’t mean they are any less insightful when advising the second person.

  Or consider that the first person is simply less physically attractive so they are getting less opportunities coming their way. They may be wise to hold out until they meet someone that meets their standards. During this period, they may have a friend who is more physically attractive and receives more opportunities and could still offer them useful advice.

  What if a person had a traumatic childhood and has been in therapy to heal that? Remaining single for a while might be better than jumping prematurely into a relationship. And yet, especially as a result of being in therapy, they may have more insight than many of their friends who are rarely single. They might even have more insight because they took some time to be single and work with a therapist.

• Relationship knowledge doesn’t only come from romantic relationships – A lot of the skills and insight needed to have a healthy relationship are the same whether it is with a relative, a friend or a lover. All of these situations require a capacity for honesty, communication, empathy, understanding and so on. A single person, even one who has never had a romantic relationship, might still have a great grasp on these capacities. Perhaps they grew up in a household in which their parents had a very healthy loving relationship with each other, as well as with their children, so these abilities were modeled for them their entire life. This might even explain why now, for all the right reasons, they have high standards that must be met before they will get into a relationship, even as it explains why they have knowledge about relationships that their other friends – perhaps from less emotionally healthy households and constantly acting out their dysfunction in unhealthy relationships – lack.

These are just some of the reasons that single people may, despite being single, be great at giving relationship advice. There are likely even more.

So if you have a single friend that offers you great advice but you worry about whether you should trust it just because they’re single, you might want to relax. Being single doesn’t necessarily make them any less qualified to have strong insight. If the content of what they’re advising you is beneficial and valuable, use it…and consider yourself lucky to have their support.