This is the End

Like all men, I really am a rather stunningly maudlin little shit when dumped.




Relationships are funny things really aren't they? Without ever quite meaning to, we hand over the key to our heart to somebody whom, for all we know, could be some sort of mentally deranged fool with a pathological need for companionship. We're also (as I've belatedly discovered) saying to someone "Hello. I'd like to make an emotional investment in you that may well end in disappointment and leave me feeling crushed". All very odd when put in those terms, but of course no-one in their right mind thinks that way at the onset of their journey together. They rightly think only of good times together and being happy ever after. Fair enough for all the millions of people for whom everything works out. If you are one of those people then this rant is really not for you. Having examined why we are so phenomenally bad at starting relationships in the first place, I thought it might be a good idea to look at why we are so spectacularly awful at ending them.

As this is mainly going to be drawn from my own experiences as well as general observations on the (many) relationships that my friends have either enjoyed or endured, you may not find yourself entirely agreeing with everything that I'm about to say. Part of me wishes to say "Tough shit", but as it is my stated desire to continue to learn then I welcome any corrections to my thinking that you may wish to suggest. I'll almost certainly ignore them of course, but it's the thought that counts...

It seems to me that at the last spluttering gasps of a relationship there are 3 main stages involved for one or both parties; denial, acceptance, and then moving on. It strikes me that of all of these, the final stage is the one most heavily imbued with sadness due to the fact that one is letting go of what may have been a large part of their lives for an awful long time, but I'm getting ahead of myself (and the last person who did that still has difficulty sitting...) so I shall start at the beginning. Or the end as it were.

Now then, the process of denial can take many forms but it seems to split down the middle into two distinct categories which, generally speaking, can be divided fairly evenly. There are those who try to block out the fact that the relationship is over, and there are those who try to blot out the fact that the relationship ever happened in the first place. The former camp tends to be the sole reserve of people with a problem keeping a firm grip on reality. After all, if one has just been compared (unfavourably) to a festering boil on the arse of Anne Widdecombe by ones partner and has been told repeatedly to just bugger off and leave them alone, then it would seem pretty cut and dried as to whether the relationship is at an end. Not to these plucky (not to say, delusional) men and women. I don't know if you're familiar with the evocative Geordie phrase "I'd crawl through broken glass to stick matches in her shit". Well, I am willing to bet my life that it was coined by a man in this particular stage of relationship death. That phrase pretty much evokes exactly how pitiful the person who can't accept that a relationship has ended is. Despite all evidence to the contrary, they will insist that there is still a chance, however slim, that "we can work it out".

Of course, due to the immensely complicated laws of relationships, ones friends are pretty much forbidden to point this out. Their role is limited to providing support, compassion, and wishing like hell that their friend would hurry up and make the return trip to the real world. Should one of these friends pluck up the courage (or just get sick to death of the insipid whining about how "I'm certain that he/she'll see sense and want me back!") to tell them that it is over, they can look forward to one of two reactions; being ignored (rather like the fast show sketch where the woman talks and the men don't hear her) or being the recipient of some quite spectacularly bile imbued anger that has been building up for weeks (and cannot possibly be directed at ones former partner because after all, that would mean that they'd *never* take you back...). I estimate that something like 40% of friendships probably end during this phase of life so one can double one's fun by losing one's partner and one's friends in one fell swoop. If someone you know is behaving erratically (well...more erratically than usually anyway) and is generally no fun whatsoever to be with, then chance are you know someone engulfed in this particular form of denial.

The second category, although no less delusional, is that of "It was never really a proper relationship anyway". This is generally reserved for the shorter relationships (though not always; I know of one person who's husband wants their marriage annulled rather than a divorce because that way he can pretend it never happened. And I thought I was good at detaching myself from reality...) and in general is a lot easier on everybody than the above form of denial. All this seems to entail is devaluing the time that you did spend together so that one can put up a barrier in order to protect oneself from the pain of one's loss (by the way, can we take the fact that one will feel gut-wrenching, panic inducing anguish at the end of a relationship as given? That way I don't have to harp on about it, as I'm sure you're quite aware of what it feels like). Not surprisingly, this method of denial is a favourite of men the world over. There are probably undiscovered tribes in the Brazilian rainforest that follow this particular custom. Depending on what the relationship actually meant to you (i.e. whether you really did like them or not, something that you usually only discover once you don't have them any more) then this is either a fantastic method of letting oneself down gently and ensuring that one doesn't have too much emotional baggage upon starting a new relationship, or it is a quite remarkable method of storing up trouble for later on. Generally this trouble only emerges when one sees one's former partner being blissfully happy with someone who is not you. Lord knows how many hundreds of nights out have ended in tear-sodden violence thanks to this particular baby. And let's not even get into the situation where one partner is in the former stage of denial and the other is in the latter. Mm-mm, what fun and games that can lead to...

But it's not all horrendous doom and gloom. No, not a bit of it. Once one has traversed the borderline whirlpool madness that can be denial, one can then begin to sail into the choppy waters of acceptance. Again, I should say that I'm biased here; having spent the last year in denial I'm now making my first forays into acceptance. And what a truly marvelous feeling it is. When one is in denial one is constantly under an oppressive weight, sort of like walking round carrying a damp St. Bernard on ones back. When one accepts that it is all over, the weight is lifted almost completely. You are free to feel joy, or sadness, or indifference about something and you can feel it *without reference to how you would have felt about your former partner!* Oh, what an absolute relief it is! It's almost like being reborn (although thankfully one doesn't feel the urge to dedicate one's life to Jesus/Mohammed/David Icke; well, not unless you had a *really* tough time in denial...) Every new experience becomes just that; totally new. Having fun becomes one's driving (nay, only) motivation. One can start new relationships or friendships unencumbered by the past. Perhaps it's just the time of year, but the image that comes to mind is emerging from a dark cave into a myriad sky of fireworks, a cornucopia of colour, an infinite variety of new delight. Of course, sometimes the fireworks burn out and one can get burnt quite badly. After all, I mentioned that one is almost reborn and really feels new experiences; the problem with this is that although one experiences unfettered joy during this period in ones life, one can also feel adversely affected by things that one would previously have brushed aside.

It's because of that emotional rawness that people in this stage of relationship death tend to go absolutely fucking crazy for a while. By which I mean, they become incapable of not going out and partying until their lungs bleed. They want to have fun all of the time and at all costs. To do otherwise would leave one open to experience more pain, and we had quite enough of that going through denial thank you very much indeed. Different people do it in different ways of course; some develop new hobbies and pursue them to levels of quite breathtaking sadness, others indulge in Herculean bouts of shagging with anything that has a pulse, still others take the brave step of tentatively pursuing a new relationship. None of these courses of action are particularly bad, and from what I have seen no one method is clearly better than another when it comes to acceptance. Horses for courses I suppose. What I would say is that none of them really mean anything until one is able to move on.

By moving on I mean dealing with the months/years that you spent with your former partner. I said earlier that I think this is the saddest and most melancholy of all the stages of relationship death and I stand by that. You are admitting that many of your old dreams are over and that a lot of your former goals and expectations in life have irrevocably altered. That is not to say that it means one shuts the former lover out of one's life altogether. I have seen people in that situation remain friends, perhaps with a better and stronger friendship than they can ever have with anybody else. I've seen them be apart for a few years and end up back together. Of course, I've also seen them rent apart with bitterness and anger that it all went wrong. Moving on doesn't necessarily mean peace for one's soul, it might just mean an end to open hostilities. I suppose one simply has to hope that one will come out of whatever relationship they've been in relatively unscathed and hoping that, if nothing else, they'll have learned something.