WHEN CONSIDERING BREAKUPS.

HERE WE GO AGAIN. ANOTHER COUPLE CALLING IT QUITS. ANOTHER CELEB BREAK-UP. ANOTHER FRIEND FILING FROM DIVORCE. ANOTHER HEARTBREAKING PHONECALL ABOUT AN “IT COUPLE” FALLING APART AT THE SEAMS.

How can two, consenting adults… who’ve committed their days to one another, abandon the other? How can loving, kind humans cut off the heat on their side of the bed- essentially icing the veins of the ones they love? There are countless articles, blog posts and neighborhood “tea” …revealing yet another break-up or divorce. How do people get there?

The lazy answer is to assume that people just… aren’t good people. It’s easy to deduce that people didn’t try or that they were never fully committed. That’s not always the case. There are seemingly kind, honest, well-meaning people who walk away from their relationships or marriage with their hats in their hands. I know that’s hard to hear because society has adopted some unrealistic and impractical ideas around love. There’s this idea that there has to be a hero and a villain. It’s simply not true.

Relationships are a macrocosm. They’re made up of a million little pieces- a million little moments. They’re made up of good things, like inside jokes, romantic gestures and tearful vulnerabilities. They’re also made up of difficult things, like biting remarks, sighs of exasperation and selfish actions. There are moments of deep connection and deep disappointment. Relationships are not passive things. Like a house, there’s a need for upkeep and inspection. Cracks in the foundation cannot go unchecked and unaddressed. No one can cut you down quite like your partner and there’s no loneliness quite like feeling isolated in your relationship. I know, that can be… discouraging to hear. 

There’s no “one size fits all” answer. Partners bring their past lived experiences, biases, triggers and prejudices to the table. To make it even more complicated, all of those things vary. However, one variable seems to cut through the fog: commitment. It isn’t the sexiest word or even the most endeared. An understood commitment between two people quenches the fears of abandonment and opens the mind to search for resources to relational roadblocks. Commitment says, “I’m going to keep coming back to the problem until we find a fix.” Commitment says, “I’m willing to chip away at any resentments to heal.” Hope is an underrated commodity; when coupled with diligence…it can be a healing balm. 

More on this soon... XO.