Love Gained, Love Lost, Loving and Leaving

IN the past few weeks, I've been kind of talking or helping out three longtime friends who've been painstakingly laboring over their respective relationships/marriages. Two are married, one is single (or supposedly “engaged”). Sadly, in almost stunning coincidence—all of them finally broke up this week. I didn't know if my words did matter but I tried to objectify situations and stuff. Yet I know whatever I said were simply buffers or respites from the turmoil. They decided because they had to.

          A relationship, despite the glowing promises of the courtship/honeymoon phase, is not a picnic by a serene beach. Mostly (due to physical realities beyond the “I love you”) it is a raft jaunt amidst a turbulent sea or a rollercoaster ride that refuses to stop. Yet that magical glue called love keeps two together and consign all the challenges and hardships to the backburner. Love will find a way. There could be nine staggering “dealbreakers” in a relationship—more than enough reasons to end it, yet that one item, LOVE, negates everything.

          That's the case with my friends. Or in my case, as well—not just faults and wrongdoings by my ex but also mine. Yet some are able to soldier on and survive the darkness, no matter how overwhelming they were, and celebrate their 20th or 30th, 50th wedding anniversaries. Some don't.

           So when people finally broke up and ended it, that is the time—after few days of reflections and ruminations—that they'd say and realize that they couldn't stand her/his ways and lifestyle, mode of thinking and general attitude anyway. And love wasn't strong enough to find a way. Reason and smart-sense set in. Time to regroup and replan... And move on.

          Moving on is only possible in humility and surrender though. The ability to accept that a failed relationship was a two-person accountability. There is no sense pointing fingers that it's all her/his fault why it didn't work out. People's reflex and response, I believe, is ushered by the situation and circumstances in and around. And that situation/circumstance is the relationship. A partner could either make a person a better individual or the worst that he/she could be. If it failed, it's because the relationship failed—not the person per se. It's a two-person teamwork.

          So we move on with the hope that the other person enters a new world where she/he can improve on things that needed it, realize potentials, pursue delayed plans, achieve dreams—and maybe find another partner that could really add real meaning to the word, synergy or compromise/negotiation. We move on with the hope as well that we realize the same positive, pro-active and output oriented life, and love. Worse that could happen is—for one or both to self-destruct after the breakup.

          Bottomline, life doesn't end after a breakup or divorce. It is just a shake up leading to a new beginning.