magnum opus

Over the past few days I accumulated some opinions regarding my query in Wednesday’s post, and, not surprisingly, they were quite varied.  Some people offered a cautious, “Follow your heart and your gut” response, while others (Charlie) offered the “I think you’re taking an extra helping of crazy pills” response.

In general, though, the replies were not so much about the protocol of who contacts whom, but about examining the reasons for and appropriateness of the contact.  There are those who made the argument that, for the good of all parties, some doors are better off closed.  No one advocated denying a relationship happened, or not paying due diligence to its memory from time to time, but, as it was put to me by one Julie Grega:  “It’s like a book that you read halfway through, and then lose interest in.  So you put it on the shelf, and from time to time you think about taking it down and finishing it, but then you remember that the last chapter was really hard to get through, and you’re still not interested, so you just leave it there.”

The flip side to that argument, of course, is that in certain situations, with certain people, you need the closure; you need to finish the book, so to speak, even if you have to slog through it, page by excruciating page, just to prove to yourself that you can do it.  So it goes with exes.  Sometimes you have to reach out to them just to prove you can, because, in acknowledging them, you de-mystify them.  Instead of being a concept that you’ve built up or torn down in your mind (depending on the circumstances of the break-up), your ex returns to exactly what he is – a human being with whom you once shared something very intimate and special, but whose life has veered off in a direction different from yours, someone you can acknowledge as a person who exists in your universe, and nothing more.

A couple people raised the question “What’s the point of making contact?  What are you looking to get out of it?”  A valid question, to be sure, as usually there is some sort of ulterior motive for initiating contact.  But, in certain cases, I think making the contact, extending the hand is the point; there’s no expectation of re-establishing a relationship, or even receiving a reply.  It’s more of a personal hurdle to cross – to know that you made the effort, to prove to yourself that you could make the effort.  To return to the book analogy, you have to finish it for the satisfaction of knowing you could.  The book’s not going to give you a standing ovation when you reach the last page, and your ex may never acknowledge your contact, but you know you did it, and came through unscathed, and that is the only payoff you need.

A sort of mantra that has developed in my life and the lives of those around me in the past few days is “You can only do what you can do,” meaning, you can only be responsible for the things in your control; as for things outside your control, there’s not much use in worrying about them, because they’re out of your control.  When it comes to exes, you can only do what you can do; how he or she reacts is out of your control.  But at the end of the day, there is a certain peace that comes with knowing you’ve done all that you can do.

contact

Dear readers, if I may, today I would like to pick your brains for a bit (that phrase conjures up some bizarre imagery, but I love it just the same), on the subject of exes, specifically communication between exes.

Last night over drinks with Julie at National Mechanics, we started talking about exes and the ghosts of romances past, and when it’s appropriate to contact someone, and when it’s not. I shared my belief that, following a non-mutual break-up (which is a nice way of saying somebody got dumped), it should be up to the injured party to re-establish contact when and if he or she feels it’s necessary.

My argument for this is that, when someone is dumped, his or her recovery period is usually much longer and more substantial than that of the person who did the dumping.  As anyone who’s ever been dumped knows, it’s a very delicate time; you’re doing everything you can to hold it together, and the slightest push – a familiar song on the radio, the sight of the restaurant where you had your first date, an old T-shirt found buried in a drawer – can make you fall to pieces.  Getting a phone call, e-mail or visit from your ex is nearly catastrophic during this time, until you’re really and truly over him or her.  That’s why I feel, out of respect for those in their mourning and recovery period, those who have been dumped should be left alone by those who dumped them, until all wounds have been healed or at least thoroughly licked clean.

Julie, however, did not seem convinced, so it made me curious – what do you all think is the proper protocol for re-establishing communication after a break-up?  Do you think communication should ever cease during or after a break-up?  Do you think some sleeping dogs are better left alone?  Leave some comments and let me know what you think!

when worlds collide

To continue Tuesday night’s conversation about exes (because who doesn’t want to talk more about their exes?), I want to mention a point that my heterosexual lifemate Carly brought up in her comments on Tuesday’s post – how to deal when past and present relationships collide.

In the whole universe of tricky issues involving exes, maintaining a relationship with an ex while currently dating someone else is one of the trickiest.  Obviously, having a bad relationship with an ex (accusations, name-calling, stalking, violence, relationship sabotage, etc.) adds a lot of stress to a current relationship, and can wreak so much havoc that one or both parties end up calling it quits.  But having a good relationship with an ex can be equally as stressful and unsettling, particularly for the current significant other.  After all, when there’s nothing but bad blood between your current significant other and his or her ex, you can feel pretty confident that the two of them won’t be ditching you and heading for Vegas any time soon.  However, when your girlfriend or boyfriend is on good terms with his or her ex, suddenly that threat seems a little more real.  The  reasons that people are drawn to maintaining relationships with their exes – the familiarity, the comfort, the shared interests and experiences that laid the foundation for the relationship in the first place – are the same factors that keep current significant others awake at night, obsessing over their relationship’s stability.  Let’s be honest – once the lines of communication are open between exes, it can be a slippery slope back into relationship mode.

So what is one to do when a significant other’s former flame comes a-calling?  Ultimately, I think, the fears that come from a significant other’s relationship with an ex are rooted in insecurity and lack of trust, so those are the first issues that must be addressed.  First of all, it’s all about having enough confidence in yourself to know that you are the one your signficant other wants, not his or her ex.  Instead of comparing yourself to your significant other’s ex and thinking of all the reasons why your significant other would prefer him or her over you, remind yourself of all the ways your better than that loser (you must actually BE better than that loser in order for this to be truly effective).  And secondly, like Billy Joel says, it’s a matter of trust.  If you trust your significant other’s devotion to you, there’s no reason why he or she can’t see anyone they choose, including an ex.  It’s also a matter of trusting that your ex remembers why the previous relationship ended, and knows that trying again would be in vain.  Obviously, you have use your judgement too – if you notice your partner spending more time with his or her ex than you, then, yes, perhaps it is time to start asking questions.

How do you deal with these sticky situations? Leave your tips in the comments!

the ex-factor

Ex-significant others.  Everybody’s got ‘em.  Some people have several.  Everybody who has one is one.  Yet, for such a universal experience, the business of exes is one that never seems to get less complicated.

I’m thinking about this now because one of this blog’s co-stars, Ang, was due to meet up tonight with her ex, with whom she parted ways back in October.  This was to be the first time they’ve seen each other since the night they broke up.

While I don’t have the details on the outcome of this powwow yet (although I’m sure I will soon enough), it got me thinking about the delicate nature of dealing with exes.  Unless you’re a hermit, you deal with a lot of people everyday – family, friends, co-workers, classmates, random strangers – but exes fall into a category all their own when it comes to communicating with them, due to the paradox surrounding them.  Almost inevitably, an ex is a person about whom you care very much and want in your life, yet, most likely for one reason or another, you want them to disappear in a cloud of steam and smoke like The Wicked Witch of the West.  Which means dealing with an ex requires all the delicacy and precision of a surgeon performing a quadruple bypass – one small slip, and irreversible damage can be done.

Allegedly, a group of people exists who can maintain solid, sincere friendships with their exes (and I mean long-term relationship exes, not people who dated but ultimately decided to remain friends).  I say allegedly because I don’t actually know any people who do this.  Maybe my friends and I are a bunch of cold, unforgiving harpies, but I can’t think of anyone who has maintained a close, functional friendship with one of his or her exes.  Which I can’t help but think is how it should be.

Perhaps my friends and I have only experienced extremely traumatic break-ups involving lots of harsh accusations, hurt feelings, and general anger, but when a break-up is that traumatic, it stands to reason that the only way to move forward is to make a clean break from that relationship, at least for an extended period of time.  From personal experience, trying to maintain a cordial, friendly relationship with an ex too soon after a break-up can only lead to more hurt feelings and heartache.  Sometimes that sort of friendly relationship is altogether impossible, no matter how much time has passed or how badly you want it.  Time may heal all wounds, but the scars and weak spots remain.

Over the weekend, while I was visiting my parents, the subject of my last ex-boyfriend, from whom I split last September, came up.

“Do you ever hear from him, or talk to him?” my dad asked.

I paused in the middle of hanging an ornament on our Christmas tree.  “No,” I said, a bit wistfully.  “It’s not like I don’t want to – I would like to know how he’s doing actually, but…I don’t want to rock the boat.  I know how upsetting that can be when an ex pops back up in your life.  I don’t want to do that to him, if he’s doing better without me.  When -if- he ever wants to get back in touch with me, he can.”

Is it the right thing to do?  How am I supposed to know?  I’m no surgeon – I just fumble around and hope for the best, like everyone else.