I have had a very positive, and emotionally deepening breakup with my beloved Naila. There were torrents of tears, mainly from my side, but we have cried with each other on numerous occasions too. We were together for 3 years. Not long by some standards, but for me, being in a serious and deep relationship for that long… just astonishing! I had given up believing it possible for me at my age (when we met I was 53) to have such a relationship.
From the get-go though, people were telling me that I had changed, stating unequivocally that “you’re in love”. Many more friends asked “are you in love?” questions, friends who didn’t even know that I was seeing anyone at the time. Something about me was different from the usual Wiskey vibe. It all took me by surprise because I was not looking for a relationship, certainly not one that included two teenage sons in the package!
For many years I had been on my own, or just had long-term lovers, as I found full relationships too difficult to contemplate or manage. At the time that I met Naila (sounds like Nyler), I was under a personal vow of celibacy that I was only intending to end once I had reached a more stable financial state of living, something I had not yet accomplished. In fact today I’m still some way off where my imagination tells me I should be.
We broke up on the 8th of August last year, just after 9pm, and these days quite a lot of people ask me how we’ve managed to have such a “successful” break up, because we remain the very closest of friends, we continue to share a studio (we’re both artists), Naila still comes shopping for clothes with me when I need to buy them because I don’t do well, shopping on my own, actually holding my hand both figuratively and literally. She even asks me for pointers about her new relationship. WHAT?!?!?
Yes.
I love Naila and she loves me. Still.
So, what’s the secret to our continuing to love and support one another? Shouldn’t I feel angry, bitter, hurt, resentful and heart-broken for not being part of a loving family unit any more? Well, I have felt all kinds of feelings about Naila and our relationship, missing what we had and what is now lost or changed, I think about the boyz (sic) who I still adore as if they were my own God-given sons, and I miss them and their antics, watching them grow into young men, each day.
Though I have all these strong feelings visiting me and turning me this way and that, upsetting my daily life, I firmly hold the fundamental attitude that my emotional life is entirely my responsibility; I am unable to hold anyone else responsible for my sadness, my anger or my pain.
Thinking about the how?, there are a lot of elements that have combined to forge a deepening of our connection. Even though Naila spoke the separating words that summer evening, during our previous nine silent days apart, I had reluctantly come to the same conclusion that it turned out, she had come to on her solo retreat to Scotland: that because of some of our underlying characteristics, we were not quite going to be able to make the next steps that were needed, to make it work.
The way she put it was that when she was happy, I was sad, and when I was happy, she was sad. She was describing my need and enjoyment of times of solitude, which she found hard to bear in opposition to her thriving love of close company and lots of communication (talking and texts and being in each other’s company). She’s effervescent and pretty much everyone falls in love with her wonderful energy from the moment they meet her. I’m much more introverted, working well in calm solitude (though I can be magnificently sociable too, in short bursts).
The bottom line though, of how we’ve ploughed through the last six months of pain and sadness, to bring about such a fruitful, loving and joyful state of friendship, is by doing exactly the same things while we were in the relationship. We worked hard, every day, to figure a way through our difficulties, the obstacles, the myriad challenges presented by life in modern times. We committed to building something that would take time and we recognised that the same attitude would be needed to part ways, to give loving support to the boyz and to be a healthy influence on them; how to break up responsibly and lovingly.
“To love someone is to wish them well.”
A relationship is a responsibility to myself and to another. To their emotional, physical and mental well-being. If you think about it, how can it be any other way? But thinking and doing are two different things. Action is needed, hard work every day is needed. Erich Fromm suggests in The Art of Loving that it is necessary to “put the other first”. Now that is hard work, every day.
To overcome or dodge the petty thoughts and transient emotions that can derail any relationship, they must be seen and acknowledged, BUT without taking action. Because those petty things will pass, but the commitment to the relationship with the other person will not (if you’ve actually made that kind of commitment). We all too often imagine that things should work out, simply because “we love each other”. But it’s not enough.
Love is an attitude, not a feeling. Feelings change and in this sense are unreliable, but two people in relationship can hold forth in a true direction if there is agreement between them; that there is direction.
I know relationships are hard. I’m autistic, and have always found every relationship hard, often unimaginably painful and confusing. So it has taken me decades of “research” to have made something of my relationship with Naila. I’ve been in many relationships (or entanglements) in which I and the other have often suffered, some of which have only lasted moments (due to my inaction, fearful confusion or the whole thing being just a fleeting, impulsive desire), and some of which have stretched out for years. I have also spent a great deal of time and energy contemplating the how and why of being in relationships; thinking, reading, discussing them.
It was in one of those times of deep questioning, of real inner struggle to comprehend what a relationship is, of how to relate and even why to relate, that I walked into a familiar restaurant (to actually avoid going to a regular meeting I dreaded) and found Louis and Nancy already seated, finishing their dinner. I’d known them for about 10 years, their sons were a few years older than me and I affectionately called them “mum and dad”.
They invited me to sit with them and quickly noticed I was in a perturbed state. “Can I ask you a question?” I said. They told me of course I could and smiled.
“How do you have a relationship?”
“Hard work, every day.” Louis said immediately.
They began laughing, not unkindly. I presume because of the look of utter shock on my face. It certainly wasn’t the answer I might have hoped for. I was baffled, not enlightened. Surely they didn’t have to work hard every day, after decades of marriage? I’d been able to ask them this burning question because they were the perfect picture of marital harmony to me, they were as one inseparable whole. I was speechless and more confused than ever. But Louis had added an unexpected ingredient into the spiral mix of my thoughts and emotions, something real to ponder upon, a nugget to wonder at, given from a place of deep experience. And I pondered hard, and still hold that precious nugget and gaze upon it. Every day.
Some things grow naturally, like our bodies, like our bones, hair and cells. But most of the rest of our lives need attention, deliberate action, in order to grow. Though our children’s bodies grow naturally, they need our parental, life-experienced attention and care, to nurture their emotional and intellectual lives as they grow up. By the time they reach the end of their physical growth, ideally, we have helped instil in their hearts and minds some understanding of the world, and some insights as to how understanding is gained; by hard work every day.
How to have a win-win breakup? Work hard every day to have a functional relationship to break up from.
