We have all been through it, and sometimes after biting the bullet, we just gnaw on it for a while, not knowing what to do to get on with our love life after the break up of a relationship. But if relationships are important to you, psychologists suggest that the way you deal with the aftermath is equally significant and can be a predictor of things to come and of how well those future relationships will go for you.
The break up of a relationship is not an acute event in the timeline of your dating history; all relationships go through phases, and the ending of a relationship is another phase in the continuum of the connection between you and your significant other. The catalyst is often a particular episode, but the process is ongoing.
the little things that tend to grow into significant differences and push you apart from one another are often eclipsed in the beginning, by the blinding rays of love
Sometimes the break starts as soon as you begin to get to know each other, and as soon as your partner’s annoying little idiosyncrasies and habits start to get under your skin. But the little things that tend to grow into significant differences and push you apart from one another are often eclipsed in the beginning, by the blinding rays of love and the intoxicating enjoyment of romance. After all, there are other things tickling you under the skin too, and those can feel so delightful that they often keep us from examining the underlying problems we have with our partner.
While you are swept away by the giddiness of it all and are busy sweeping your small issues of discontent under the rug, they sometimes take on a life of their own, as they start to grow in rather invisible or camouflaged ways, into monolithic problems.
Don't Sweep Things Under the Carpet
Eventually, the little dust bunnies under the sofa you sit upon to kiss can proliferate into a major need for clearing out the mess, and they may grow until the whole relationship starts to feel like housework and drudgery. If it has gone on so long that it seems like cleaning up the mess would be harder than just canceling your lease and moving to a fresh new apartment, you have serious trouble on your hands. You may need to break up and make a fresh start, for the sake of both of you, because sometimes people just don’t have the right combination of chemistry to endure a long relationship.
if you are going to break off a relationship, do it in person, face to face
Don’t break up in a way that might create more distance and less closure between you and a partner. For example, if you are going to break off a relationship, do it in person, face to face, if at all possible. This gives both of you an opportunity to clearly understand what is being said, and why. Otherwise, misunderstanding can haunt you for years. Emails are sometimes misinterpreted, phone calls don’t allow us to see each other’s body language, and no communication at all leaves us hanging, trying to figure out if we could have said or done something differently.
The exception to this rule is, of course, if your partner has been abusive in a way that is not healthy. In that case, the less contact the better.
But if you learn from your lessons of the past, you can both avoid this kind of unforeseen tragedy in future relationships. So keep an eye out for the small things, because sometimes the big picture is nothing more than a composite of all the tiny and seemingly insignificant details.
