Grieving for lost love (conclusion)

When both partners are of one mind to end a relationship, the pain will be substantially less. Though both will mourn the loss of time, effort, emotional investment and money that were put into the failed love, at least both now recognize that the relationship has outlived its usefulness and the time has come to end it. Both may walk away still bleeding, but at least they understand and accept the reasons for their failed love.

When, on the other hand, one partner refuses to call an end to their love and is left standing alone and abandoned in the garden of love, the hurt is unbearable.

It is made worse by the thought that the initiator of the breakup is, in a sense, relieved and glad to get out of the relationship. It is as if he is happy that it’s over while you never wanted the end to happen and is left weeping while he goes on his merry way.

You refuse to accept that your love has crashed. You believe that even if it has ended, you are hopeful that you have survived and can somehow rescue your love.

There are countless persons (mostly women) who cannot accept that their relationship is dead. They live in a fantasy world where they can imagine all sorts of rescue scenarios that they hope would happen, but never did.

The job of the counselor is to help them to see that they have created a bubble that they use to fuel hope that is clearly false. It is this bubble that keeps them hoping and waiting for a miracle. The counselor has to gently burst the bubble and then spend time soothing the raw wounds that lie beneath it that now lay fully exposed.

It is only then and with time, sometimes lots of time that there will be healing. And only when there is substantial healing will there be real capacity to love truly once again.

Those wounded ones who get into relationships without healing will undoubtedly drag their baggage of unresolved issues from the past into them. This will make it more difficult for the relationships to succeed.

It is clear why there is a common knowledge that those who quickly get into relationships after suffering from breakups often walk into disaster. They are ill-prepared to love again until they resolve their issues created by failed love. And until they are, they would do well to wait before rushing in where angels fear to tread.

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