Ending romantic relantionships

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Medeia
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Ending romantic relantionships

Post by Medeia »

When, why and why not?
Wish I had more to say but at the moment I'm a bit too in the midle of this and my head dont seem to work quite right. Also wish I was a poet.
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Nefastos
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Re: Ending romantic relantionships

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Terribly hard question for my own White (= Venus) aspect temperament. Whatever I try in order to unite love & wisdom, whether it is to endure hardships and difficulties or put strict lines at some point, it seems that I always do it in a wrong way. So, any answer I can suggest is not given with certainty of a one who has triumphed using his own method.

That said, once again I must be a bore and say that applying the threefold key is a must, and this is true with both individuals in a relationship. By this I mean that we must try to use it as much as possible, not that we should (could?) be absolute experts in such use. But people who do not believe even in ideas of "personal striving," "love as empathy" and "being honest" are actually impossible to be with in a healthy relationship. In that case things cannot work, unless both persons share a similar vibe of "let us use each other for personal gain." (That would be a profane relationship that is based on blindness and non-communication, and I have nothing to say about those kind of relationships: they do not interest me.) Usually it is one – or more – of those three fundamental aspects of upward humanity that has got twisted in a relationship, to render it ill or lame or dead. When this has been found out, to a certain degree people can help each other with these problems. Active, chosen forgiveness can be used, as well as new kinds of agreements, even magic. But when one or both individuals feel that the difference in understanding these basic things is so great that the partners no longer speak to each other's souls, it is quite impossible to continue. At that point, breaking the relationship should be done with sufficient clarity, instead of the all too usual looking for a new partner while hanging on in the old, doomed relationship.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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Cancer
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Re: Ending romantic relantionships

Post by Cancer »

The first thing that strikes me about this topic is that it's more specific than one might immediately notice, as actively breaking up is just one among many ways a relationship might end. My last "breakup" was due to a partner's death, for instance. It's kind of weird referring to her to people who don't know her, as I default to calling her my "ex" even though that implies her to be alive. There isn't really a word for the kind of relationship I have to her, or a word for relationships to dead people in general.

Actually, I don't remember ever going through a breakup (in the proper sense) that would have lasted and wouldn't have been either a more or less neutral occurrence or a huge relief. Guess that speaks to the kinds of relationships I entered in my teens & early twenties, lol. Back then it was impossible for me to be anything but a stock character in romantic contexts, to do anything but rehearse the script for "insecure patriarchal hetero monogamy". So breaking up was pretty much always for the best.

Last summer there was a time though when I thought my current relationship was ending, and it was one of the worst things I have ever experienced, worse almost than my partner's death. The pain lasted a shorter time but was truly all-consuming, total-dysfunctionality-inducing, for those couple of days. I had a sense of never being able to show my face among people again, an overwhelming experience of shame, as if I had murdered somebody or done something else horrible - which is strange, since I had no similar feelings (at least not as strongly) after my partner's suicide, even though I still think that there is a sense in which I am to blame for it, or at least that there exists a causal relation, if not one of moral responsibility, between the suicide and my prior actions. Maybe the thought of being rejected by a living person, who can go and tell everyone what a piece of shit I am, is scarier for the selfish lizard brain than being abstractly implicated in someone's death.

It seems that I automatically think of these themes in a framework of guilt, hmm.

Anyway, I hope you find the strength to get through your situation, Medeia (if my interpretation of your opening post - that this is an acute, current concern for you - is right, that is). Despite the signature, there are wounds which time will heal.
Nefastos wrote: Sun Nov 21, 2021 4:55 pm But people who do not believe even in ideas of "personal striving," "love as empathy" and "being honest" are actually impossible to be with in a healthy relationship.
This is very well put! I detest the habit of downplaying the relevance of values (as opposed to psychological drives etc.) to what kinds of actions people take.
Tiden läker inga sår.
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Soror O
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Re: Ending romantic relantionships

Post by Soror O »

Nefastos wrote: Sun Nov 21, 2021 4:55 pm
That said, once again I must be a bore and say that applying the threefold key is a must, and this is true with both individuals in a relationship. By this I mean that we must try to use it as much as possible, not that we should (could?) be absolute experts in such use. But people who do not believe even in ideas of "personal striving," "love as empathy" and "being honest" are actually impossible to be with in a healthy relationship.


This is well put, though it can be very difficult to evaluate other people's beliefs in the end... They can for example make it seem like they have some conscious relation to these ideas, even though they don't. I have found that I'm not capable of evaluating other people's inner conditions, by reasoning. A tree is known by the fruit it bears, and actions speak of people's inner state. But we are all crooked and and sometimes unable (and unwilling?) to express the highest in ourself. It is this low being that is deserving/ longing for our loving. Personal striving and being honest - as ideas - can hide beneath the surface of highly dysfunctional and anti-social behavior. So the behavior doesn't define a being. To me, testimonial weight of actions is relative and cumulative by nature. In a committed relationship I give second chances, third, fourth... so on - if there is a certain kind of look in the eyes and if I sense that there is something reaching towars me, sincerely. So the process is kind of intuitive, not much can be really rationally explained.
If you want to reborn, let yourself die.
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Nefastos
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Re: Ending romantic relantionships

Post by Nefastos »

Soror O wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 1:12 pmThis is well put, though it can be very difficult to evaluate other people's beliefs in the end... They can for example make it seem like they have some conscious relation to these ideas, even though they don't.

Exactly, and – in some rare cases – perhaps also the other way around. In these cases it comes back to challenges in communication, and I think those are great obstacles indeed. In this, our Finnish culture of silence creates immense problems. But yes, this is just what I meant by not having accomplishments to show even with this system I actually believe is optimal and most respectful to oneself, the other, and the whole.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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Cerastes
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Re: Ending romantic relantionships

Post by Cerastes »

The harm, a destructive or hurtful relationship causes on the long run should never be estimated.
Sometime people never recover from things like that.

I ended a relationship with a very sensitive guy 10 years ago because I knew it would harm us both. He would have tried everything to fix it but would it be fair to let him lose his self esteem? I don't think so. He even talked about suicide and I felt like shit for some time.

I met him again a month ago. He has a wife, two kids, a good job and he seemed happy and very confident. He was bragging a little to let me know how good he was without me but it actually made me happy somehow.

That said I think a relationship should be ended if it is likely to cause more damage than the short and brutal cut of a seperation. Quite often this is hard to predict because people don't notice the much more subtle damage of an unsatisfying long-term relationship.
“Granny Weatherwax was not lost. She wasn't the kind of person who ever became lost. It was just that, at the moment, while she knew exactly where SHE was, she didn't know the position of anywhere else.”
(Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)
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Insanus
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Re: Ending romantic relantionships

Post by Insanus »

When it doesn't meet your standards and can't be improved with a reasonable amount of effort.
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