Wreckage on the Road to Reconciliation
The Righteous Idiots
The addiction, the madness, the lying, the cheating, and the selfishness have just done too much damage. Your relationship is crippled and you’re not sure whether it will ever be the same again. You’ve heard enough apologies, forgiven too much. You can’t forget all the things that have happened. You’ve hardened your heart, dug in, and hate.
I will not argue against the justice of your cause. Yes, she did things that were unwarranted, things that hurt. Bad behavior wrecks things and some of those things are your feelings. You probably can’t even count the number of disappointments. It’s your right. Your cause is just, but don’t be an idiot. Don’t be one of those people who think, just because they are right, they can afford to be stupid.
The most idiotic thing you can do
The supremely stupidest thing would be to harden your heart and refuse any attempt at reconciliation while you continue to live with your partner. You’ve seen couples like that, who live together in a home, protected by force-fields of hate. Their sadness is disguised as hardness. They pass in the hall, throwing invisible daggers at each other. They eat in shifts, have their own dens, their own TVs, their own unapproachable sides of the bed. They communicate through their children, who are caught in the middle. Every couple endures moments like this, maybe days, following a fight, when all they give each other is the cold shoulder. Image a lifetime.
The people who live like that imagine that their resentment preserves them from harm; their hate is a cold castle wall of safety. They’re afraid that, if they forgive, they’ll forget, and they’ll let it all happen again. They fear that any warmth will just encourage the offending party. They’re partly right. When forgiveness is given away cheaply or when you are still at risk, it’ll do just that; but, when the opportunity to earn genuine reconciliation is extended and taken, it’s a welcome rain on a dry day.
What hate is trying to say
Hate is an idiot light in your car that’s glowing red. I guess it would be like the low oil pressure light, because when there’s low oil pressure, there’s too much friction between the moving parts. What hate is trying to say is, pull over because there’s an incompatibility between the relationship and your values. Either clear up the incompatibility, abandon your values, or get the hell out of the relationship. Reconciliation is where you clear up the incompatibility. People who continue to hate and do nothing about it, are like people who drive for miles with a glowing idiot light in their car.
Other idiotic things you could do
The next stupidest thing is to take the opposite tack, to grant cheap pardon, to rush forgiveness just because you don’t want to deal with your own feelings. Cheap pardon is when you abandon your values, just to preserve peace. We talked about that, already.
It might not be a bad idea to move out before any more hurt can happen, while you work towards reconciliation. If you’re in mortal danger, then you should move out right away. However, provided you are not in mortal danger, I would urge you to pause before you pack your bags for good. Moving out doesn’t change everything. There’s really no such option of getting completely out of a relationship.
Relationships are Forever
It’s important to remember that, once you’re in a relationship with someone, you will always be in a relationship with that person. It’s like the Hotel California, you can move out, but you can never leave. Even if you never speak to her again; if you move to the other side of the world, put up a dartboard with her face on it, refer to her only as, The Bitch, you will always be in relationship. There will always be a corner of your brain, I dare say, a corner of your heart, that has her name on it.
This is doubly true if you’re in photos in Facebook together. This is triply true if she met your parents. It’s quadruply true if you were married. It’s doubly, triply, quadruply true if you have kids together. You’re hitched.
Love may not be eternal, but relationship is. The legal end of a marriage is not the end of a relationship.
Relationship, at its minimal level, means that your partner rents space in your head. You think of him sometimes, happily or unhappily, with fondness or regret. He’s part of your story and you’re part of his. You have to account for him if you’re honest. You’ll be flooded with memories, good or bad, after the most trivial cues. He’ll affect the way you relate to anyone else. He’ll be an item for comparison and for contrast. Former relationships rarely exist at this minimal level. Usually there are more feelings. Many more. You might continue to hate her, but there will still be feelings. At some point, time and time again, for the rest of your life, after the right buttons are pushed, you will be transported by your passions for the person.
You’ve seen this in others. You’ve had beers with the man who, at the mere mention of his ex, goes on a ten-minute tirade about the shrew. You’ve drained a bottle of wine with a friend who combs over every detail of her ex’s pervasive perfidy. These are people still in relationship even though their divorces are final.
By the way, love and hate are not that far apart. They are both intense. They are both very, very far away from indifference. You’ll never be indifferent about a former partner, no matter how hard you try to fake it.
If you agree that you will always be in relationship, then the question is: what kind of relationship will it be? Which road will you take? You have three choices: grant cheap pardon, extend everlasting enmity, or work towards genuine, but rewarding, reconciliation. You have these choices if you stay together, but you also have these choices if you’re apart. Your address, whether it’s where you sleep, where you call home, or where to get your mail, is irrelevant.
Keith R Wilson is a mental health counselor in private practice and the author of The Road to Reconciliation: A Comprehensive Guide to Peace When Relationships Go Bad, from which this article is adapted.