After a bad break-up or divorce it can be very, very tempting to run right out and hook-up with someone new. It eases the pain and serves as a distraction so you don’t have to think about what just happened. But is it really fair? Is it fair to you? Is it fair to the new person? Let’s face it, when you are fresh out of one relationship are you really in your right mind? Are you ready to be present in new relationship? Even if you are the one who ended your last relationship and you feel like you are ready to move on the next, you probably, most definitely are not.
How do I know this, you might ask? I know it from experience and I know it because I have seen transitional relationships start and end rather quickly. By quickly I mean within 5 years. Honestly how could they work out? Some people spend their lives in transition. In transition from a past hurt from a past love that they have never gotten over. The biggest signal that a person has not gotten over their last relationship is when they talk about that person and I don’t mean in passing. If you pay attention you will know what I mean, you can hear it in their tone, even if that tone seems negative, even if the person they are talking about was 3 relationships ago. Some people talk about their past relationships because they seemingly have to, say for instance if they have visitation with children, but if you notice the way they talk about their X you will see there is something deeper bubbling around. My X wouldn’t let me mention his X’s name. He also would not put his foot down about certain issues that needed to be addressed in his child’s life and when he spoke to her on the phone I could hear his voice change. Often when he was talking to her he would leave the room, but what I did hear sounded like flirting. When we went to pick his child up for visitations the way his X looked at him reeked of longing and she was nasty to me, even though she was re-married and had another child with her new man. Something stunk! Now that didn’t mean they would get back together, it meant that both of them had not gotten over their relationship. And both of them had transitioned to someone else immediately if not sooner. She married the man she cheated with and he moved on to someone else right away, it wasn’t me. No he had at least 3 relationships that I know of between her and I. That’s another signal that someone is a “transitioner”, they have had a lot of relationships, most lasting only a few years. If you notice this in a potential partner be warned. If you notice this in yourself, be advised the next one probably won’t last either.
If we don’t let the dust settle between relationships we set our selves up for failure in a seemingly endless cycle of transitions because we have never healed the original pain within us. It could come from that first High School crush or it could come from our up-bringing or it could be a combination of both. How do you know if you are transitioning? You know because you are bringing the same baggage you had previously into your life with the new person. You might compare your X with your new partner. You might think about your old partner whenever there is trouble in your new relationship. But mostly you know you are transitioning when you enter into a new relationship out of a need instead of a want. The feeling is a strong, intense pull to get on with it, and to put up with things that don’t feel right in the new relationship just so you can be in one, but even more it’s about what you are telling yourself, for example, “When I meet someone else I will feel better!” Also, other people will tell you this, they might say, “All you have to do is meet someone else and you will get over so and so.” I caution you when listening to this advice because most people have that mindset and most people are not satisfied in their relationships. Take the information from whence it came. Most people, unless they married their High School sweetheart, are harboring emotional pain from someone they never got over and they think they got over it by moving on to the next person. Some people have done this so many times they become impossible to live with, impossible to please and they can’t see you for who you really are, but rather they see you through a filter of what happened in the past. They blame every bad relationship on their X’s and sound most of the time like victims of circumstance. If you feel like a victim of circumstance you might want to look at your relationship history to see if you are living out a cycle of transitions and then you may want to take a vacation from relationships until you figure out a way to heal from it all. Give yourself at least a year to get to know yourself, who you are, what you want in life and how to love yourself first. It may seem like a long time, but think of how much time you will waste by spending 3 years with one person, then 5 years with another. When all it would take is a year or two of being single to discover what it takes to have a lasting, life long relationship, if that’s what you decide you want. That sounds like a big payoff to me!
I agree with you on this. When I was 18, I made the mistake to jump quickly into another relationship after the break up with my X who got into a new one almost immediately. I was so pissed and heartbroken that I thought I needed a shoulder to cry on, and as a result, the new relationship was a catastrophe. Before I met the light of my life, I spent a whole year alone, I didn’t want to be with someone, because I just needed it to make things clear in my life. It’s never good when you come with too much luggages into a relationship.
You were really young to have so much insight, but I am not surprised you are very wise and not in the smart-ass way either! 🙂
:applause:
VERY insightful, and so so true.
It’s not uncommon to have that baggage from an unresolveld relationship show up 12 years later when you least expect it! Trust me…
Excellent.
Sounds like you’ve had a little experience in this area and so have I, best to acknowledge it, right! Then get yourself together then date…Thanks for your comment! It’s very reinforcing! 🙂
omg…I couldn’t agree more with what you wrote. Thanks for writing this so I don’t have to 😉
[…] 6, 2008 by Bacardi & Diet I found this great blog, and when I read this post I was astonished at the fact that I couldn’t agree more. Forever I’ve been conversing […]
I didn’t have a year or two between the last relationship and the man I am now married to – BUT what I did do was get in touch with me! In other words I got to love my self and be with me and be a stand for what me wanted in a relationship. I remember telling him something before we really got together and having an issue over something when he turned to me and said “but isn’t it great you can tell me that” – that along with the fact that he tells me all those past relationship are what brought me to him is what makes it so much easier. I guess the bottom line is get ‘in love’ with yourself and then you can love someone else. Avoid looking for love from someone or in someone else. Great article and great insight because you are on the money too many people bring their baggage into the next relationship. The past is the past and can be honored as such but leave it in the past.
Bacardi & Diet: Your welcome anything to save another person time! 🙂 Thanks for the trackback!
Sassiewords: Thank you for your comment and for leaving your story. I love to hear from others! I am glad you agree that the past should be left in the past. And Thank you for the compliment on the post! 🙂
This post came up as one of the suggested posts to the one I just put up and it’s pretty spot on accurate – I’m even more sure I’ve done the right thing by getting out now.