Alexander Graham Bell said "When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."
GOD'S PROMISE
God hath not promised skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways all of our lives through
God hath not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.
But God hath promised strength for the day,
Rest for the laborer, light for the way;
Grace for the trial, help from above,
Unfailing sympathy, undying love.
-Annie Johnson Flint
LaRue Longden- Activity and attitude are the secrets of survival in times of trial
Elder Sam S. Bennion of the council of the Twelve- There are two roads one can take at a time of losing a loved one. One has a gate makes Despair; it swings open easily. The other gate is marked Peace, and one has to struggle with it to open it. The first road if taken leads to despondency and bitterness. The other, harder one is the way of peace, character, and happiness.
"Hope is an abiding trust that the Lord will fulfill His promise to you. It is manifest in confidence optimism, enthusiasm, and patient perseverance. It is believing and expecting that something will occur. When you have hope, you work through trials and difficulties with the confidence and assurance that all things will work together for your good. Hope helps you conquer discouragement."
-Preach My Gospel, p. 117
Monday, August 24, 2009
Grief and Therapy
I couldn't find this clip I wanted from 30 Rock:
Tracy: I'm just going through the classic stages of grief; fear, denial, horniness, wisdom, sleepiness and now, depression.
Kenneth: What about anger?
Tracy: NO! I DON'T WANNA DO ANGER AND YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!!!!
But I did find this one:
Because I'm no longer a student at BYU, I can't go to my favorite therapist there. So I've been reading in my scriptures, reading online, and reading different books to help myself, along with going over what I've learned from therapy in the past. I already knew I was going through the grieving process with Taylor, so I found Understanding Death (An LDS article compilation put together by Brent Barlow, one of my favorite BYU professors) helpful.
Over the past year and a half I've noticed most people don't know how to talk to me about my breakups. So I decided to share this selection:
Ensign » 1972 » October
Alone through Death
By Blaine R. Porter
"The desire to help someone who has lost a companion is common, but knowing how best to extend that help is not so widely understood. We sometimes wonder whether we should avoid the subject. If it is brought up by ourselves or someone else, many of us are not sure how we should deal with it. In most instances the best rule to follow is to let the bereaved person determine whether or not he wishes to talk about the matter. If he does wish to talk about it, then you can probably extend the most help by being a good listener. Too often, instead of listening, the “helpful friend” feels a compulsion to share his experiences or those of someone else he has known, which doesn’t really help the bereaved person.
"If the survivor can set the pace and can determine when and if the issue is to be discussed and for how long and in what context, then he probably will have the kind of experience he needs and is seeking. If he wants advice, counsel, or the benefit of your experience, let him ask for it. In such a case, respond briefly; and if he wants to know more, let him pursue it.
"It may be that what he needs and wants most is time to be alone to reflect, to relive pleasant memories, to work through in his own mind various alternatives that are available to him, and to select the one that seems most appropriate and desirable. It may be difficult for him to do this when he has the responsibility of entertaining a friend or relative. It may merely complicate his task if others are there sharing their experiences and giving advice and counsel.
"Without intending to, we may give the impression that if our help or advice is not accepted, we will be hurt or offended. In most instances it is best to extend an offer to help and then to give it when and if it is needed and wanted. At the time of death, friends and relatives are more available to share their attention, their time, and their sympathy; but generally they return quickly to their normal activities, and in two or three weeks the one who is experiencing bereavement is left alone. That is usually the time when he most needs and wants to talk to someone."
It seems like when people find out I'm divorced their response is to tell me about everyone they know who was divorced, and tell me their story. I think I found this helpful if they were telling me about their own divorce or the divorce of a close family member. This might have been because they didn't just tell me the facts, there was an uplifting point to the story. I feel like so many people have confided in me things that they shouldn't have and the point of the story was that sometimes it's one person's fault, sometimes it is another person's fault, but either way good people sometimes get divorced. Ok, I get it.
I think it was most helpful when people treat me like a normal person. They try to talk about normal things, even if I'm a wreck. They are able to listen but they don't pry. So many people feel like they can ask about my circumstances no matter how close we are. It is my choice if I will confide in you, so I've been at the point where if someone asks me what happened and I don't feel comfortable telling them I just tell them "I don't really like to talk about it." Hopefully that teaches them something. The biggest point is if someone suffers a death or serious breakup, offer to listen, but don't force them to talk about it.
Tracy: I'm just going through the classic stages of grief; fear, denial, horniness, wisdom, sleepiness and now, depression.
Kenneth: What about anger?
Tracy: NO! I DON'T WANNA DO ANGER AND YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!!!!
But I did find this one:
Because I'm no longer a student at BYU, I can't go to my favorite therapist there. So I've been reading in my scriptures, reading online, and reading different books to help myself, along with going over what I've learned from therapy in the past. I already knew I was going through the grieving process with Taylor, so I found Understanding Death (An LDS article compilation put together by Brent Barlow, one of my favorite BYU professors) helpful.
Over the past year and a half I've noticed most people don't know how to talk to me about my breakups. So I decided to share this selection:
Ensign » 1972 » October
Alone through Death
By Blaine R. Porter
"The desire to help someone who has lost a companion is common, but knowing how best to extend that help is not so widely understood. We sometimes wonder whether we should avoid the subject. If it is brought up by ourselves or someone else, many of us are not sure how we should deal with it. In most instances the best rule to follow is to let the bereaved person determine whether or not he wishes to talk about the matter. If he does wish to talk about it, then you can probably extend the most help by being a good listener. Too often, instead of listening, the “helpful friend” feels a compulsion to share his experiences or those of someone else he has known, which doesn’t really help the bereaved person.
"If the survivor can set the pace and can determine when and if the issue is to be discussed and for how long and in what context, then he probably will have the kind of experience he needs and is seeking. If he wants advice, counsel, or the benefit of your experience, let him ask for it. In such a case, respond briefly; and if he wants to know more, let him pursue it.
"It may be that what he needs and wants most is time to be alone to reflect, to relive pleasant memories, to work through in his own mind various alternatives that are available to him, and to select the one that seems most appropriate and desirable. It may be difficult for him to do this when he has the responsibility of entertaining a friend or relative. It may merely complicate his task if others are there sharing their experiences and giving advice and counsel.
"Without intending to, we may give the impression that if our help or advice is not accepted, we will be hurt or offended. In most instances it is best to extend an offer to help and then to give it when and if it is needed and wanted. At the time of death, friends and relatives are more available to share their attention, their time, and their sympathy; but generally they return quickly to their normal activities, and in two or three weeks the one who is experiencing bereavement is left alone. That is usually the time when he most needs and wants to talk to someone."
It seems like when people find out I'm divorced their response is to tell me about everyone they know who was divorced, and tell me their story. I think I found this helpful if they were telling me about their own divorce or the divorce of a close family member. This might have been because they didn't just tell me the facts, there was an uplifting point to the story. I feel like so many people have confided in me things that they shouldn't have and the point of the story was that sometimes it's one person's fault, sometimes it is another person's fault, but either way good people sometimes get divorced. Ok, I get it.
I think it was most helpful when people treat me like a normal person. They try to talk about normal things, even if I'm a wreck. They are able to listen but they don't pry. So many people feel like they can ask about my circumstances no matter how close we are. It is my choice if I will confide in you, so I've been at the point where if someone asks me what happened and I don't feel comfortable telling them I just tell them "I don't really like to talk about it." Hopefully that teaches them something. The biggest point is if someone suffers a death or serious breakup, offer to listen, but don't force them to talk about it.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
What I'm up to when I'm single and homeless
1. I'm a workaholic. I'm at school usually 12-14 hours a day. It's a blessing that I'm able to commit that much time right now, in case I don't have time later one. I love my kids. They are all so adorable. Yesterday at the end of the day we were discussing what we learned this week. One of the kids raised his hand and said, "I learned that I have the nicest 3rd grade teacher ever!"
2. I bought a wet suit today. Make that two wet suits. I plan on using them when rafting or canyoneering or wakeboarding in cold water. I've wanted one for a while but didn't want to dish out $80, so I dished out $3 each. And they are nice, this lady sold them to me who wore them diving in Australia, and said they are way warm, and they only wore them a couple times. So I have one for me and one for my sisters or my future significant other.
3. I went to a garage sale today where they were giving everything away. It wasn't one of those free things where they are crafts that no one would want unless they are 80 year old cat ladies. It was a very wealthy couple who just wanted to get rid of stuff. I grabbed a ton of stuff for my classroom, really cute quilting squares, and future Halloween costumes. What I mean is this guy manufactured team uniforms for different sports. And these were the rejects. They were all really nice and expensive, many of them the fabric alone costs $40/yd. So I grabbed some baseball and basketball jerseys, and pants and shorts. Yay!
I move into my new place on the 1st, I'm so excited. It's a duplex over by 24 Fitness in Provo. Good ward, cheaper than where I am now, private room, nice apartment. Yay!
2. I bought a wet suit today. Make that two wet suits. I plan on using them when rafting or canyoneering or wakeboarding in cold water. I've wanted one for a while but didn't want to dish out $80, so I dished out $3 each. And they are nice, this lady sold them to me who wore them diving in Australia, and said they are way warm, and they only wore them a couple times. So I have one for me and one for my sisters or my future significant other.
3. I went to a garage sale today where they were giving everything away. It wasn't one of those free things where they are crafts that no one would want unless they are 80 year old cat ladies. It was a very wealthy couple who just wanted to get rid of stuff. I grabbed a ton of stuff for my classroom, really cute quilting squares, and future Halloween costumes. What I mean is this guy manufactured team uniforms for different sports. And these were the rejects. They were all really nice and expensive, many of them the fabric alone costs $40/yd. So I grabbed some baseball and basketball jerseys, and pants and shorts. Yay!
I move into my new place on the 1st, I'm so excited. It's a duplex over by 24 Fitness in Provo. Good ward, cheaper than where I am now, private room, nice apartment. Yay!
Sunday, August 16, 2009
My Latest Love Interest: Demolition Derbies
Dain and I
Pat
My Rico
This kid had the sweetest inflatable guitar moves ever... what a pro
My camera died before I could really videotape the final round. So here is just a sample.
My friends are hilarious, half the people there hated us and the other half wanted to be us. We all were sucked into each event and cheered louder than anyone. I'll miss Jake Day, it was his last day here in Provo.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
I don't know why my life never works out how I want it to, but I know timing has a lot to do with it and everything will work out for the best.
1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
I don't know why my life never works out how I want it to, but I know timing has a lot to do with it and everything will work out for the best.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
My Advice for Myself
This is the only Ensign Article I've ever heard of about breaking up:
Breaking Up without Going to Pieces:
When Dating Doesn’t End in Marriage
By M. Gawain Wells
M. Gawain Wells, “Breaking Up without Going to Pieces: When Dating Doesn’t End in Marriage,” Ensign, Jun 1982, 58–61
It feels good to invest in a relationship. To care. To want to share. To want to give.
If your dating relationship feels joyous and healthy, if both of you feel the Lord’s approval of your decision to marry, then the relationship “works,” and you marry. If it doesn’t work, you don’t marry. There is no third alternative.
However, many people assume there is a third alternative and try to keep the relationship alive when all signs of vitality have ceased. Both in my church callings and in my profession as a clinical psychologist, I have worked with people who cannot accept breaking up as a healthy part of the selection process of courtship. Instead, they see it as a time to punish themselves, to feel hurt, or even to try to hurt others.
The Lord has given us some important guidelines for relationships—and they apply to all relationships, including dating. We’re counseled to treat all people charitably and kindly, to forgive, and to love not only God and others but also ourselves.
By developing and exercising compassion, a person can—without unpleasantness or emotional devastation—end a dating relationship that needs to end, and turn the experience into an important step toward developing another relationship that does result in marriage.
Sometimes it’s better for two people not to marry each other. They would both be happier married to other people—it’s that simple. Perhaps they’ve formed a relationship for the wrong reasons. But even when the motives are right, a relationship still might not have that “spark” that impels both toward marriage. In such cases, breaking up is often the kindest alternative.
Breaking up may sometimes be a difficult and grieving process, but it doesn’t have to be dreadful. People can break up a dating relationship without going to pieces.
The biggest factor in determining the outcome of a relationship is following the inspiration of the Lord. If your association seems to pull you away from God, away from righteousness, away from prayer and scriptures, you need to evaluate its influence. Sometimes, too, people will want so badly for a courtship to work that they can’t hear the Lord’s messages because of their own desires.
Also important for a relationship to develop into a healthy marriage are communication and genuine interest in each other. One young man tried hard to fall in love with a young woman who had served in his mission. They both loved their mission experiences and the people of the country, but there was no “magic” in their relationship. They could talk about the Church and their missions, but not deeply about themselves.
The fellow hated to give up what he thought was a storybook situation, but he finally realized that the relationship wasn’t sufficient for marriage. He broke up with her and later met a young woman in a college class. They found they could talk for hours and not lose interest in each other. She was the one he married.
Probably one of the most ominous indications of a troubled dating relationship is that you begin to feel obligated. Of course, even excellent relationships are not free of obligation. But feeling obligated, feeling bound, is more than making the adjustments needed for a relationship to work. Things you should freely want to do for the other person become tasks you do only because you are expected to do them. You begin to resent the other person, and you want to put distance between you. The relationship is no longer enjoyable and comfortable. It’s being Serious, with a capital letter. Conversations are “heavy,” with much frustration, anxious searching of your feelings, and perhaps a series of phone calls that start out, “I have to talk to you!”
And then you begin to test each other. A fellow might say to himself, “If she really likes me, she’ll be glad to go with me, even if I’m calling half an hour before the party.” Or, “If he loves me, he will do what I want.” So you start trying to manipulate each other; and in your insecurity, you try to control each other’s responses. “Do you enjoy being with me as much as I enjoy being with you?”
Another symptom of deep problems in a dating relationship is an inability to communicate on the same level. Sometimes you’ll feel you have a great deal to say but can’t talk because you feel the other person won’t understand, or will misunderstand. You become afraid to say what you honestly feel and think. Similarly, a couple’s physical attraction to one another may mask an inability to communicate. Some couples may know how to kiss but don’t know how to talk to each other. For them, the physical aspect of their relationship is something they fall back on to avoid developing caring and communication.
Some people also use physical affection as a measure of the progress of the relationship—and that’s a false and irrelevant measurement. A girl might think, “If he holds my hand, it means he likes me.” Or, “If he puts his arm around me, that means he likes me more.” But those gestures might mean nothing of the sort. In fact, a too-quick development of such gestures may lead to inappropriate expressions of affection and thus damage a healthy relationship. If a courtship is based largely on physical affection, you probably need to evaluate its stability.
Still another indication of a troubled relationship is a feeling of emotional starvation, of being emotionally drained. This could be because of a lack of appropriate affection in the relationship, or perhaps because one person is “using” another in an unhealthy way.
One person in a dating relationship might “use” another in the way fellows used an extremely attractive young woman who was in my campus ward when I was a bishop. On dates she felt more like a boutonniere than a person—she was someone men “wore” but not someone they wanted to understand and cherish. Another young woman in the ward found that after she was chosen as homecoming queen, the quality of her dates declined dramatically; men were no longer interested in her as a person but only as a status symbol. In both cases, these young women found it difficult to establish genuine, deep relationships.
Sometimes a person enters a relationship with the mistaken notion (I call it a “rescue complex”) that he or she can “save” the other. An extreme example of this was one woman who married a man because he threatened suicide if she didn’t marry him. That marriage ended in divorce.
A more common situation might be for a man to see a woman who’s been jilted and to say to himself, “She’s so sweet and wounded, and I’m going to heal her broken heart.” Or a woman with strong, warm mothering instincts may meet a misfit fellow who’s in the middle of an identity crisis and vow to save him from himself. In the process, she deliberately blinds herself to all of the differences in their values.
What’s wrong with relationships like these is that they put unfair responsibility and demands on one person to make the relationship work. They don’t allow for a healthy role-shifting in which both partners can look to each other for support and strength.
Another wrong reason for developing or perpetuating a relationship is to avoid causing problems in a family or social network. Sometimes a dating couple builds up such a comfortable social network that their relationship is the worst part of what otherwise is a very pleasant situation. In this case they need to recognize that even if their parents or friends hope they’ll marry, it’s the couple’s relationship that ultimately matters.
Some couples may argue that they received a spiritual confirmation of their relationship. Why, then, didn’t it work out? It’s possible, of course, that you wanted so badly for it to work out that you misinterpreted spiritual feelings and, in essence, put words in God’s mouth. But there’s another possibility: People change. Though the dating relationship was right at one time, it isn’t anymore. The spiritual confirmation could have been an assurance of the relationship’s capacity, its possibility, its potential. But it wasn’t a guarantee of ultimate fruit.
Once you’ve decided the relationship is not going to work out, how do you kindly let someone know you’re serious about ending the dating relationship?
The most important thing is to communicate, compassionately, clearly what you mean. Often one person will want the other to get the message without its being clearly stated, which may mean that the person who wants to break up isn’t facing his real feelings. When you’ve cared deeply enough to date seriously, of course you shouldn’t want to hurt the other person. But that’s no reason for giving an unclear or indefinite message. Otherwise, the other person may accept only a change in the relationship, still hoping for eventual marriage.
It isn’t compassionate to try to sever a relationship slowly if you’ve already made up your mind. The other person won’t gradually get the message by your disinterest. If you’re trying to break up slowly, it’s possible that you’re mistaking your desire to not hurt the person for an excuse to be dishonest about your own feelings.
Since relationships can’t change from romance to friendship in a day or a week, it may be unrealistic and even hurtful for the two of you to spend much time together once the decision has been made. The person who initiated the break-up may be thinking, “Isn’t it civilized and nice that we can be friends?” But the other will be secretly hoping for the friendship to develop back into a romance. And if the romance can never be revived, feelings will be hurt even more deeply.
Almost always, one of you will be hurt more than the other when the relationship breaks up. If you’ve been hurt in a relationship, you may think it’s understandable that you defend yourself by denigrating or criticizing the other person. Actually, it’s a way of running from reality, and it’s a childish and defensive gesture. Whatever has not worked out, the Lord requires that we forgive all people—and this commandment is as true in a dating relationship as in any other. Bitterness is never the right solution.
People can tell you plenty of superficial ways to get over a broken relationship. They might suggest taking up golf, getting yourself back into social circulation, or looking critically at the ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend. But the grief of an ended relationship can be as real and as intense as grief following the death of someone you’ve loved. So it’s important to let yourself work through the grief process.
You may have to be willing to mourn, to let yourself down into your feelings. Grieving can be a way of accepting the end, of letting the separation come. But you have to realize that those feelings will pass, and that no matter how much it hurts, you’re going to live through it. Racing out and involving yourself frenetically in other activities won’t block it out of your mind.
At the same time, you mustn’t perform an endless postmortem on the relationship. By continually asking yourself what you did wrong or what would have happened if you’d done things differently, you keep your wounded feelings alive. Similarly, indulging yourself in what I call a “pity party” is a cruel way of hurting yourself. It won’t help to deliberately humiliate yourself with a list of your failures, as though reliving your real or imagined failures can keep them from happening again.
One college student worked through the grief of a broken relationship by listening to music in the living room of his apartment after his roommates went to bed. He listened to the same album over and over, every night, and allowed himself to mourn.
Finally one day he looked in the mirror and said to himself, “It’s dead. It’s over. It’s never going to work. And I’m not going to try to make it work anymore. I’m not going to go on believing it’s going to work. It is done. I still have feelings for her, but I am going to go on living.”
For about three days he had to repeat that to himself. He’d be driving in his car and start to mourn again, and he’d look in his rear-view mirror and say, “It’s over.” And for him, it was over.
Remember, the Lord can give you solace in your pain. His peace can come through your family, your friends, service, prayer, fasting, scripture reading. You may find considerable relief and insight from writing in your personal journal about the relationship. And perhaps a loving Church leader can help you work through this difficult time.
It’s important that you not try to build happiness on the pretended misery of the person you have left behind. Some people carry this to a tragic extreme by not only dating but actually marrying someone else in an effort to make a former boyfriend or girlfriend miserable or jealous. They’re thinking, “I’ll show her,” or “I’ll show him,” without giving serious thought to the feelings of the person they’re actually marrying.
This was the case with a young private I knew in the Army. He had fallen in love with a girl, but her father wouldn’t let her marry him, and she wouldn’t run away with him to get married. So the fellow married another girl—one he didn’t love and wasn’t happy with. Joining the Army and seeking assignments where he couldn’t take a family with him were his ways of running away from the rebound marriage.
While you may learn valuable lessons from failed relationships, it’s not necessary to impute further meaning to the break-up. That is, I don’t believe the Lord intends you to be hurt again and again for the sake of “learning experiences.” I believe that He wants you to know the joy that comes from understanding, trusting, and loving someone in an honest, giving relationship. Hopefully, you can learn what is valuable from the experience without punishing yourself or seeing the experience as punishment.
While you might be able to look to past relationships for lessons about life, others, or yourself, don’t overlook the positive aspect of learning to better appreciate the depth and quality of a relationship you hope to make eternal. A man who thinks he wants a wife who plays the piano may find that while musical skills are important, what he really wants is a wife with whom he can share and enjoy life—someone he can talk to. Personal qualities are much more important than skills.
It helps not to look at dating as an end in itself. Some people become quite adept at dating skills, but have never considered and prepared themselves for the intimate and hopefully eternal commitments of marriage.
You may find that the best preparation you can make for marriage is to learn to love God and to love yourself. When you have a secure, spiritual knowledge of yourself as a child of God, you will find a sense of personal confidence and identity that makes a good relationship possible.
Like some people, you may find that you need to learn to be more honest and vulnerable in a relationship, and that you need to learn to believe in your own lovableness. As you develop those abilities, the love in your relationship can be sustained by a mutual conviction that you are loved by each other.
Then you can know the delight of being trusted with one another’s ideas and feelings. And you can know the joyous, awesome capacity to give that comes with loving.
Notes
Gawain Wells, a clinical psychologist and father of six children, teaches Sunday School in his Provo, Utah, ward.
Breaking Up without Going to Pieces:
When Dating Doesn’t End in Marriage
By M. Gawain Wells
M. Gawain Wells, “Breaking Up without Going to Pieces: When Dating Doesn’t End in Marriage,” Ensign, Jun 1982, 58–61
It feels good to invest in a relationship. To care. To want to share. To want to give.
If your dating relationship feels joyous and healthy, if both of you feel the Lord’s approval of your decision to marry, then the relationship “works,” and you marry. If it doesn’t work, you don’t marry. There is no third alternative.
However, many people assume there is a third alternative and try to keep the relationship alive when all signs of vitality have ceased. Both in my church callings and in my profession as a clinical psychologist, I have worked with people who cannot accept breaking up as a healthy part of the selection process of courtship. Instead, they see it as a time to punish themselves, to feel hurt, or even to try to hurt others.
The Lord has given us some important guidelines for relationships—and they apply to all relationships, including dating. We’re counseled to treat all people charitably and kindly, to forgive, and to love not only God and others but also ourselves.
By developing and exercising compassion, a person can—without unpleasantness or emotional devastation—end a dating relationship that needs to end, and turn the experience into an important step toward developing another relationship that does result in marriage.
Sometimes it’s better for two people not to marry each other. They would both be happier married to other people—it’s that simple. Perhaps they’ve formed a relationship for the wrong reasons. But even when the motives are right, a relationship still might not have that “spark” that impels both toward marriage. In such cases, breaking up is often the kindest alternative.
Breaking up may sometimes be a difficult and grieving process, but it doesn’t have to be dreadful. People can break up a dating relationship without going to pieces.
The biggest factor in determining the outcome of a relationship is following the inspiration of the Lord. If your association seems to pull you away from God, away from righteousness, away from prayer and scriptures, you need to evaluate its influence. Sometimes, too, people will want so badly for a courtship to work that they can’t hear the Lord’s messages because of their own desires.
Also important for a relationship to develop into a healthy marriage are communication and genuine interest in each other. One young man tried hard to fall in love with a young woman who had served in his mission. They both loved their mission experiences and the people of the country, but there was no “magic” in their relationship. They could talk about the Church and their missions, but not deeply about themselves.
The fellow hated to give up what he thought was a storybook situation, but he finally realized that the relationship wasn’t sufficient for marriage. He broke up with her and later met a young woman in a college class. They found they could talk for hours and not lose interest in each other. She was the one he married.
Probably one of the most ominous indications of a troubled dating relationship is that you begin to feel obligated. Of course, even excellent relationships are not free of obligation. But feeling obligated, feeling bound, is more than making the adjustments needed for a relationship to work. Things you should freely want to do for the other person become tasks you do only because you are expected to do them. You begin to resent the other person, and you want to put distance between you. The relationship is no longer enjoyable and comfortable. It’s being Serious, with a capital letter. Conversations are “heavy,” with much frustration, anxious searching of your feelings, and perhaps a series of phone calls that start out, “I have to talk to you!”
And then you begin to test each other. A fellow might say to himself, “If she really likes me, she’ll be glad to go with me, even if I’m calling half an hour before the party.” Or, “If he loves me, he will do what I want.” So you start trying to manipulate each other; and in your insecurity, you try to control each other’s responses. “Do you enjoy being with me as much as I enjoy being with you?”
Another symptom of deep problems in a dating relationship is an inability to communicate on the same level. Sometimes you’ll feel you have a great deal to say but can’t talk because you feel the other person won’t understand, or will misunderstand. You become afraid to say what you honestly feel and think. Similarly, a couple’s physical attraction to one another may mask an inability to communicate. Some couples may know how to kiss but don’t know how to talk to each other. For them, the physical aspect of their relationship is something they fall back on to avoid developing caring and communication.
Some people also use physical affection as a measure of the progress of the relationship—and that’s a false and irrelevant measurement. A girl might think, “If he holds my hand, it means he likes me.” Or, “If he puts his arm around me, that means he likes me more.” But those gestures might mean nothing of the sort. In fact, a too-quick development of such gestures may lead to inappropriate expressions of affection and thus damage a healthy relationship. If a courtship is based largely on physical affection, you probably need to evaluate its stability.
Still another indication of a troubled relationship is a feeling of emotional starvation, of being emotionally drained. This could be because of a lack of appropriate affection in the relationship, or perhaps because one person is “using” another in an unhealthy way.
One person in a dating relationship might “use” another in the way fellows used an extremely attractive young woman who was in my campus ward when I was a bishop. On dates she felt more like a boutonniere than a person—she was someone men “wore” but not someone they wanted to understand and cherish. Another young woman in the ward found that after she was chosen as homecoming queen, the quality of her dates declined dramatically; men were no longer interested in her as a person but only as a status symbol. In both cases, these young women found it difficult to establish genuine, deep relationships.
Sometimes a person enters a relationship with the mistaken notion (I call it a “rescue complex”) that he or she can “save” the other. An extreme example of this was one woman who married a man because he threatened suicide if she didn’t marry him. That marriage ended in divorce.
A more common situation might be for a man to see a woman who’s been jilted and to say to himself, “She’s so sweet and wounded, and I’m going to heal her broken heart.” Or a woman with strong, warm mothering instincts may meet a misfit fellow who’s in the middle of an identity crisis and vow to save him from himself. In the process, she deliberately blinds herself to all of the differences in their values.
What’s wrong with relationships like these is that they put unfair responsibility and demands on one person to make the relationship work. They don’t allow for a healthy role-shifting in which both partners can look to each other for support and strength.
Another wrong reason for developing or perpetuating a relationship is to avoid causing problems in a family or social network. Sometimes a dating couple builds up such a comfortable social network that their relationship is the worst part of what otherwise is a very pleasant situation. In this case they need to recognize that even if their parents or friends hope they’ll marry, it’s the couple’s relationship that ultimately matters.
Some couples may argue that they received a spiritual confirmation of their relationship. Why, then, didn’t it work out? It’s possible, of course, that you wanted so badly for it to work out that you misinterpreted spiritual feelings and, in essence, put words in God’s mouth. But there’s another possibility: People change. Though the dating relationship was right at one time, it isn’t anymore. The spiritual confirmation could have been an assurance of the relationship’s capacity, its possibility, its potential. But it wasn’t a guarantee of ultimate fruit.
Once you’ve decided the relationship is not going to work out, how do you kindly let someone know you’re serious about ending the dating relationship?
The most important thing is to communicate, compassionately, clearly what you mean. Often one person will want the other to get the message without its being clearly stated, which may mean that the person who wants to break up isn’t facing his real feelings. When you’ve cared deeply enough to date seriously, of course you shouldn’t want to hurt the other person. But that’s no reason for giving an unclear or indefinite message. Otherwise, the other person may accept only a change in the relationship, still hoping for eventual marriage.
It isn’t compassionate to try to sever a relationship slowly if you’ve already made up your mind. The other person won’t gradually get the message by your disinterest. If you’re trying to break up slowly, it’s possible that you’re mistaking your desire to not hurt the person for an excuse to be dishonest about your own feelings.
Since relationships can’t change from romance to friendship in a day or a week, it may be unrealistic and even hurtful for the two of you to spend much time together once the decision has been made. The person who initiated the break-up may be thinking, “Isn’t it civilized and nice that we can be friends?” But the other will be secretly hoping for the friendship to develop back into a romance. And if the romance can never be revived, feelings will be hurt even more deeply.
Almost always, one of you will be hurt more than the other when the relationship breaks up. If you’ve been hurt in a relationship, you may think it’s understandable that you defend yourself by denigrating or criticizing the other person. Actually, it’s a way of running from reality, and it’s a childish and defensive gesture. Whatever has not worked out, the Lord requires that we forgive all people—and this commandment is as true in a dating relationship as in any other. Bitterness is never the right solution.
People can tell you plenty of superficial ways to get over a broken relationship. They might suggest taking up golf, getting yourself back into social circulation, or looking critically at the ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend. But the grief of an ended relationship can be as real and as intense as grief following the death of someone you’ve loved. So it’s important to let yourself work through the grief process.
You may have to be willing to mourn, to let yourself down into your feelings. Grieving can be a way of accepting the end, of letting the separation come. But you have to realize that those feelings will pass, and that no matter how much it hurts, you’re going to live through it. Racing out and involving yourself frenetically in other activities won’t block it out of your mind.
At the same time, you mustn’t perform an endless postmortem on the relationship. By continually asking yourself what you did wrong or what would have happened if you’d done things differently, you keep your wounded feelings alive. Similarly, indulging yourself in what I call a “pity party” is a cruel way of hurting yourself. It won’t help to deliberately humiliate yourself with a list of your failures, as though reliving your real or imagined failures can keep them from happening again.
One college student worked through the grief of a broken relationship by listening to music in the living room of his apartment after his roommates went to bed. He listened to the same album over and over, every night, and allowed himself to mourn.
Finally one day he looked in the mirror and said to himself, “It’s dead. It’s over. It’s never going to work. And I’m not going to try to make it work anymore. I’m not going to go on believing it’s going to work. It is done. I still have feelings for her, but I am going to go on living.”
For about three days he had to repeat that to himself. He’d be driving in his car and start to mourn again, and he’d look in his rear-view mirror and say, “It’s over.” And for him, it was over.
Remember, the Lord can give you solace in your pain. His peace can come through your family, your friends, service, prayer, fasting, scripture reading. You may find considerable relief and insight from writing in your personal journal about the relationship. And perhaps a loving Church leader can help you work through this difficult time.
It’s important that you not try to build happiness on the pretended misery of the person you have left behind. Some people carry this to a tragic extreme by not only dating but actually marrying someone else in an effort to make a former boyfriend or girlfriend miserable or jealous. They’re thinking, “I’ll show her,” or “I’ll show him,” without giving serious thought to the feelings of the person they’re actually marrying.
This was the case with a young private I knew in the Army. He had fallen in love with a girl, but her father wouldn’t let her marry him, and she wouldn’t run away with him to get married. So the fellow married another girl—one he didn’t love and wasn’t happy with. Joining the Army and seeking assignments where he couldn’t take a family with him were his ways of running away from the rebound marriage.
While you may learn valuable lessons from failed relationships, it’s not necessary to impute further meaning to the break-up. That is, I don’t believe the Lord intends you to be hurt again and again for the sake of “learning experiences.” I believe that He wants you to know the joy that comes from understanding, trusting, and loving someone in an honest, giving relationship. Hopefully, you can learn what is valuable from the experience without punishing yourself or seeing the experience as punishment.
While you might be able to look to past relationships for lessons about life, others, or yourself, don’t overlook the positive aspect of learning to better appreciate the depth and quality of a relationship you hope to make eternal. A man who thinks he wants a wife who plays the piano may find that while musical skills are important, what he really wants is a wife with whom he can share and enjoy life—someone he can talk to. Personal qualities are much more important than skills.
It helps not to look at dating as an end in itself. Some people become quite adept at dating skills, but have never considered and prepared themselves for the intimate and hopefully eternal commitments of marriage.
You may find that the best preparation you can make for marriage is to learn to love God and to love yourself. When you have a secure, spiritual knowledge of yourself as a child of God, you will find a sense of personal confidence and identity that makes a good relationship possible.
Like some people, you may find that you need to learn to be more honest and vulnerable in a relationship, and that you need to learn to believe in your own lovableness. As you develop those abilities, the love in your relationship can be sustained by a mutual conviction that you are loved by each other.
Then you can know the delight of being trusted with one another’s ideas and feelings. And you can know the joyous, awesome capacity to give that comes with loving.
Notes
Gawain Wells, a clinical psychologist and father of six children, teaches Sunday School in his Provo, Utah, ward.
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