Breakdown or Breakup

Posted by fxckfeelings on May 27, 2010

True love isn’t the kind of thing that brings two people together in perfect harmony, at least outside of “The Princess Bride.” In our world, it’s what happens when life makes perfect harmony impossible, and two people find a way to step around the bad parts and hang onto the good. Inconceivable, but true.
–Dr. Lastname

I don’t want to break up with my girlfriend, but I know that I can’t really be with her, either. We can’t live in the same city, for one thing, because I have a grown child, grandkids, and a business I rely on and can’t move. She and I first met in college, but drifted apart, then married other people. We have great chemistry and I’m really happy that I found her again and could recapture part of what we once had; we talk every day, visit monthly, and I get along with her kids and family. The problem is that we can never live in the same place, and I know how much she wants a live-in partner, and I’m sure that, as she realizes our relationship can’t go forward, she’ll drift away. My goal is to keep our relationship from falling apart for the second time in my life, but I don’t know how to do it.

You’ve got a girlfriend you’ve known for decades whom you still love, accept and want to see. If that isn’t success, I don’t know what is. Seriously.

Yes, for various reasons beyond your control, you can’t live in the same city, and there’s always a chance that she’ll find someone who can and he’ll steal your true-love away. There’s also a chance Megan Fox will call you up and ask you out, but I wouldn’t plan your life around it.

If you’re thinking that way—that she gets swept away by a local guy—and the true-love guy doesn’t get the girl in the end, you might, like most people, think that love has failed.

Or you might be lucky, and be too old and smart and experienced to believe that kind of bullshit.

You pre-owned, second-life lovers know that your liaisons and partnerships have their own, special, inescapable risks. If you become disabled, or your finances fail, your dependence on first-life families and businesses may force you and your partner apart. Life is tough; but that isn’t the pain of failed love.

Of course, you can’t stop her from getting discouraged by your inability to up stakes and move to her city; and if this arrangement isn’t enough for her, that’s too bad. Refuse, however, to let fear or lack of commitment define your own views.

As you see it, it’s not a lack of love that keeps you apart, but a mature, surviving love that brings you together in spite of certain inescapable realities. And if she sees it differently, that’s her problem, not yours.

Be proud that you’re making the most of what life has given you: a love restored, under conditions that also force you to maintain separate lives. You’re not looking to get married, settled down, and have kids—been there, done that. If you’re truly looking for someone to understand you and your circumstances and where you’ve come from, you’re looking for each other.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a statement to define your own views and, hopefully, influence hers. “This relationship isn’t the cozy, share-everything love we would have preferred, but it’s survived a long time, it’s better now than ever, and it’s something we can treasure. If we can’t spend as much time together as we’d like, it won’t be because our love has failed.”

I love my boyfriend, but when he gets down on himself, he’s impossible. We’ve been together 20 years and I moved out on him 5 years ago, bur we’re still together. He’s funny, he’s a good English teacher, and his students love him, but he sees himself as a failed writer and drunk who can’t love anyone, particularly when he gets into a certain mean, low mood, and when he’s like that, I can’t get through to him, which is why I moved out. That’s when he binges. For the first 15 years, I thought my love could put the lie to his self-criticism and I felt terrible about moving out, because I knew he would take it as confirming his feelings of failure. My goal is to get him to see that he’s really a nice guy.

Some nice people are permanently self-critical, and there’s nothing loving partners or empathic shrinks can do to change it. It’s as basic to who they are as their hair color or shoe size, only much more annoying.

It may be their parents or their DNA, but who cares, because it is what it is, and trying to change it creates precisely the sense of failure that the tortured person believes belongs to him, so he can then see himself as a failed patient and lover. It’s a (not-racist) tar baby, so don’t touch it. Lay low yourself.

All you can do is let him know your own view and refuse to be drawn into his self-destructive side, and that’s basically what you’ve done. By living separately, you avoid sharing life with the drunk and the self-flagellator, but you’re available to spend time with his better side.

He can’t keep the demons out of his life; but you’ve created a boundary that shuts them out of yours. That’s real, grown-up love and it’s a major achievement. Of course, you might wonder if he’d get a kick out of religious rituals of group self-flagellation (fundamentalist Muslims have some good ones, and certain Catholic groups may not be far behind). Maybe he’d feel better and drink less, at least until he drank again, and then, not so much.

You might wonder if sobriety would help him feel better, but remember, feeling bad is his way of feeling good. Certainly, sobriety would eliminate the depressive impact of alcohol, but, on the other hand, it would also deprive him of the self-punishment of being humiliated and hung over, so he might feel worse if he felt better. You can’t win.

You’re actually providing him with good therapy by doing what you’re doing. You’re showing love and respect while accepting that he’s also a nasty, demeaning drunk who needs to be managed.

It’s an achievement to share real happiness with someone who often steeps himself in misery, and it’s not easy. If you want to make the best of your love, you’re going at it the best way possible, which is to say, from a necessary distance.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a statement to honor what you’ve accomplished. “I can’t help the fact that my boyfriend has terrible moods and binges. It hasn’t stopped me from respecting the nice guy and caring teacher and even the high standards by which he measures himself. I’m sorry we can’t live together, but I’m happy to have shut out the bad and held on to the good and perhaps one day he’ll learn how to do the same.”