There’s an old saying my dad used to always tell me when I was a kid. He said, “If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, then it was never yours to begin with.” For some reason, I always found this quote comforting, but in retrospect, it’s a load of bologna. If only relationships were as simple as the thousands of meme’s posted on Facebook and Pinterest every day.
Ah yes, these social media memes make us feel warm and fuzzy with validation in all sorts of ways. In reality, relationships can be quite complicated because people
Examples of Relationship Crossroads
Relationship crossroads come in many forms:
- Infidelity/cheating
- Emotional intimacy problems
- Sexual frustration
- Miscommunication
- Alcohol or substance abuse
- Job conflicts / long distance
- Domestic violence
- Unmet relationship needs
- Decision to have kids or not
- Incompatibility (lifestyle, money, sex, personality)
The list goes on, I’m sure. In my case, my boyfriend wouldn’t delete his online dating profile. After a few discussions about it, I was ultimately left with the decision of either breaking up or renegotiating the terms of our relationship. I opted for the latter in light of my latest fascination with the idiosyncrasies of polyamory as I found myself questioning the validity of monogamy over the last few years. But then things got even more complicated when he decided to leave Los Angeles to live in his van more than 800 miles away. [Insert expletive here.] As if my mixed feelings about the whole thing weren’t complicated enough.
I suppose things could be even more complicated.
Take, for example, a woman who might be a decade older than me. She’s probably divorced, has one too many kids and no intentions of having more. Then she meets this wonderful guy who tells her almost everything she wants to hear and really validates her sense of self-worth. She knows that with him, she’ll be set for life in terms of safety and security (for herself and her kids). The problem? Different relationship priorities. She wants marriage. He wants kids. She’s done having kids, so he won’t marry her. The same complication can happen in reverse with a woman eagerly wanting to have kids before her eggs start to shrivel while the man she’s seriously considering for a lifetime partner has no intentions of ever having kids.
It’s moments like these when you really have to work hard at balancing your values with your priorities. You could also shift your priorities around or change your values altogether. But then you’d have to ask yourself if you were doing it for the right reasons or the wrong ones.
What to Do When You’ve Reached a Crossroad in Your Relationship
Step One: Sleep on it.
Step Two: Weigh your values.
Step Three: Detach with love.
Our goal is to heal ourselves and our relationship with other human beings, not to coldly distance ourselves, especially from the people who matter most to us. In fact, detachment is far more compassionate and respectful than the unfeeling distancing […] for when we detach with love, we accept others exactly are they are.
That phrase “detach with love” really struck a chord with me. I guess it made me realize that when people hurt you, whether intentional or not, it’s not always about you as much as it is about them and whatever it is they’re trying to project onto you.
Step Four: Carve your own path.
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