And So He Lives Happily Ever After

"I just need to take things slow. Marriage is a huge step; and I don't know if I'm ready for it," says the guy who dates you for a long time, breaks up with you, and is engaged shortly thereafter to the next girl. We've discussed this phenomenon here previously as "rebounding," but now that I'm reading this book about unrequited love, I have a whole new perspective. Bear with me.

I'll back up just a little. Samara O'Shea writes about how when someone ends a relationship you were not ready for to be over, she suggests that this person is doing you a favor. In all type of these scenarios there are so many explanations of what is happening there. Perhaps s/he's not fully over someone else, has a fantasy of "love" hitting him/her over the head, whatever, it doesn't really matter.

"When a problem exists in someone's head," she writes, "their head is the only place it can be solved...believing you can solve other people's problems is also a problem...if it's meant to be, it will be. In the meantime, he did you a favor."

She quotes Don Miguel Ruiz's Mastery of Love to expound on this favor.

"Explore the possibilities. Be yourself. Find a person who matches with you. Take a risk, but be honest. If it works, keep going. If it doesn't work, then do yourself and your partner a favor: Walk away; let her go. Don't be selfish. Give your partner the opportunity to find what she really wants, and at the same time give yourself the opportunity. If it's not going to work, it is better to look in a different direction. If you cannot love your partner the way she is, someone else can love her just as she is. Don't waste your time, and don't waste your partner's time. This is respect."

Often people will make statements, like the one I opened this post with, about not being ready for marriage, but then they seem to jump off that ledge pretty quickly with someone else. O'Shea believes that it just means that these people are in denial. They just don't feel it with the present relationship and use a blanket statement to describe the feeling. (They probably even believe it to be true!) When they meet that person that changes their mind about it, it feels completely different.

O'Shea brings another theory too in which she talks about how guys are like cabs. She quotes Miranda from Sex and the City episode 3x8, "When they're available their light goes on. They awake one day and decide they're ready to settle down...and they turn their light on. Next woman they pick up, boom, that's the one they'll marry...It's all about timing. You gotta get them when their light is on...They can drive around for years picking up women and not be available."

When that girl jumps into your cab just as the light goes on, it hurts. It's devastating. If you've had this happen, read O'Shea's book. She's been through this a few times, and her accounts of these stories are super validating to anyone who has been there (at least they were for me). Nurse your broken heart and let yourself be angry and sad. Remember, a healed heart is that much stronger. Mended, not broken.

It's probably apropos here to talk about what O'Shea calls the "dress rehearsal." Most of us have been there –– rehearsing in our head what we want to look like and how we want to act or what we want to say when we bump into this ex. It's probably not going to go exactly as you planned, because his/her reaction is probably not going to be as you imagined. You can write scripts regarding what you want to say, but in the moment, when you're caught off guard, it'll all probably fly out of your head. O'Shea suggests going for a sentiment rather than specific words. "Stay calm," she says, "it'll all flow from there." Decide whether you want to be cold or polite or whatever. If you feel the need to write down what you want to say, by all means do it. It'll probably change a bunch of times as you process the breakup and your emotions change. In the end you may not even want to say anything at all.

Remember, he may have moved on and you look stuck in the same place, but that's not what this encounter is about. It's merely two people who dated in the past bumping into each other. You don't know that he's happy or what's going on with him...even if he does have a beautiful wife on his arm. (And DO NOT compare yourself to her. Their relationship is not based on the externalities that you can perceive, so it's completely pointless.)

Also, your value isn't tied up in your relationship status. "He got married," O'Shea quips, "He wasn't crowned king...nothing about marriage is automatic...your life, including marriage, will be what you make of it. There are triumphant days ahead for you and disappointing days ahead for him and vice versa." More on that later. (The chapter I'm about to read is called "Unrequited in a Room Full of Requiteds.")

Stay tuned.