Untying the Knot

Can we untie the knot that asphyxiates us with all this social pressure –– the feeling of needing life to be exactly as we always imagined it? Marriage is great, sure, says O'Shea, but not when it's about conformity, not when it toys with our sense of self. It causes singles to feel bad about themselves just because they're not part of the exclusive club, and it causes people to mindlessly marry just to fit with society's expectations. From the time we're little society places chains around our necks, which threaten to strangle us before we take our first steps.

Like I started talking about at the end of this post, we all have the same capacity for happiness, and it isn't tied up in our marital status. So many people are miserable, and it's easy to blame it on not being married. So many people who are married are not happy either. Married or not, happiness comes from within.

Of course this yearning isn't just about wanting to fit in; it's about having a romantic, intellectual, physical, spiritual, deep connection with another human being –– your beacon in a sometimes dark world (and of course there's a whole religious dimension as well). Wanting to get married and having a family are noble aspirations, but it helps to recognize why you want this and not just think that it's something you're "supposed to have." It isn't something that we can force, and recognizing that it isn't the sole key to your happiness and sense of identity is helpful.

O'Shea suggests that the way people talk about singles or constantly ask about whether there is someone special in one's life that it's almost as if they're condemning singles, making it as if there is something wrong with them, always trying to "fix" their "problem." So yes, we would rather be married, but asking "Are you seeing someone," almost seems like asking "When are you going to be normal?" Being single isn't a disease...

Feelings of helplessness and powerlessness contribute a lot to whether you suffer, relates O'Shea. You have a lot more control over how you feel than you think you do. You may not be able to stop specific unhelpful thinking patterns or feelings, but you do have control over if you decide to seek help to deal with them. Therapy, support groups, self-help resources, and the like can all assist with these thoughts and feelings. O'Shea suggests that maybe it's as simple as changing your inner dialogue. Instead of wondering what you did wrong or how things could have gone differently in a relationship, perhaps just recognize that it's over and done.

Obviously there is no off switch, but instead of playing into the rumination and fantasizing of what could have been, apply your efforts to stop the overanalyzing, cyber-stalking, figuring out ways to run into him/her... Sit with yourself and process the experience. Realize that the end of a relationship doesn't make you worth any less. Be sad, disappointed, dejected, hurt. Feeling these emotions is time better spent getting over him/her than living in the past. Like I've mentioned before, we often hold onto hurt for a longer time than necessary because it's proof we had something, the only vestige left of the relationship. Try to let that go too.

Instead of asking "What is wrong with me," realize that you're special and unique and it wasn't meant to be. Says O'Shea, "Rejection is the universe saying 'you can do better,' and failure becomes opportunity."

While Disney taught us from a young age that happiness exists "over there, in that castle with that person," O'Shea muses, "...that there is only one dragon to slay, someone else will slay it for you, and on the other side of that afternoon kill is nirvana...In reality...there are many dragons to slay...and the only person that can pull the sword from the stone and make the monster beg for mercy is you..."

When we start taking responsibility for our feelings rather than blaming them on others or situations and circumstances, we have a lot more control over our happiness.

One of the last bits of advice that O'Shea gives in her book really spoke to me. She suggests that we must all practice love regardless if we're in a relationship, not in a relationship, and especially if you're getting over a relationship. Practice on everyone; it's about patience, compassion, forgiveness, acceptance, honesty, apologies, accepting apologies, communication, authenticity... Instead of expending all your energy trying to find that one person that will justify your entire existence, try sharing love with everyone. Eventually you will find the person who can intensely reflect it back at you.

Solving for "S"

Following the end of a relationship, something perhaps too short to rationally actually warrant to be called a breakup, but a "breakup" all the same (in tribute to the feeling of click/connection), I just feel sad.

It's never helpful to place judgement on feelings, because they're never right or wrong, they're just feelings. (It's the whole feelings are messages thing. When you try to fight them they find a way to sneak back in where you least expect them. When you honor their message, they dissipate.)

The message of sadness is one of loss. Sure, I lost the relationship, its potential, the person in my life (and everything he brought to the table), the connection we had...but because I'm great at analyzing things, I'm thinking it's not just that. (Rationally it seems like it was too short to feel real loss of any or all of those things!)

I'm still figuring it out, but so far I've been able to pinpoint that perhaps this is about how connection causes a surge of feel good chemicals in one's brain. With the loss of the relationship/connection, my brain is aching for that dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins that came along with the interaction.

Gotta get to work replenishing that balance... Social interaction, ie. hanging out with friends, exercise (maybe I need to double the workout routine), sunlight, chocolate/ice cream, and physical touch (lots of hugs and/or a massage) will all help with that.

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.

Loves Me...Not: Another Post About Rejection Etc.

I picked up this book the other day and started reading it out of curiosity. The book, Loves Me...Not: How to Survive (and Thrive) in the Face of Unrequited Love by Samara O'Shea, has so many, so many! good insights. I was skeptical that it would be helpful in any way, as most pop psychology/self help books usually write about things we all have learned instinctively by just being passive students of life. Yet, I was pleasantly surprised. Even without any formal education –– I think she's a writer by profession, and she'd only recently began pursuing a Masters degree in social work at the time of the book's publication –– she shares a plethora of wisdom (obviously not all her own) about love and loss and all those emotions in between.

As I read, I want to share some of the things that stand out to me with all of you. If you think any of it is interesting or speaks to you, I would suggest you track down a copy of the book and read it yourself. It's an easy and entertaining read.

One of the first things O'Shea does is reference Don Miguel Ruiz's Four Agreements. I'll outline them here briefly, but if you're not familiar with them, I'd say it's worth it for you to read up on them. They're powerful stuff...

1. Be Impeccable with your Word 

Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the Word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your Word in the direction of truth and love. 

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally 

Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering. 

3. Don’t Make Assumptions 

Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life. 

4. Always Do Your Best 

Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

O'Shea zeroes in on number two, but I want to talk about numbers two and three. She quotes The Four Agreements to elaborate on the not taking things personally, which basically explains that people live within their own world, their own perception. The things that anybody does or says comes from the "agreements" s/he has within his or her own mind. Even if something seems very personal, even if it insults you directly, it has very little to do with you. Oftentimes it's about how something was triggered for them or a projection of their feelings and beliefs.

In a similar vein, don't make assumptions about why someone is doing or has done something. Even when you aren't in a position to ask, you must accept that you really don't know what is going on and/or why someone is doing something. We can make ourselves sick with worry, anxiety, jealousy, hatred, sadness, etc. when we assume things. We, more often times than not, won't really know why someone doesn't "want" you or why s/he isn't texting you back.

On the topic of rejection, remember that life is full of it –– personally, professionally, you name it. O'Shea offers up some guidelines to help out here.

1. Allow yourself the time to feel bad about things that didn't work out––don't rush through this. It's okay to feel let down.
2. If you made a mistake, don't criticize yourself. Call it just that––a mistake. (We all make mistakes sometimes.)
3. Recognize that the failure of things to work out isn't a reflection of your self-worth or abilities.
4. Find a lesson or three that can be taken away from the situation.
5. Put your black turtleneck on and get back out there.

You know how they all say that you need to be comfortable being alone first, and being single gives you that opportunity? That's great and all, but the want to be in a relationship, to have someone in your corner and all that good stuff, doesn't go away. O'Shea talks to this point too. Being comfortable being single doesn't mean that you don't want love/a relationship. It just means recognizing that "you're the only person you're going to wake up with every single day of your life," says O'Shea. "...You can make more authentic relationship decisions rather than fear-based ones...[working on yourself while you're alone] will enable you to love more genuinely..." It might not feel great, and you don't have to buy into the 'You have be complete on your own; It's an opportunity for you!' stuff that people in a relationship tell you. You do want to recognize though that you can use this time to your advantage. (It doesn't make you more or less single!)

O'Shea also talks about how in a relationship the only feelings you can account for are your own. What may be so super intense to you (or even just seems like a good shot), may be just causal or "pareve" to the other. She points out, as an aside, that when you are in a relationship and the other person doesn't necessarily reciprocate your emotion, it's not like it's totally for naught. She claims it's a "chance to practice taking hold of your half –– allowing yourself to feel it fully and let it be something special all by itself." She goes on to say that it's a chance to recognize that you have this capacity to love/care about someone like this and to celebrate it. You may not be able to share this passion with the other person, but you can keep it for yourself and know that it's there for some future situation.

A small note on envy, just because that's the last thing I notated so far in my reading... I know that I've felt jealous or sad/angry/jealous when an ex moved on (read: got engaged/married) or someone else who used to be in my same boat managed to get to the other side. Largely the envy comes from these someone elses having something that I want, right? O'Shea acknowledges that a lot of times this feeling is not that you want to be the other person or have what they have (after all, that person may be married but s/he has zero attraction or perhaps connection to his/her partner...), but it's about the fact that s/he has something to call his/her own. Is there something that you can do, that you have control over to call your own –– a hobby, class, volunteership, whatever? Pursue that, it will help a little.

Remember to love yourself and that everything comes down to you. No one else is to blame for what you are feeling. For real! It's much easier to blame everyone else, and it's aggravating to hear that it's about how you adjust your mindset, because it really does seem so much of the time that the things that happen around us affect our happiness. However, when you choose to take this control, you will have so much more happiness and be less subject to other people's opinions and their mood swings.

On Connection and Rejection

If this is hope, then what is despair? Is it this? They say that the only direction when you're at rock bottom is up...

My friend was having a hard time after a guy she really liked broke up with her through the shadchan. They'd only gone out twice, yet she said it was more about the hope it presented to her. She'd never liked anyone as much as this one guy...and she's been dating for more than a decade.

Listening to her lament triggered so many things for me. I've been in her place, multifold, so many times. For me it isn't about the guys that I've dated only twice, but the ones I go out with long enough to establish a real relationship, a bond. They open up to me, they let me in...and then I'm left holding their garbage.

I guess this is how it works in any failed relationship really. The shidduch system bites just a bit more though, because you don't really ever have the opportunity to talk to an ex ever again. (It often doesn't work to be friends with an ex in the secular world either, but that's a different discussion.) It feels like I'm left holding a part of someone else I wish I could just give back. I can't be there to support him, to share in his life, any longer, so I don't want this piece of him anymore. In the same vein, I want the piece of my heart back that I've given to him. He showed that he didn't want it, couldn't take care of it, so he needs to return it please.

When there's closure in a relationship this is usually easier, but so many things can blast that apart. For example, when a guy reaches back out at some point after the break-up, but then leaves the door hanging ajar with no clear message of why and if he's interested or not to redate, when an ex you dated for a looong time gets engaged shortly (very shortly) after your breakup with him/her, when someone sends you mixed signals about whether or not s/he thinks that perhaps the relationship might work at some point in the future...

In general, it's just excruciating...doing this over and over and over. It's a feeling I think that someone who hasn't had relationships like this, no matter how long they've been dating, just cannot understand.

Focusing on other joys in life and remembering that being vulnerable and open is the only way forward is how to continue to slog through this...there are no shortcuts apparently.

This Is Living

Mesmerized by the shallow turquoise crystal clear waters as they sweep the powder soft white sand shore over and over again, admiring the myriads of blues and greens as the coral just beneath the surface colors the clear ocean, relaxing on one of the top rated beaches in the world, I sit and think about how this is living. Repelling down an 80 foot waterfall and zip-ling through the rainforest, I think about how this is living. Watching the sun slowly sink in the azure blue sky littered by fluffy white clouds from between the swaying palm trees, kayaking through a pitch black labyrinth of trees, savoring the view over the inky black bay of the planetarium-like night sky awash with twinkling stars and bright constellations, swimming in the warm ocean with the tropical electric blue, purple, and yellow fish and orange and yellow coral...this is living.

Still on a high from reveling in these captivating nifla'os ha'boreh, I think about how so often we experience the world in black and white. We let so much grime build up on the lenses through which we see the world that we're no longer really living; we're grinding. We lock ourselves in this cage and beat at it repeatedly, trying fruitlessly to get out, never realizing that the door is not locked.

Especially at this stage in life, it's not difficult to fall into this mindset that we need a spouse to feel good, to move forward, to feel successful. There is so much in this life besides for that. There's a whole world out there, and it was created for us. It's not just about having a relationship/getting married (which is great, but we don't control when that's going to happen). When you're stuck just surviving, it's easy to feel like you need something to save you from the daily grind, but that is why it is so important to go and see and do and experience the world in whichever way speaks to you. Nature, travel, activities...is my thing. What's yours?

Scoring on a Rebound

Can a rebound be the real deal?

Seeking comfort after a heartbreaking, perhaps severely distressing, experience in which you may be questioning yourself, your self-worth, your desirability, etc., is completely normal. These feelings of vulnerability and loneliness can be staunched by connecting with someone new, even if this person isn't right for you. In situations where emotions are heightened, it is common for people to confuse their feelings for something different. (For more of a discussion about this, refer to my "Love At First Sight" post.)

What goes through people's heads' who date someone seriously, perhaps for long drawn out periods of time, dump her/him, and then get engaged to the next suitor, a mere few weeks later? Is this pure rebound science? Are people in these relationships happily married?

Science suggests that rebound relationships can definitely help people heal from a breakup, because being in a relationship (presumably any relationship) promotes higher self-esteem, attachment security, and all those good things that come from healthy relationships. However, when someone is clinging to a relationship only because s/he wants to feel wanted and the relationship is all wrong, this backfires. Therefore, when people marry a rebound, often the foundation of the relationship is critically damaged. It's the same kind of situation that results from someone trying to fill a need in himself/herself by marrying someone that has that specific characteristic. For example, if John himself wants to be (or wants to be seen as) more confident and/or assertive, he may be looking to marry someone who is all that.

However, your spouse is not your cure-all. Two complete people are needed in a relationship for that relationship to work (in a healthy manner). You cannot marry someone just because s/he fills a need. I mean, you can, but that relationship is going to have holes in it, and it's going to take a lot of work to make that healthy and fulfilling in the long run.
If you weren’t willing to settle for your ex, you’re a fool to settle for your rebound.I'm no stranger to this phenomenon of rebound relationships...at least being the party from whom the rebounder is rebounding...Recently, a friend of mine had the same situation. The guy she dated seriously, who said he likes to take things slow and work relationships out slooowly, got engaged a very short time after they broke up.

The only thing I can think of is that something that didn't click with the last relationship, clicked with the new one. What didn't feel right after months of dating, obviously felt right with the kallah.

I have a friend who married her rebound, and she's happily married. When she was dating her husband, it was "so clear" to me that it was a rebound, but somehow it worked out for her, and she really just believes the right one came on the heals of the very wrong one. It could happen.