This, of course, is done with the best of intentions. Jesus tells us to love and serve one another. The person doing th
e breaking-up doesn't want to cause undue hurt to the person they're breaking up with. And the person getting dumped doesn't want the thing to end to begin with.All of this adds up to well-intentioned foolishness.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to Mr. Clean Break.
Here's the deal. If you're the one getting dumped, you aren't ready to be friends. You need time and space to allow emotions to settle down.
You want to be friends, but you're not ready. You still want to be dating. The other person doesn't. You're pretending to be okay in the hopes that the other person will change their mind. But that's not where this thing is headed. And it takes a little while to get used to that idea.
Hence, the clean-break. If you give it six to eight weeks with little to no contact, you can actually be friends again in about four to six months. If you try to be all b.f.f. right away, it'll take you four to six weeks to realize you're fooling yourself and it'll take you eight to twelve months to recover.
So if you're the poor soul who's just gotten dumped (or maybe divorced or laid off--the applications are myriad), take heed: the clean-break is your friend. It hurts more initially but it means a healthier you, more quickly, in the long-run.
Feel free to pass it along.
4 comments:
you kill me. but in IV as I knew it, no one dated... we just "hung out"... and then went on the occasional group date. which sucked.
Only person I dated/almost-dated that I'm still "real friends" with went to Germany for 6 weeks a couple weeks after we broke up. We didn't have contact for 2-3 months, then we reconnected after we got to UNC (this was a high school boyfriend), and we were able to be friends, with absolutely no weirdness. We are not best friends, but we still enjoy grabbing lunch to talk politics and whatnot, and he was among those I invited to my wedding.
I heartily endorse the clean-break! When not used, there was much devastation...
good word. solid advice. extremely difficult to practice, especially for the dumpee. takes an extreme amount of maturity to see past the immediate emotions and look forward to the healthy you. one has to be willing to ignore all feelings that were present and appropriate just a few moments or days before; one has to pretend to forget. as christians, its not easy to turn our backs on someone. it goes against our nature. but that is exactly what is necessary in circumstances such as these. good word.
thank you, one and all, for your hearty endorsement! i have all this dating wisdom and it's of little use in my new gig, so I'm needing to get it out and enshrined in the blogosphere before i forget it all!
Post a Comment