The Actions that Follow Reactions

“Why did it have to turn out THIS way?” she cried out on the phone. I held the receiver in silence not knowing what to say. My friend is going though a break up, a bad one. But whoever heard of a good one? Well, she found out something about him and it’s made her change her mind about the 4 year relationship and she wants out. If things had been different, they would be getting married next month. No, neither of them has been unfaithful. Neither of them lied to the other. And there is no abuse of any kind involved. It is not about falling “out” of love either. I know that makes it seem like a drastic move on her part. But wait, before all the Aunties and Moms go “4 years of the best years of her life! How will she find someone now? She isn’t getting any younger!” I’ll like to say I very much support her decision and the whiners will not be tolerated. A particular situation which involves her more so than him, had him reacting in a way she did not expect. Now, most people and more so men and women, think so unlike one another that often, a decision made by one can be questioned by the other unendingly. One will fail to see the logic of the other and that’s when we have the full-blown yelling matches or the freezing-out episodes. But then at some point, one will try to unravel how important is that decision to you, and how important is this to the other. EVERYTHING cannot be EQUALLY important to the both of you. And that is when one will step back. If that evaluation does not happen, the fight will never end.

Come back, my sermon is over. So now, in the case of my friend, this event was definitely HERS. The situation involved her family and her, but she needed his support. His simple understanding of the matter and maybe a little bit of his involvement. But the guy did not agree with her stance. He did not do the 1 minute evaluation – “How important is this to me? And how important is this to her?” So the fight never ended, though the event is long over. Obviously, this has left a permanent scar and months later, it still bothers her. Finally she realized that she could not live with this. But it’s still left her miserable and the natural self-doubts and “What ifs” and “Should haves” are being dragged out and pondered on and analyzed to death. I am only the sounding board she needs at the moment. She is way too intelligent to expect me to actually give her a solution. But she knows I trust her to get over this. She is one of the smartest and strongest people I know.

Still holding the receiver, in my natural “Knowledge is power” approach to matters I say “Aren’t you glad though you saw this side of him NOW? If you saw this after you guys got married, it would have been worse, na?” Between her sobs she said something that had me pondering all night. “But if I never knew about this side of him, I would be okay! And we would have been married by now...We would have been okay” she repeated. “Why do these things have to happen?!” was her lament. She is obviously crying for the lost feeling of being happy with him, not the realization that he might not be the person for her. But her lament had me wondering, just like it might take a high-risk activity for one to realize what kind of person you are, it takes a “high-risk” situation to find out more about your relationship. Simple enough. But what happens if there’s never any high-risk situation? Will you be left wondering all your life? But I guess it’s worse if you know the answer and it’s the wrong one. If the guy failed to see her though one of the first bridges she needed to cross, there will be bigger ones in the future and they will never be defined as “their” bridges anymore. So I am glad she found the courage to do what she did. If you’re faced with a high-risk situation, try to “pass” for your as well as for your partner’s sake. Because afterwards, whether or not your loved-one makes it to the other side or even remembers later whether he/she made it or not, your stance will never be forgotten.