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Do you only break-up with one lover when you have someone else in the wings? Only when there’s another good possibility cooking? Being alone can be scary. Of course, when you’re in a relationship that really isn’t working, the thought of being alone is great. You daydream about what it would be like to come home and not deal with the crap. But, sure enough, when there’s a break-up looming ahead, your find yourself going out with friends and smiling encouragingly at new possibilities.
For some, the thought of being alone is completely unacceptable.
So, you throw all the unresolved conflicts and bad behaviors of one relationship into the dark attic of your mind and move on to the new thing. The new guy. The one who’s different and won’t go out all the time with friends or make you feel bad about yourself. This time it’ll be better. This one will stick.
Don’t kid yourself. All you’re doing in jumping out of one bad situation into another situation (that’s going to go bad eventually) is building up a history. A really unpleasant string of relationships that haven’t worked. You need a relationship postmortem. An autopsy of sorts. What went wrong?
You need to process the relationship failure, so you don't just repeat it. This processing is important and jumping into a new relationship, the day after ending the old one, gets in the way. This isn't a relay race.
I’m not declaring a specific mourning time for everyone who’s been in a relationship that breathed it’s last. There’s no such animal. No number of weeks or months or years you should wait before jumping in again. And you should jump in. Relationships are important. Folks live longer, healthier lives when they’re married or with a long-term, committed mate. Together is important for humans.
Racking up one flawed relationship after another isn’t good for you, however. It’s wearing on your mental and physical health. To get out of this mind-set, you have to start looking at this differently. It’s not so much a matter of finding just anyone or the perfect “right” one, you need to look at your own stuff first. Every relationship is made up of two people (not counting the kids, step-kids, random family members and friends). You have brought stuff—both good and bad—to every relationship that hasn’t worked.
This is really good news. I know it sounds bad. It sounds as if you’re all the problem, or a big part of the problem, and who wants that? You do, actually. If you can see what you’re contributing to the mess of all these relationships, then you have a chance of changing your experience.
You can make it different.
**Brief, explanatory note here—I’m not saying that you have to power to make any and all relationships work. Or that if you just act right or do everything right, your troubled relationship will smooth out. I’m not saying this. Some relationships are beyond saving.**
You are, after all, only one part of this thing. Your partner gets some say-so in all this, too. He's got his issues, too. But you need to look at your actions. Are your relationship-expectations reasonable? Do you lie and cheat or drink excessively? You need to look honestly at your own stuff.
You, also, need to take a good, hard look at whether or not your reasons for getting into each relationship were deeply flawed, in the first place. Some people with difficult, troubled lifestyles(read drug and alcohol abuse here), choose partners who share that same lifestyle. There’s not much chance of building a strong, supportive loving connection if you’re both busy behaving badly to yourselves and others. Nothing will make this kind of relationship healthy for you.
Getting into a relationship for safety/avoidance of life reasons also makes for a bad prognosis ( i.e. What the two of you really have in common is that you don’t want to be alone or are tired of dating.) Some people choose each other because they don’t want to argue, at all. They don’t want to deal with conflict on any level. While lifestyle differences can be very difficult to overcome, dissimilar personalities can lead to individual and relationship growth.
Arguing is not always bad. Differences on a personality level can be a good thing. When you marry someone who’s too similar to you in personality, it’s like trying to play on a see-saw with you both sitting on the same side. Personality differences tug at you and make you talk and make you think. This leads to conflict, but it’s conflict that makes you stronger, better people.
Don’t jump from one failing relationship to another. You’ll end with a string of failed marriages or broken relationships and you won’t be happy. Look at yourself and the issues you need to address…then get involved with someone who sees things differently. There’s a better chance of success. Relationship success is the golden place everyone’s after. There’s no reason why you can’t create warm, supportive, fun interaction in a relationship that works.
