HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1985-09-25, Page 41by Paul Howard
AA1ove is lovelier/The
second time
around/Much more
wondlrrful/With both
feet on the ground,"
penned songwriter
Sammy Cahn. Unhappily, many
who appear to have accepted
such sugary turns of phrase at
face value, and who plunge
head -long into a previously
severed relationship, do indeed
end up with both feet on the
ground — usually right back in
the same rut where they found
themselves originally.
The cold reality is that
rekindled romance is seldom all
it's cranked up to be in popular
love ballads. In truth, replayed
relationships tend to have the
cards stacked against them from
the outset, despite the blush -
deep optimism and best
intentions of those who choose
to undertake them_ "It's like
making a New Year's
resolution," says Barbara
Irving, a private counselor and a
board member of the Ontario
Association for Marriage and
Family Therapy.
"People realize, or should be
aware, that they've got to do
things differently in a second -
time relationship. Yet it's very
hard for people to change. The
reasoning, head part of you
wants to do things one way, but
the gut part of you may be
moving off in other directions.
Most reunited couples don't
even realize it when they start
backsliding into the same
destructive patterns of relating
as before."
Commonly, the ghosts which
haunted a couple's first, failed
liaison — the unresolved
conflicts and gnawing
uncertainties, the wounds to
pride, the accumulated guilt —
rise up again to plague atttempts
at a lasting reconciliation.
Explains Judy, a writer who
was involved in an on-
again/off-again, live-in/live-out
relationship for six years, ''I
feel I gave it my very best. shot,
so that I don't have any regrets
about having tried and
repeatedly failed to get things
on track. But you do fall into
the same old rales and you do
reopen a lot of old wounds,"
she admits.
"Things might have worked
out differently had I been
involved with someone in
business, but we were both
artists so there were always ego
struggles, financial problems
led Romances
and the continual need for
separate space. I would always
push for the possibility of
marriage.and ehildren, whereas
he was satisfied with the status
quo. I wasn't. L think it's most
often the case that the decision
to end an ongoing relationship
for good is made by one, not
both of the partners."
The wonder, it seems, is that
so many individuals, once
burned, appear so willing to
venture back into the fray of a
fizzled affair — especially when
tidier (read safer) options
abound: throwing oneself into
work while regrouping
emotionally or marking time,
heartache's ultimate narcotic;
taking another lover or lovers;
swearing off further serious
romantic commitments; moving
forward with flinty resolve...
with a shrug and a sigh.
Easier considered than done.
"Until your relationship has
become a thing of the past, you
don't really know what the
realities are. The reality is often
extreme loneliness, pain and a
good deal of regret," advises
counselor Mary Armstrong,
•invoking the analogy between
the challenges of a relationship
and those of running a
marathon.
"If you don't stay in it long
enough and endure the
inevitable pain, you're -never
going to experience a second
wind. When people leave a
relationship prematurely, they're
often left wondering if they
really gave it every chance it
deserved."
Add to such lingering doubt a
basic law of optics (unbecoming
details tend to blur with
increasing distance) and what
might once have seemed an
unworkable affair often appears
rosier when viewed with
hindsight somewhere down the
line.
When Maggie, a tall,
attractive registered nurse, broke
off her three-year relationship
with a chartered accountant 20
years her senior and moved to
British Columbia, "it was to
make a clean break," she
explains. "My parj nts couldn't
understand my seeing someone
so much older, and my friends
thought it was a bit strange.
And because these people didn't
accept the relationship, I had
trouble accepting it."
A year later Maggie returned
to Toronto and began dating
her ex again. "Nothing had
changed between us," she
recalls. "Bob was still much
more interesting to be with than
the younger men I'd been
seeing. The main difference was
that other people's opinions
didn't seem to matter as much
as they had before."
The two of them were
married and remain so happily;
and Maggie'.. reflects on their
initial breakup philosophically:
"I realize now that I'd always
accepted our relationship
emotionally, but never
intellectually. 1 was afraid of
getting involved further with
Bob because other people
objected to us. I left him with
the intention of starting over,
but I think I was fooling myself.
It took me a year to realize that
in the end it's how you feel
about a person that matters."
According to the experts, the
key to surmounting past
mistakes and establishing a
successful second -time -around
relationship entails some sort of
genuine change on the part of
one or both previous partners.
Too often, well-meaning
intentions make for strange
bedfellows in this regard; nor
does the fact that feelings of
attraction have weathered a
stormy interval of separation
guarantee that things will fare
better the second than the first
time around. It is only when
individuals commit to a fresh
outlook, and are willing to work
through past difficulities, that
their resurrected relationship is
likely to flourish.
To this end, professionals like
Mary Armstrong advise couples
who are considering a
reconciliation to start out
cautiously by testing the waters
— arranging to chat over coffee
or an informal dinner,
preferably on neutral ground.
"1 always encourage these
people to go slow at first,"
Armstrong says, adding with a
knowing laugh, "although very
few actually do!"
She suggests that reunited
couples set aside an hour or so
every week to sit down and
discuss (ideally with.a neutral
third party, a counselor) the
progress of their relationship.
"Without this continual
monitoring process, it's too easy
for these people to believe that
their relationship is running
smoothly, when in fact it's
deteriorating once again."
The most successful second-
time liaisons, Armstrong has
found, are those. whose
members are able to
demonstrate empathy: "They
come to a place where they are
able to understand what it's like
to.be the other person in the
relationship. Yes, we do often
say things in anger. But when
you get empathy you can see
that when your mate starts a
fight he is not necessarily being
powerful or bullying or
controlling. he may be feeling
frightened, hurt, rejected."
Typically, a reunited couple
must also come to grips with the
unsettling reality that other
liaisons may have occurred
during their time spent apart —
or, indeed, that an outside
affair may have precipitated
their initial breakup.
"I think it comes down to a
question of confidence," says
Valerie, an industrial consultant
who broke off with her
boyfriend when he announced
his involvement with another
woman, but got back together
with him when his new affair
bottomed out.
"It definitely put a block
between us, but I came to see
that it was he who had put the`
block there. He has always been
open about his need to be
polygamous, and I believe this is
his way of checking out my
reactions. I see it as his childish
way of testing my level of
security, also of depriving me of
wanting to cling to him. I think
the reason we're still together is
that he appreciates my
confidence, and the fact that I
refuse to rise to the bait."
When outside assignations
have figured in a broken
relationship, Barbara Irving
observes, "It's easy for the
person who was left behind to
say their relationship failed
because of a third party. But
this is not the real reason. This
is often just an excuse the
person uses to avoid examining
their role in the original failure.
Outside affairs do not cause
unsatisfactory relationships;
they are the result of them."
The fact that two people
might still care about each other
enough to want to salvage what
they found positive and
worthwhile about their time
spent together, and to correct
what they, found lacking,
demonstrates considerable
flexilibity and maturity (and is
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