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We have all had to do it at one time in our lives. No matter if you are a teenager or an octogenarian we have all been on the receiving or giving end of a romantic break up. Granted, by the point the break up takes place, romance has left the building and one party, if not both, has begun looking ahead to what they perceive are greener pastures.
During the last couple of years I have had friends and acquaintances go through the painful motions in the separation / divorce tango. Even though I have not been involved directly, just watching from the sidelines has been heart-wrenching enough. Especially when children are involved.
The scenarios have run the gamut in the ways that the break up was executed. All of them unpleasant in their outcome and some particularly vile when all the sordid little details started filtering through the grapevine. Some worthy of an episode of Jerry Springer or Maury Povich in the levels of deceit exhibited.
One of the things that raised its ugly head during one of the situations was spousal abuse. While that pendulum can swing both ways, more times than not it’s the woman who is on the receiving end. This is one place that for me has no gray area.
My parents raised me to never hit a girl. It was convenient that this rule popped up shortly after my two younger sisters arrived on the scene. As any of you males out there who have sisters know, if ever there were girls who deserve to be hit, it’s them. But as my father physically reminded me every time I broke that rule, it was one that should be adhered to at all costs.
Then again at that point in time, at least in his world, he wasn’t faced with women that were twice his size and wanted to argue with him every time he spoke with them. It doesn’t make any difference if there is nothing to argue about. When you attempt to have a civil conversation with this type of person, they will find something to argue about. I really think that these kind of women are some kind of genetic mutants that have multiplied in numbers in the last few years.
But mutants aside, the rule still applies no matter how badly I want to cold cock one of these obnoxious women. She still has gender on her side. The rule goes double as far as I’m concerned when it’s a spouse. The reason I feel this way, as if I needed to justify it, is that a spouse is more vulnerable. It’s not just due to the surroundings, since most physical abuses occur in the home, but it is also the woman’s mental vulnerability. Most wives have the belief that their abuser still has feelings for them.
I don’t care how many kegs of beer you have consumed, to me there is no reason you can use, short of coming at you with a knife or a gun, for hitting your wife. If you don’t like what is happening or being said, leave.
Then there is the cheating aspect, something that has been around since the beginning of time. Being on the receiving end can be unbelievably painful and something that most couples can never survive. But nothing can match the betrayal of having it done by somebody who you consider to be a friend. While there reportedly is a place in hell expressly for adulterers, according to Dante, I think there should be a special place, with a few extra tortures, for those who cause that type of suffering on two people who loved them.
Then there is the aftermath, the time when you have to attempt to rebuild your life. This can be as grueling and draining as the separation / divorce itself. If you are still young and don’t have children yet, the process can be a lot easier. I can say that from experience having been married and divorced at a young age. Painful? Yes it was, but it wouldn’t even compare had I been twenty years older with kids, like I am know.
Once the mourning period is over, and that can take some time given the individual, comes the “finding a new mate” process. This can be rather perilous especially if you try to rush it. I have watched in horror as friends, after leaving one relationship, jump blindly into another one for all the wrong reasons and always with disastrous results.
Recently, I have watched as somebody I truly care for has done just that. Unfortunately, he has no idea how much damage this relationship is doing to his reputation. At least all of us who consider him a friend are assuming he has no idea. His “mate” creates friction where there was none before and has created divisions between him and the friends who have helped him for years, and yet he doesn’t seem to see it.
When he first started seeing her there was friction within the group they were in and she conveniently convinced him that it was those people who were the problem. Now that the group has changed and the problems have not only continued, but have escalated, you would think he would put two and two together. You would hope that he would realize that all of these people who have known him for years are not the ones who are the core of his problem.
But being true friends our choices are few. We can either remove ourselves from his life or sit silently by and be continually abused by his roommate, only stepping forward to defend ourselves when the situation becomes unbearable. We can only hope he comes to his senses soon so his dating stock doesn’t continue to drop and he can find somebody he deserves to be with, not just someone to settle for.
Breaking up may be hard to do, but sometimes it is necessary.
The Shrub Speaks: This is historic times. -- First said on Oct. 8, 2003, Washington, D.C. and he did it again on May 20, 2004.
B.D.’s Response: You know Dubya, when you say it once we can almost chalk it up to a mistake. When you say it again, we have to say it’s blatant stupidity.
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