Looking back at my relationship from the last year reminds me of Albert Einstein’s famous quote:

“Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

That’s me and my former girlfriend.

For the past year, we have struggled to keep our relationship afloat. She would complain that I did not listen to her, I procrastinate and that I would show my frustrations with her children (well, actually, only one child. The other two were great). I would complain about her lack of emotion and how she kept me at a distance. We would have arguments and discussions about these issues. Sometimes we would work things out and things would be better for a while. Sometimes things did not work well and we would split.

But we always got back together. We did this because we liked to talk to each other and did not have to pretend we are something we are not. We could be honest with each other. We liked the same things. The sex was good. But most of all, we cared for each other. She was always on my mind and I was always on hers.

But the issues persisted.

I will not go into them, they are not important. But we would both ignore our issues and the hurt feelings would fester. When one of us reached our boiling point, the arguments started and we would end up not talking to each other for a time. It was a miserable feeling. Every time we split, the pain and insecurity of a break up would wash over both of us. When we would get back together, we also went through the tentativeness that comes with starting a relationship. Overall, we both experienced a lot of stress being together.

And, what was worse, since neither of us could or would make the changes that were needed, we knew the cycle would just continue. Knowing this added stress to the times when things were good.

We finally broke up. And, this time, I think it is for keeps.

The break up was not vicious or filled with angry words. It was just us agreeing that we wanted different things out of it. We went our separate ways.

The hard part is yet to come. This will involve actually seeing each other. I am not angry, but I am hurt (even though I was the one who initiated the break). I still care very much for her and I know she cares for me. I am still a shoulder she has needed to lean on. And I know she will contact me soon and ask to be friends. For me, this will be the biggest test. And thank God I have a good friend that likes to listen to me and give his honest thoughts.

When I told him about her wanting to be friends and my lack of interest in just being friends, my friend simplified it. He told me that if we were just having sex and a relationship formed and failed, the low expectations would make friendship after the relationship ended possible. But if, like we did, entered into a relationship with a set of expectations (for example, do not sleep with anyone else), friendship would be almost impossible. He told me he though our relationship was over and it is time to move on.

It has been about twelve hours and things have been hard. I have a knot in my stomach and miss her. I have made her angry already by telling her that I did not want to talk about us. I suspect she is feeling the same way. I am keeping my mind together by writing this blog and planning for the Labor Day weekend.

But there is something I notice: this is a lot easier than it should be. That does not bode well for continuing a long term relationship with this person.

Images courtesy of tinybuddha.com and themindunleashed.org