How To Know If You Are Over Your Last Significant Relationship
Posted: Friday, November 07, 2008
by Mark Franklin
Saves You Energy, llc
How do you know when you are ready to move on after a significant relationship has ended? How can you tell that you have finally put all of the pain and anger and feeling of loss behind you and that you have healed enough to love again?
Have someone that you trust and that knows you very well and that will be honest with you ask you this question:
When you hear his/her name, or when you run in to him/her how do you feel?
I am often involved in conversations regarding relationships with both men and women. And invariably the answer I receive to this question is "I am absolutely over him/her and I can tell because I don't want anything to do with him/her."
Read that last sentence out loud and feel the energy of that statement. It is filled with emotions. I don't need to know the reasons behind the declaration to know this person is not completely over this relationship. They may have moved on and even remarried but they are still carrying some emotional baggage from the last significant relationship.
When I point this out people will argue with me to prove that they are indeed over that relationship. The stronger they argue the more likely the next relationship will be negatively impacted by the last.
Listen to the story you tell your friends about why the relationship ended and how you feel about the person you were involved with. It is natural that in the beginning for the emotions to be raw and you need to express anger, loss, grief and disappointment (to name a few).
As time moves on, the emotions will subside and may even feel like they have gone away. But sometimes they have just gone into hiding until you hear that person's name again or someone says something that reminds you of him/her.
A few years back I dated a beautiful, fun loving and intelligent women for a couple of months that had grown up in Germany. One night we were playing around and I jokingly said something that seemed insignificant at the time.
The next day she called to say that she did not want to see me again. The relationship was very new but I had felt it was quite promising. I was at a lost to understand what happened. Since we ran in the same social circles I ran into her a few months later and had the opportunity to ask her.
After a little prodding she sheepishly told me that when we were joking around that night I had said something that reminded her of what her father had said when she was 16 and told him that she was pregnant. "What the hell!" I said "That was 23 years ago!"
I had nothing to do with what happened 23 years ago but a promising relationship ended prematurely because she hadn't healed an old wound. The relationship might not have worked out anyway but we will never know.
It should also be pointed out that a positive reaction can be a sign that it's not over yet. I'm not talking about seeing a former lover and reacting like you would with any friend. In fact, this would be a very healthy reaction.
I am talking about the reaction that you have when there is the possibility of being a little more than friends again. That something extra that is hard to define but you know it when you feel it.
How can this be a bad thing? I'll give you an example. Recently I met a woman in a dance class I was taking and I invited her to join me and some friends at a place where we go dancing on Thursday nights. I was very careful (I thought) not to give her signs that I was romantically interested in her because I had the impression she was interested in me.
After a few Thursdays had gone by I noticed that my message of only wanting to be friends was not getting through. So I took her off to the side so that I could make my intentions of only being friends absolutely clear. During this conversation she explained that I reminded her of someone she had dated years ago that she still had strong feelings for.
But I am not him and the more she has gotten to know me the more she realizes that. The positive emotions she remembered about this guy from the past were transferred to me, the guy in the present. She couldn't look at me without seeing him.
So have a friend ask you –
When you hear his/her name, or when you run in to him/her how do you feel?
Answer as honestly as you can and then ask your friend to be brutally honest with you and have them tell you what they heard and saw and felt while you were talking. What they tell you will be a very good indication of whether or not you're ready to move on.
If you are not, don't beat yourself up. Just do the work you need to do so that when the next relationship comes along you will be ready for the joy and laughter as well as the problems and challenges that are part of any great relationship.
And if you are ready to move on keep looking forward and don't let the past stop you from getting what you deserve – a great relationship based in the present.
About the author: Mark Franklin is a recovering civil engineer that worked with Randy Hulbert, an author and relationship coach, on his relationship seminars in San Diego. His full time job is as an energy conservation expert working with apartment and hotels around the US to help them cut their energy costs and maybe make this planet a better place for our kids.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)I enjoyed the article. Very interesting insight as to how profoundfly past relationships can affect the present.
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