A Non-Tragic View of
Breaking Up
News
of the end of relationships tends to be greeted with deep solemnity in our
societies; it is hard not to think of a breakup except in terms of a minor
tragedy. People will offer condolences as they might after a funeral.
This
in turn reflects an underlying philosophy of love: we are taught that the
natural and successful outcome of any love story should be to seek to remain
with a person until their or our death and (by implication) that any break up
must be interpreted as a failure governed by overwhelming hostility on one or
both sides.
But
there’s another scenario in which we understand that we are separating not
because our relationship has gone badly but, precisely, because it has gone
well; it is ending because it has succeeded. Rather than breaking up with
feelings of hurt, bitterness, regret and guilt, we’re parting with a sense of
mutual gratitude and joint accomplishment.
This
counter-intuitive, but real, possibility has an unexpected source: it comes
from having kept a crucial question in mind throughout our time together: what
is this relationship for? The inquiry may feel negative: we imagine it being
asked in deeply a disillusioned tone of voice. But it can, and should be, asked
positively and eagerly – with the aim of finding a good answer that goes to the
heart of love.
Normally,
we imagine love as a kind of ownership: full of admiration, two people agree to
buy one another as they might a static beguiling object. But there is another,
more dynamic and less hidebound way to interpret love: as a particular kind of
education. In this view, a relationship essentially comprises a mutual attempt
to learn from and teach something to another person; we are drawn to our
partners because we want to be educated by them and vice versa: we love them
because we see in them things that we long for but that are missing in us; we
aspire to grow under the tutelage of love.
For
example, a partner might at the outset have been confident but gentle – a
combination that, until we met them, seemed impossible. Or they knew how to
laugh at themselves, while we were too withheld and solemn to do so. Or they
had a practical competence that we found delightful and moving precisely
because it was lacking in us. We could accurately say in such cases that the
purpose of the relationship was to teach us confidence, or gentleness or how to
laugh at our own idiocy or to become more dexterous – or a thousand other
qualities depending on who we both are. The point is: there will be some
specific and highly important things we need to do together, which define what
the relationship is for.
By
being with the partner, by intertwining our lives, by listening to them, even
by being criticised or nagged by them, we will be able gradually to internalise
what they have to teach us. But there may legitimately come a point where we
have absorbed as much from them as we can. Thanks to our partner we really are
more mature beings than we were when we got together: we’re more balanced and
wiser; they’ve helped us to become a little more like the people we always
wished to be.
Precisely
because our relationship has had a great, intimate, loving purpose, it can get
completed. It can be finished in the sense in which a novel can be finished –
not because the writer has got sick of the trials of writing but because they
have, through plenty of difficulties, brought the project to a good resolution.
Or – more poignantly perhaps – a relationship can be finished in the way that
childhood can be finished: a child – thanks to the immense devotion of their
parents – arrives at a point at which, in order to progress further, they need
to leave home. They’re not being kicked out in anger or running away in
despair; they’re leaving because the work of childhood has been done: it isn’t
a rejection of love, it’s love’s good consequence. Finishing isn’t a sign of
failure, but of background success.
The
difference in these cases is that we’ve clearly understood what all our efforts
were for. There was a goal in mind: the writing shouldn’t go on forever, the
child should leave home. But because – unfortunately – we have not asked what
our relationship is for we can’t normally get to this sense of having reached a
proper ending. Or else we are refusing to ask because the only motive for the
relationship is to ensure that we are not alone – which is never, when we
reflect on it, really ever a good enough reason to monopolise someone else’s
life.
In
an ideal relationship, the sense of completion would be completely mutual. The
painful reality, however, is that we may sometimes want to leave while our
partner wants us to stay together. But the idea of love as education can still
apply: our unbearable conflicts mean that we’ve stopped being able to teach one
another anything. We may know important qualities they should learn but we’re
not the right teacher: we currently lack the patience, the skill, charm or
self-confidence to transmit insights in a way that will work for them. We have
done all we can. Our task is complete not because our partner has nothing left
to learn but because we aren’t the right person to guide them; we are entitled
to leave without feeling we are abandoning anyone.
We
can avoid feeling devastated by a break up knowing that there are still so many
other ways in which we still need to develop: we may have learned so much but
we’re still far from complete. It’s just that the lessons we now have to take
on board are going to come from someone else – or from the always profoundly
educative experience of being on our own for a while.
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