Separateness. My relationship with Cory didn’t have a lot of that.
We had the same friends. Like the same music. Spent the majority of our time at school, at work or with each other. Some people call that being in love. Others call that too much.
While I was in it, it was great. Cory was my best friend, why wouldn’t I want to be with him as much as possible. He was my future husband. The person who understood me best, obviously we should be together all the time.
Now. Well, now I see it differently.
Separateness. Is. Necessary.
Now that we are apart, it is evident how involved we were in each other’s lives. Particularly when it comes to our friends.
Cory doesn’t really have friends. I guess I should say he has very few friends that he has made all by himself. Most of his friends started out as my friends and then got to know us as a couple. But now, well, it makes everything complicated. Not just in my relationship with Cory but also in my relationship with my friends.
In an effort to stop this from becoming a “choose me or choose him” situation we selected the people closest to us and then claimed that they were off bounds. The rule is we don’t talk to that group of people about our relationship.
The reason for this was clear, our friends were way too involved, they knew everything and it was starting to affect our relationships with them.
Which brings me to today:
I got a message today from a friend who said that she had run into Cory and two of these off-limits friends out to dinner and Cory had mentioned that we weren’t together anymore so she wanted to check on me.
My reaction to this news was to irrationally and naively flip out.
What do you mean they were all at dinner? Were they talking about me? How did he seem? Do they have information I should know about? Why didn’t they tell me that they had plans? Why didn’t they call me after to tell me everything that happened? How could they do that to me? Didn’t they have any loyalty? They know what he did to me!
WO!!
When I finally paused to take a breath I realized I was being stupid. These friends were doing exactly what I asked of them. What we asked of them. They were taking on really vital and complicated task to ensure our friendships would survive this break up. They were following the rules.
And that made me hate the rules. And hate the situation. And hate Cory. And hate the fact that things aren’t normal anymore. Everything is complicated.
And I’m so tired of complicated. I’m so tired of this web of connectedness and feeling like I’m walking around on egg shells and suffocating myself because I can’t talk to anyone about what’s going on with me. I feel like I’m drowning and all the people around me know that but they can’t do anything because I’ve bound them to these rules. But I know that without the rules we’ll end up dividing friends. Just like we wound up dividing our lives. And I don’t want that.
So, in an attempt to make this constructive. Here’s what I’ve learned:
Separateness can be a good thing. I need friends that are mine and he (whoever he is) will need friends that are his. And we need hobbies of our own and vices of our own and pleasures of our own. And sharing everything isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Because when one of you decides to stop sharing, the other will always feel robbed.
breakupandbreakthrough 