More on Processing the End of the Relationship 

The signature on my e-mail is a quote from Andy Warhol. It says - "They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself". That kind of sums up how I feel about complaining about government policy or injustices in the world. You can't just ride them out, you have to actually get active, make noise and try to change things. But there are some things that simply take time. I think that getting some clarity about the end of a relationship is one of those things. Now there are steps you can take to make that process easier, faster and more helpful, like getting some therapy, but the truth is that the pain of the ending can make it really difficult to look at it clearly.

When we are in pain, we want to know what we did to deserve it or why it is happening to us. Later, we can sometimes see that the pain was inevitable because the relationship was not the right one. That we had to go through something difficult to get to a better place in our lives or be open to something better. We also look at difficulty in our lives as something that should be a trade off, at least I do. I went through this bad thing so I should be immune from that bad thing. But life doesn't really work that way, does it? It is full of wonderful times and not so wonderful times. It is unpredictable and surprising. So all we can do is change the things we know need changing and give some time to those that we don't understand until we have more clarity, being as gentle with ourselves as we can along the way.