Thanks to those who who’ve written in with the positive feedback. I know I’ve been away from this blog for a few weeks now, but I’ve been working on a new web-magazine that I believe will be a great ‘brother’ to this one. More on this later!
One thing came up this week. It’s a story about a woman, but the lesson is for everyone not quite in the right place just now after their break up.
It’s the story of a woman I know in Prague. I’ll call her Eve*. I knew pieces of her story a few years ago, as we often met up for a drink every few weeks. She’d been having problems with her boyfriend who was having an affair. She’d lost weight, got really stressed, and eventually they split up. She left town and just when I thought a new, more positive chapter would appear in her life, somehow they got back together.
Maybe his cheating would be a one-off? Maybe they’d sort things out?
But the same thing happened. He found someone else. After more months of stress and heartache, they again split up, and I remember she was having problems dealing with things before we lost touch again.
Fast forward to this week, I heard that she is now pregnant with his child.
Ouch.
Now I don’t know all the details of their relationship. I don’t know why he cheats on her, and I haven’t heard his story.
Nonetheless, the problem of wanting to go back to a partner who disrespects you by cheating (or through any other way) is that you are telling yourself you don’t deserve better. If your partner isn’t only cheating, but it’s some kind of pattern, and you take them back, what are you telling yourself about what you deserve in life?
When a break up happens, and you feel you can’t live without that person, it’s saying a lot about how you feel towards yourself. Use these weak moments in your life to get to know yourself better, and to try to break the one thing that should be broken:
this pattern of unhealthy relationships.
His cheating on her most probably lowered her own self-esteem, and by then taking him back, I wonder if it lowered her self-esteem even more.
It’s a really unhealthy way to be with someone.
You’re might be thinking: “maybe he’s changed his ways”. Let’s say that he wanted to reconcile with her. In this case the ‘cheater’ has a lot to do to show that he is dealing with his issues, and that he is committed to improving the quality of the relationship and that he wants to re-build the trust between them. If you want to go back to someone who cheated, then the onus is on them to show a commitment towards change.
But make no mistake: some kind of identity change and self-improvement is major work. And in this particular case, as I know both of them, I doubt very much that he will change.
Which brings me to the final point, and something which I hope you take into account as you negotiate the road ahead:
If you go back to a partner who disrespected you, it should be from a position of strength and abundance and not a position of weakness and scarcity.
Write down all the qualities you want in a partner on a piece of paper. Is your ex the partner you really deserve?
david(at)bouncebackfromabreakup.com
* name changed for confidentiality
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Sometimes it’s like watching people try to break some kind of drug addiction. They know it’s messing them up, but they just can’t help themselves.
Hi David, cheers for popping in. If you have any more comments about how to ‘break the cycle’, would be cool to hear them.