The Make Up/Break Up Cycle...Will It Ever End??

“Round and round and round we go Where it stops don't no one know” - Tom Cochrane (Washed Away Lyrics)

Sadly this week has been the grand finale of relationships for 50 percent of the ladies I usually blog about, Ms. J and Ms. M. It is with the end of these two relationships ranging from around 2 months to over 4 years that the trend of break up remorse and the continued pattern of the makeup break up cycle becomes apparent, that is not to say that either of these two fine ladies is going to get back together with their men, but the fact that both of them wanted to made me think about all those couples out there that do the makeup, break up dance or the fight, threaten break up but then stay together shuffle, and trust me I have been guilty of this on many occasion. What is it about a break up that makes us want our ex back even if they have cheated and mistreated us or the opposite? One day you are firm in your conviction, you are no longer in love, you will be happier without them so you take the brave plunge and end things but then the next you are a sobbing mess asking your ex to take you back. This type of behaviour has been attributed to the societal projections of what relationships should be like. Think about it. While I myself do not enjoy romantic movies many of my lady friends just love them! Ms. K being one who adamantly watches romantic movies. Have you ever watched a romantic film that did not go like this: Scene 1: Boy meets girl and immediately knows he loves her madly and therefore does something ridiculously romantic to win over girls affection. Scene 2: Boy and girl fall madly in love and want to be together forever after about an average of three dates. Scene 3: Boy does something foolish to burn girl and they break up, or almost break up but it is usually boy does something that is consider faux paux and thus girl gets angry. Scene 4: Boy realizes that losing girl is the end all of his world and does something even more outlandish in the name of love to win her back and they both live happily ever after.

It is no wonder that women have bizarre standards of relationship ebb and flows. “Romeo and Juliet was a relationship that lasted three days between a 13 year old girl and a 16 year old boy and resulted in 6 deaths.” And yet it is works of literature, films and songs that plague our society which mould us into unrealistic love seeking individuals. “In the celluloid world of romantic comedies, shy but decent men get the girl, arguments set up sweet reconciliations, and couples separated by tragedy are always reunited through improbable coincidence. But now researchers are beginning to ask whether the make-believe world projected in "rom-coms" might actually be preventing true love in real life. Last week, researchers at Heriot Watt University's Family and Personal Relationships Laboratory in Edinburgh, which studies best practices in relationship counseling, completed a study of 40 Hollywood romantic comedies released between 1995-2005. They found that problems typically reported by couples in relationship counseling at their counseling center reflect misconceptions about love and romance depicted in Hollywood films.” The idea of romance is such a glorified Hollywood concept that it actually begins to corrupt real life love, it puts pressure on individuals who may have other wise led a very successful relationship. Here is the thing, I am not saying throw your standards of love out the window, but I am suggesting is have a good hard look at those standards and see if they are based on what makes you happy or what you see in movies that make others happy. Also, in your soul searching “ask your grandparents or any older couple that has been married for a long time how they met — chances are, their version of romance and their own love story will trump "The Notebook" and its version of true love and romance.” Now here is how real relationships typically pan out: Scene 1: Boy meets girl at a club, or at a mutual friends, or just out and about in general. He offers to buy her a drink, or coffee or take her out sometime. Or, AMAZINGLY enough a woman may ask a man out. Scene 2: Boy and Girl go on date and decide that either they will have a second date or not and sometime after several dates they get comfortable and fall into the first stages of love Scene 3: Boy or girl get into argument about something either trivial or serious and there is a threat of a break up or a break up. This fight can also oddly enough be started by either party and can be about something the woman or man has done. Scene 4: They break up (and is not pretty) Scene 5: They stay broken up. ALTERNATIVE ENDING: Scene 5: They realize what they just lost and that the threat or the break up is too much and say romantic things to remedy the situation in an emotional time that they most likely do not mean 100 percent of the time.

It is really no mystery that this later sequence of events is not a blockbuster hit. But there comes a time in a relationship where a woman will realize that her man has not followed the relationship protocol of the Notebook and done has not for some reason done something over the top romantic so she will create a fight in order to feel the sweet nothings she gets after she has poked the bear. “she'll start nagging, bothering, acting pissed and starting fights in an attempt to get him to revive it. Women are biologically programmed to seek this out in men.” The thing is that the sooner you realize your life is not, nor will it ever be a Hollywood movie or romantic novel the better off you will be. You live in reality, in reality men care for their women the best way they know how, they do not communicate like women do, they do not grow up thinking that love will conquer all, they are programmed as men are programmed and to expect them to perform grandeur acts of love is absurd. “We live in a world where sex and relationships are all talked about and viewed differently. Many women look to Hollywood for insights, and the ones they are given aren't good. Celebrities are hardly role models for love and life, and remembering that can save you a lot of disappointment and heartache in the future.” Thus stop threatening to, or breaking up with your man if your reasoning is that he is not the romantic knight in shinning armour that you have been waiting for, you are not a princess, you do not live in a castle protected by a dragon, you are a regular girl in a regular role so start accepting that men are not princes. “If a man does not show outrageous displays of his feelings for you, there is probably a good chance that he does love you very much. Not all men are flamboyant when showing that they love someone.”

It is after the dramatic break up that women begin to realize their men are not chasing after them as they anticipated. This can result in two actions, the woman can go totally crazy and tell the man how incredibly awful he is, or she can try and win him back which is often also misconstrued as craz, there is possible a third option of quietly moving on but I rarely see that happen, and by rarely I actually mean never. Also, on the rare occasion the man changes his mind and does try and win over the exgirlfriend but trust me in the amount of break ups I have seen and have been part of this a very small percentage. So let us say about 25 % of couples make up but it is not the percentage that is conserning what concerns me is the pattern these couples fall into. So, what I want to address is when women return to their man post break up. The thing is that the break up did not actually remedy any of the problems that lead up to it. It was a dramatic event that shut down processing and then kick started back up in the hopes that not dealing with the breaking machinery would fix the problem. So many couples carry on this way, breaking up or threatening at the gliches, then hoping back in full of gliches and trying to keep going. The thing is that in the relationship vehicle of life if the gear shift comes out and you think “well no big deal we can just coast in neutral”... until the steering wheel comes off and you think “that is okay we will see where it takes us”... then the tires fall off and you are just sitting in an old broken down car just as you are in your relationship as nothing is fixed. The main reason why things are not fixed is because you and your partner have realized that you are not going anywhere. You have threatened to often or broke up so many times that it is just an empty threat that holds no weight. Your partner knows that he does not need to change and you know you are not going anywhere so you just stay in your ugly little circle of events and call it love, but is it? I have written about this before the cycle of relationships but wanted to get into the make up break up cycle because it is so detrimental, not only does it take complete relevance away from the break up scenario it also lessens your relationship because instead of dealing with your issues and coming to an understand that creates what makes you both happy you stay struggling with the broken car. It often takes a severe wake up call for you to realize this about relationships, and it is not the break up of your break up, make up cycle it has to be something profound, you have to realize that what you have with someone is worth the hashing it out without the threat of a break up or a break up, and that life is not like a movie it is real and it is hard and it takes two. I am not sure where things are headed with Mr. Elevator our talk was not one that defined us as a couple but did make me feel comfortable about dating him. To be honest I have never felt more relaxed dating anyone than Mr. Elevator, he does not question my quirks, he does not have a high expectation of me to recount my every action, he just is. He is kind and interesting and I feel no pressure to be attaining for some goal or defining what we have, it is really the best feeling to have with someone. I use to be the person always searching for definition, always on the hunt for the meaning of everything but not anymore, well at least not for another two months..... Thanks for reading. XOXO

References: http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=pictures+of+circles+and+love+hate&hl=en&tbo=d&rlz=1R2BBKB_enCA507&biw=1280&bih=838&tbm=isch&tbnid=YMOhEjLOrPRe6M:&imgrefurl=http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Love&docid=ODPXNJbOaRER2M&imgurl=http://en.citizendium.org/images/thumb/7/7b/Three_circles_of_love.jpg/300px-Three_circles_of_love.jpg&w=300&h=300&ei=6X3wUL7rG8STiQKKuYDwBA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=199&sig=107452037521408045428&page=1&tbnh=138&tbnw=138&start=0&ndsp=34&ved=1t:429,r:12,s:0,i:118&tx=103&ty=32 http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=picture+of+Romeo+and+Juliet&hl=en&sa=X&tbo=d&rls=com.microsoft:en-ca:IE-Address&rlz=1I7BBKB_enCA507&biw=1280&bih=838&tbm=isch&tbnid=VWNEt7qD0b576M:&imgrefurl=http://msbeckleysblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/romeo-and-juliet-grade-10s/&docid=vjqyuXXOFvduuM&imgurl=http://msbeckleysblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/romeo_juliet-xgt4hj.jpg&w=400&h=300&ei=0n7wUKXGHM7migLhiYGACw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=388&vpy=274&dur=2647&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=133&ty=97&sig=107452037521408045428&page=1&tbnh=142&tbnw=215&start=0&ndsp=37&ved=1t:429,r:11,s:0,i:115 “Are Romantic Movies Bad For You?” Eben Harrell Time Dec 23/2008 “Do Movies Like the Notebook Hurt Relationships?” Christine Vega Technorati Jan 8th 2011 http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=pictures+of+the+notebook&hl=en&sa=X&tbo=d&rlz=1R2BBKB_enCA507&biw=1280&bih=838&tbm=isch&tbnid=k8Ja8_b2tkeIgM:&imgrefurl=http://technorati.com/lifestyle/article/do-movies-like-the-notebook-hurt/&docid=5FngaNZg6oc51M&imgurl=http://scm-l3.technorati.com/11/01/07/24647/2004-the-notebook-003.jpg&w=1024&h=682&ei=cYrwULq6NcmTiALdzIDQDA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=564&vpy=283&dur=1220&hovh=183&hovw=275&tx=134&ty=69&sig=107452037521408045428&page=1&tbnh=134&tbnw=208&start=0&ndsp=32&ved=1t:429,r:9,s:0,i:109 “Why Women Nag, Argue, and Start Fights” Thomas Karanja TRCB.com “Ways Hollywood Affects Views on Dating, and Relationships For Women” Tiffany Bailey Yahoo Voices “Do Movies Like the Notebook Hurt Relationships?” Christine Vega Technorati Jan 8th 2011 http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=pictures+of+women+and+men+with+cars&start=99&hl=en&tbo=d&rlz=1R2BBKB_enCA507&biw=1280&bih=838&tbm=isch&tbnid=xLWcqYpB_AwvUM:&imgrefurl=http://www.motifake.com/tags/women&docid=g1kYSlO9COnBRM&imgurl=http://www.motifake.com/image/demotivational-poster/small/1206/fear-of-marriage-men-chase-women-dogs-cars-demotivational-posters-1339273443.jpg&w=336&h=337&ei=rI3wUP2NF-OziwKNr4HICQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=242&sig=107452037521408045428&page=4&tbnh=148&tbnw=147&ndsp=37&ved=1t:429,r:25,s:100,i:79&tx=82&ty=103 http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=pictures+of+men+without+shirt&hl=en&tbo=d&rlz=1R2BBKB_enCA507&biw=1280&bih=838&tbm=isch&tbnid=O5Xcn3ZZKbO54M:&imgrefurl=http://weheartit.com/entry/12842302&docid=dyvcu-SWaScnIM&imgurl=http://data.whicdn.com/images/12842302/guy-without-his-shirt-0407-xlv-large-new_large.jpg&w=375&h=500&ei=Uo7wUJK7KM3MigLBw4GoDQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=221&sig=107452037521408045428&page=1&tbnh=143&tbnw=109&start=0&ndsp=44&ved=1t:429,r:27,s:0,i:165&tx=45&ty=41