[Technicolor Musings] After the Break-up

by Dave Sutherland via Flickr

The movies make break-ups seem so easy. Sure, the respective characters need to first bawl their hearts out and eat a gallon of ice cream while watching a sad movie, that'll always be there. But we always fast-forward to that moment of wallowing and getting over your past love. What about all the stuff that happens before that?

For those who have in this position before, you know there are inevitably some major milestones that you need to hurdle:

1. Separating your belongings
2. Figuring out future treatment of your ex
3. Actually moving on

As with most things in life, it's a heck of a lot easier to put them in a short list as opposed to actually getting around to doing them. Such is life.

There's no absolute right or wrong here. We figure out the way we handle these various aspects as best as we can within the context of the specific relationship and how things had worked before - and why they ended.

You will never fully separate your belongings, especially not into some neat little shoe box like what we see in the movies. Even if the two of you never actually live together full time, you will always have all these little things scattered around. So be sure to figure out what are the more important items that you may want back and be amicable in negotiating for a time to meet to exchange items. So yes, it also means making sure to make time gather the stuff that you need to return to him.

That also means being able to determine your standard policy for dealing with one another. The bare minimum is to be civil - there is no need to constantly bring up old arguments whenever you see the guy. Arguments only have value if you two actually to resolve past issues and possibly get back together again. I support the possibility of the two of you maybe becoming friends again in the far future. But you need to spend enough time away from one another first.

This also means knowing how long you need to deal with your ex. Even if you decide to stop talking to your ex entirely , be sure to consider what items you want to get back or if you owe one another money. In other words, if you still have unfinished business of importance, then don't rush to burn those bridges between you just yet.

And the last one, well, that's the real big one, isn't it? And I don't think I can tackle that as a mere bullet point  within a different post topic. I'll try to save that for another blog post entirely.