People don’t stay together like they used to. Divorce is commonplace, as are multiple marriages. And we are encouraged to seek out at least a couple of long-term relationships before settling down; a rite of passage, it is said by some, which helps us get to know ourselves a little better, and which helps refine what it is we are actually looking for in a relationship.
It is the new normal. It wasn’t always like this, but society has changed, and so has this aspect of our culture. As a formula, it has its advantages and it has its disadvantages. Some people like it, some people don’t.
But what it does mean is that breakups are an almost unavoidable part of modern life.
How strange it is, then, that — as a culture — we invest so little time in figuring out how to handle them.
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The pursuit of personal happiness
It’s deeply awkward territory. Highly uncomfortable. And there’s a terrible tension at the heart of what we do: in our pursuit of personal happiness, we end up causing terrible pain.
Understandably, we choose not to dwell on it — “They’ll get over it eventually, these things are for the best,” are the polite platitudes one invariably hears about such matters — but the evidence of our unease is everywhere.
We use the language of empowerment when talking about a relationship’s end, but turn on the radio and almost every pop song you will hear is about heartache. It is the trauma which hides in plain sight.
Ditto, weddings. It’s a whole industry, and everyone gets very excited about them. I know I did about mine. And, depending on the size of your social circle, you can spend whole years of your life going to weddings every second or third weekend. You can build a whole social life out of it. And we all know what to say when it comes to the celebration of matrimony. The language of engagement is manicured and poised.
But divorce is a very different ballgame. There’s the occasional divorce party — thankfully, I haven’t yet been invited to one — but, as a culture, we’re still not entirely clear on how to handle it. We keep it at a distance, we refer to it in hushed tones, and when someone tells us they’re about to get one, we don’t quite know what to say.
It’s a perfectly understandable and deeply human instinct. We don’t, generally speaking, like to see people suffer. And there’s no getting around it. Even when it’s for the best, breakups dramatically change people’s lives.
People talk about it taking two years to get the show back on the road, to start feeling a little like your old self again. I envy those people their resilience. For me, it took considerably longer than that. And there’s a growing body of scientific evidence that indicates it takes about four years before the body’s neural pathways recover.
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Questions of selfhood in the modern dating age
Some people are better at breakups than others. That is an inevitable part of the human condition. We all have different skill sets, and it takes a cacophonous melody of variety to create a society which is interesting and nuanced and full of intrigue.
But, given the rules of modern relationships, those who can achieve a breakup without too much personal suffering are at a significant cultural advantage. How exactly do they do it?
One rather suspects their equanimity is not the hard won work product of devouring self-help guides about how to get your mojo back. I’m talking about something more fundamental and existential. An ability to weather the storm without even trying.
So I was interested to read about Carol Dweck and Lauren Howe doctoral research into why some people are haunted by the ghosts of their romantic past, while others seem to move on from failed relationships with minimal difficulty.
In one study, they asked participants to reflect on a time when they were rejected romantically. Some of the answers made it clear that the rejection had come to define them, that their erstwhile partner had seen their core self and found traits or outlooks or ways of being which were fundamentally objectionable.
Unsurprisingly, those people found it much, much harder to pick up the pieces of what was left of their life and to move on.
That makes sense. It’s a dangerous business intertwining our sense of self with the whims of another person. If it all falls apart, Dweck and Howe research concludes, the loss of a romantic partner can trigger an even more devastating loss — that of our own sense of self. It is a form of rejection which, mapped onto a certain type of personality, makes someone question who on earth they actually are, or why they even exist.
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Romanticism and romantic love
It’s a version of an analysis a good friend of mine told me once. “You have to protect the core,” he said. I think, in part, he was growing slightly tired of hearing my tired old song of love lost. But what he said has stuck with me all these years. It was, at the time, a complete revelation. That, even in our most intimate of relationships, we can never give the full entirety of our fullest selves. We must always keep something in reserve.
I think he’s right, but it is — as revelations go — terribly sad. Not least because it runs counter to everything we have been told it is our right to expect of modern day matrimony.
It’s romanticism’s fault, of course, and the very specific type of relationship template it offers. Romanticism tossed out all the practical considerations which once governed matrimony and superimposed onto them a surely impossible promise: that our partner would understand us entirely and instinctively, that they would cater for all our unspoken needs, that they would play the role of soulmate, lover, best friend, co-parent, breadwinner, and all the rest of it, and that they would play all of these roles simultaneously and forevermore, without even the flicker of occasional resentment.
Don’t get me wrong. It is, as a proposition, beautiful and seductive and I’ve fallen for its charms as much as anyone else who can quote a little Byron or Shelley or Keats of an evening.
But, as an ideological proposition, romanticism does rather set us up for a fall. For not only does it create a set of expectations and conditions which make breaking up far more commonplace, but the sheer extent of our romantic entanglement make us feel utterly terrible about everything we turned out to be in the event that a break-up does eventually come to pass.
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The enduring legacies of loss
I was thinking about the nature of long term loss as I listened to Troye Sivan’s excellent latest album — Something To Give Each Other (2023) — which dropped at the end of last week.
It’s an album primarily about community and friendship and freedom but listen closely and what you’ll hear is a deeply moving meditation on how hard it is to let go of a relationship’s end.
It’s also his third record and counting about a boy (the model and photographer Jacob Bixenman) who ultimately broke his heart.
First there was Bloom (2018), a joyous celebration of falling in love. Then there was In A Dream (2021), an EP about the breakup. And now there is Something, a record — at least in part — about the enduring legacies of loss.
It’s a beautiful trilogy of artistic expression which captures how, as a society, we *do* relationships these days, their ecstasy but also their damage.
“Can’t go back to the days when I thought I knew you,” he sings. “I wish you weren’t dead to me, so much to miss in you / More than just my enemy, you were my lover, too / And I hope you forgive yourself, because I swear I do / And it breaks my heart to say I can’t wait to live without you.”
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Love and the individual
“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone,” said Orson Welles.
Perhaps therein lies the answer to the predicament. Maybe it’s not about the breakup so much as it is about the nature of relationships themselves. There’s no such thing as unconditional romantic love. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but there it is. There’s little point in pretending otherwise.
Nor is it in the nature of romantic love to remain constant and steadfast. It ebbs and it flows. Its organic composition is what makes it such a dangerous bed-fellow. As a foundation upon which to build a life, it is profoundly sub-optimal.
But still we persevere. It is the glorious paradox of love, and of loving someone. An act of folly — yes! But also a tremendous act of hope, and of daring against the odds. So many aspects of the romantic ideal have turned out to be a glorious illusion. And maybe one of the reasons there is no handbook is because the lesson is ours alone to learn.
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Niall Stewart is the author of The Beautiful Anatomy of Despair (2022)
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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