It’s undeniable many of our relationship decisions are rooted in our childhood.

And yes, it’s good to learn about why we make the choices we make, what influences shaped us, etc.

But sometimes we just need to cut ourselves a break. 

We were babies after all.

At least the majority of us, when we were making these lifelong, complicated decisions of who to permanently attach ourselves to.

The only problem?

We didn’t know it.

We were playing dress up on the exterior with the emotional interior of a toddler.

What on earth could go wrong with this scenario?

Amazingly, nothing for the vast many.

Somehow, their physical exterior caught up with their emotional interior and they continue to enjoy relationship bliss.

However, there are the others.

The ones who really didn’t understand who or what they were getting themselves attached to.

And therefore, eventually emotionally outgrew one another.

That’s a really nice way of saying the relationship crashed and burned.

But here’s the good news.

Yes, we need an emotional education to learn and make better choices. Improving ourselves and the relationships in our lives is a great and admirable goal. It’s inspiring to think we can achieve happier and more respectful partnerships. But part of growth can also involve self-forgiveness. Letting go of past decisions and mistakes.

And letting the universe occasionally take one for the team.

 

3 Reasons to Give Yourself a Break in a Breakup

 

We Were Young

What on earth did we know?

We just knew the hot guy or hot girl across the party was staring at us.

And at the time, it seemed like a really great thing.

Forget family of origin or other similarities which were really drawing us closer!

They were hot, funny AND they liked us!

A trifecta! A win-win!

 

We Were Clueless

We grew up in big families where everyone talked over one another.

And yelling seemed to be an odd form of affection.

We didn’t understand those big families were code for ‘slightly complicated.’

What did we know about communicating and respect?

That was the spice of small families and who would want to miss out on all this robust complicated fun?

 

We Were Uneducated

Look, no one was talking statistics when we rushed in to show them the ring.

They just sipped champagne with us.

Come to think of it, they weren’t chatting about it prior to the rock either.

The seasoned married couples just smiled politely, it was the era of  ‘no dirty laundry.’

Instead, they just hung it out to dry.

 

We Were Defiantly Optimistic 

Actually, we might have been arrogantly optimistic.

What? Us make the same mistakes as our parents??

Like, never!

If they fought we wouldn’t even argue. If they ignored one another we would be Besties.

If they didn’t let us get a dog, we would own five.

If they had six kids we would have a more manageable three.

We knew it all or did we?

 

We Were Naive

Look, life isn’t complicated.

It just needs some planning.

We sow a few oats and get married later. That’ll work.

That’s us, always thinking – improving our odds.

Children need even more planning so we’ll delay that as well.

Now we have everything under control.

As long as we keep ahead of life’s curve, we got this relationship thing mastered.

Yet, life can’t be controlled. At best, it can be forecasted or shall we say anticipated?

 

 

Self-Forgiveness is just one step away.

Let the universe take this one for the team.

We were babies.

We just didn’t know it.

We had so much growing up to do.

With that said, better now lock eyes with the hottie who’s no longer playing emotional dress up.

The team can only take so many losses.

 

Follow me on Facebook @Colleen Orme National Columnist

Photo courtesy of Pexels

on Twitter @colleenorme
on Pinterest @colleensheehyorme
E-mail: Colleen.Sheehy.Orme@gmail.com