My dear Jil, this reminds me of a lovely movie I saw on my flight to London. It’s called A Most Violent Year. Directed by J.C. Chandor, its leads were Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain and David Oyelowo. Set in New York in 1981, it’s a very good drama with many layers of lessons. It’s simply the story of a young man who against all odds and temptations fought to preserve his business. Had Mafia undertone – you know, mob bosses. Of course a beautiful wife was obligatory as well. But a statement by the lead character Abel Morales struck me, though I can’t exactly quote it now. It’s something about looking forward to what’s next, not looking back at what’s past. It’s his philosophical posture, what helped him in all his travails. Dynamic positivism, less of recriminations. It’s a powerful philosophy. Not always easy to follow but a powerful philosophy nonetheless. It takes steel and guts to adopt the philosophy but it’s a philosophy that makes one strong.
Instead of inhabiting the disappointed expectations and difficulties of the past, choose to move on! It means to stop feeling sorry for yourself, to stop stewing in the psyche of a victim, to just move on. Don’t get me wrong, I know in matters of the heart it’s not so easy to move on. If you’re jilted and you don’t feel it, maybe you never invested in the relationship in the first place. And even at that your pride will seek to prove a point, that the guy couldn’t hurt you. Though I must say it’s never healthy to seek to prove we aren’t hurt when we’re obviously hurt after a break-up. You’re loading additional burden on your emotional circuit and you’ll break down, badly. Emotional pain has a course. Let it bleed out. Cry. Don’t try and prove it doesn’t hurt. You’ll anguish yourself. When you’re in traumatic pain you don’t have the emotional energy to prove a point. It’s a huge stress load. And you can’t hurry the process. Pain has a course, but it will ease, gradually. Then time heals the wound, with forgetfulness. It’s like a poison gradually drained out. The memory and the pain recede to somewhere deep and unknown, away from the surface, entombed. A new, loving and affirming experience will eventually overwrite the pain. And you’ll smile again, like someone who never went through trauma and heartbreak. Time has its own timetable in the healing of heartache. You shouldn’t rush it. It will go. And lesson learnt.
But you broke up with this guy some time ago. It’s time you move on. You’ve grieved and that’s okay. By now you shouldn’t feel it again, according to the course of time. But because you keep ruminating over it, reliving the pain, peeling at the scabs and so the wound can’t heal. At some point you must be tough on yourself and decide to move on. And what can you do! He’s already married to another girl. He made his choice; seek to make yours. The only sensible choice is to move on. Just move on.
Moving on doesn’t always mean start a new relationship immediately. It’ll be a rebound relationship. It’s a commitment you can’t afford because you’ll be making a consequential decision under withdrawing anesthetic pain. When you come to, chances are you may not want to continue with that relationship. That’s not saying you can’t have a wonderful relationship with the guy you meet immediately after a break. But you’re going through stages. And the relationship may become irrelevant after those stages. You’re not in your right senses. You’re hurting deep where no surgeon’s knife can reach except God’s comfort. You’re under nature-induced morphine to prevent your system from shutting down. And you do need love after some time after break up. Sometimes the people around us at that period of time are God’s angels of mercy. I’m just saying you can’t make a commitment to start a new relationship under anesthesia. But YOU CAN DECIDE to move on, to let the guy go. You don’t have an option. No point blaming the guy all your life. No point. You’ll become life’s exile and a parable. Everyone will use you as literary reference – the girl who got jilted but never recovered.
And it’s no justice to you the guy’s subsequent marriage didn’t work out. What’s the value of that to you! It satisfies your lust for poetic vengeance but in actual terms it’s of no value to your life. You move on and find your own happiness. That’s what you should do. There’ll always be breakups. There’ll always be undeserving guys, there’ll always be emotional fractures. We don’t pray we suffer such but life happens. What you do thereafter is what determines what happens the rest of your life. Are you going to turn yourself into a widow though never married, or are you going to powder your face and become brave? It boils down to braveness – that determination to face life again, to see sunshine, to wear a smile. Never mind what people will say. People will always talk. You just face your recovery.
But if you’re dark and bitter, a hollow variant of yourself, then life has victimized you. Call a friend. Go out with a friend. It’s okay if you’re still a bit wistful. It takes time to emotionally recover. But it’s stronger and better to look forward to life than to look backwards at pain. Put it behind you. I like a statement Paul made. He said, “This one thing I do, leaving behind the things that are behind and reaching forward…” Do the same. It will all work out for good in the end. You’ll see! Someday, you’re going to look back and thank God you didn’t marry this guy.
Your mentor, LA
© Leke Alder | talk2me@lekealder.com