A multiple breakup/get back together relationship is much like sour milk and cereal.

When you have a bowl of cereal, and pour milk in only to find out that it has gone sour… do you put the milk back in the fridge in hopes it will become un-sour?

No.

In a relationship gone sour – why is it that we give the other person chance upon chance, in hopes they have changed? If sour milk cannot change to un-sour milk… a person cannot change a lifetime of habits/ personality traits, either.

This is a hard concept to swallow (again, much like sour milk!) but it is something that you will learn over time. It may take 1 break up for you to realize, or 2… or in my case… 3. Why we get our hopes up and allow this person back into our lives, knowing perfectly that it will end the same way it has previously, is unknown to me. We tell ourselves that we will live in the moment, be happy with how things are now and try not to worry about the future because we are young and have lots of time to figure things out. What is this? Denial. We know perfectly well that the future holds nothing, and that we are setting ourselves up for yet another fall but that at the moment seems easier than accepting reality and starting to move on.

Denial is a defence mechanism postulated by Sigmund Freud, in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence. The subject may deny the reality of the unpleasant fact altogether (simple denial), admit the fact but deny its seriousness or admit both the fact and seriousness but deny responsibility. The concept of denial is particularly important to the study of addiction. The theory of denial was first researched seriously by Anna Freud. She classified denial as a mechanism of the immature mind, because it conflicts with the ability to learn from and cope with reality.

Denial… whether it be denial that your milk is sour when it is clearly smelly and lumpy, or that your relationship has gone as far as it can go, why endanger your health and drink the milk when you can go to the store… and find a fresh one.

Learn from your mistakes by making them once, any more than that and you are hurting to yourself and letting someone sour you.

• Because fresh milk…. well… that’s just fabulous ♥

tick tock. tick tock.

Time flies by… but how much time, in love years, does a heart require before moving onto the next victim?

There is a simple equation for this.

It takes half the amount of time you dated someone, to get over them.

If someone was married for 2 years, and then a completely different couple were “casually dating” for 2 years… does the same rule apply?

 I think this rests in the eye of the beholder. Everyone is different. Do men and women feel the same about this? Probably not. This all depends on the seriousness of the relationship; how much was invested. If you were on and off for a few years, and if you couldn’t see a future with this significant other past next weekend then chances are this rule is useless for you and that you started moving on a long time ago. If you were on the verge of getting engaged (or so you thought) and he shattered your heart into a bagillion pieces out of no where… you may need to double that rule of timing. When you break up with someone, unless it was a bad messy “you cheated on me, i never want to hear from you again” break, as opposed to a “we have gone as far as we can go, but i will always care about you” break… someone is bound to ask that question that is dreaded by both partners…. Can we still be friends?

 This is a tricky one. Can we still be friends. You have to step back and ask yourself… how much do I care about this person? If you are still madly in love with them, think about them all the time, crave their touch… then chances are you are not “over them” which means you cannot have a healthy platonic friendship together. If you jump the gun and attempt a friendship by casually hanging out, you will only get hurt in the end. Our hearts are a weird thing… sometimes they completely lie to us, let us think we are alright, but then our brain comes along and sets the heart straight. You WANT to be ready to be friends, because you want that void to be filled no matter what the cost. You miss talking to that person… seeing that person.. laughing with that person… but you missed that because they were your significant other, not only because they were your friend. Were you friends prior to the relationship? if so, this may make it easier to JUST be friends… but if all you ever knew of this person was someone you shared a love with… it is a different case. You need time. Simple. Time is the only thing that will help you and in the end you may not even want to be that persons friend. There is always a reason why people in your past or present do not make it to your future.

 Let’s be realistic. In a perfect world… everyone would love eachother, and your first realtionship would be wonderful and you would live happily ever after with eachother. But this is just not the case. You have to accept that although you were compatible at that moment in your life, people change and you have to let it go. If you started dating someone in college, stayed together when you graduated and started a career… you both have grown wether it be together or seperately. It is when one person grows and the other doesn’t that problems arrise. One person wants more, the next step in life, when the other person may still be the person they were in your “college” years. Although it is hard to accept, sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and look out for yourself, do what’s right for you. But how do you know you are over them? What does being “over” someone mean?

When you can think of another person, without feeling like you are cheating on your past love, that is being over someone.

When you hear they have found someone new, and you don;t break down into tears, that is being over someone. (Although, it is perfectly normal to be a bit sad, you did after all love them at some point, maybe).

 When you see them in passing and can speak normally without getting choked up, or without bringing up all of the good times that you miss with them… that is being over them.

You will feel yourself over time getting better, and being less sad, and being more positive… and no one knows when they are 100% moved on, maybe that never happens… you shared a part of your life with this person, maybe you only can ever be maximum 96% over someone, and that is fine, you just have to accept this. No one is asking you to try to forget about the good times you had, but everyone is asking you to feel better… and realize you deserve something more, and that everything happens for a reason. So if you meet someone tomorrow, and it has only been 1/4 of the time of your relationship… don’t brush them off and wait until it has been half of the time. Get to know them… look out for yourself and do what feels right. Be warey of the rebound fling, and keep in mind that no one wants to be a rebound. Be open with this new person about your last relationship and how long ago it was, and take it slowly. Who should be the first to date someone else? There is unfortuantely, no rule for this one. This isn’t a competition… neither one of you are looking for someone just to make sure you get another date before the other one does… take your time, and let life happen.

• And when you move on and find someone who makes you happy, and who puts you #1… well…  that’s just fabulous♥