so. a couple years ago i ended my 15 year relationship right. it wasn't that we hated each other or anything, we just kinda grew into different people needing different things from a relationship. it was at the point where either we could have kept going exactly the same (since we'd already tried to resolve our issues multiple times with no success) which would have definitely resulted in us hating each other... or we could end it before that point, continue to love each other in a way that doesn't also cause each other harm, and stay friends.
it was an amicable split. yeah, it still hurt, but it was just a small temporary hurt. and it took a bit to adjust to life like that while still living together, but we did! we rearranged our portion of the house so that the office could become my own bedroom and slowly worked through divvying up most of our things and deciding on we'll share expenses on and all that good stuff.
and honestly? nothing much really changed, except that neither of us were so pissy about things anymore. even walking around naked didn't change, cause why should it? like, we spent all those years having already seen each other naked countless times. the fact our relationship status changed didn't make that any more or less true. and it's just nakedness anyway, so who gives a shit. about the only thing that did change was physical affection being lessened.
to both of us, this way of splitting up seemed perfectly fine and normal. and yet, quite literally every single person we've talked to about it has reacted the same way. bewildered, confused, uncomfortable, borderline disgusted. even my brother who is like one of the chillest dudes out there made a comment like "I don't think i've ever even spoken to a single one of my exes." and i'm just??? i stayed friends with all but one of mine until life inevitably carried us apart. every comment made started off so negative by friends and coworkers and family and it was honestly just... fucking weird to us the way everyone was behaving.
and then we got to talking about it a bit and realized like, no one we know has ever ended a relationship on good terms, or even at bare minimum neutral terms.
and isn't that fucking tragic? that this is the acceptable norm in our society, to just fucking suffer each other until you're full of bitterness, rage, and resentment and it all comes to a destructive end? isn't it so legitimately sad that the status quo doesn't value love enough to try and salvage it?
like, i very much believe this chick and her man do actually love each other, but it hasn't even occurred to them that they can simply love each other in a different way, from a distance, in a way that means they can still keep being friends and look back at what they had fondly.
and this isn't just conservatives. this isn't just the cishets. our circle of friends are quite the opposite. but the idea that a romantic relationship MUST end like the most gruesome trainwreck imaginable is so fundamentally ingrained that even they gave us the same weirded out and shocked reaction. its so disgustingly default to nurture hatred and smother the thing that made people fall in love to begin with that it's almost instinctual it seems like. of all of our friends combined, rowan was the only one who was just like, fucking normal about it. one person. that's tremendously fucked up, yall.
like, fucking hell i know things have come a long way in the last 50 years or so as far as, yknow, marriage counseling and therapy and whatnot goes but there's still a massive ocean of things left unsaid and emotions being repressed and needs not being addressed when it comes to relationships. and idk just maybe if folks weren't harboring so much animosity and vitriol and hostility, especially during the most formative years of their lives, they'd be more well-adjusted. maybe if our default was to respect and cherish the love and fondness that brought people together enough to keep it in tact at the end, we might just be a kinder people.
(the nerd in me is suddenly reminded of the bajoran rite of separation from star trek ds9 and how actually lovely a thing it is to celebrate the ending of a relationship as a joyous thing. star trek stays winning.)
i don't know what my overall message here is since the vast majority of us on tumblr are not the status quo and to most people amicably splitting up before shit hits the fan seems like the most reasonable and healthy thing to do. i guess like, realize this is as much of a systemic problem as so many other things. it's definitely not even unique to western society, either, but i think perhaps this particular flavor of it might be. maybe try to break out of the cycle if you find yourself in it, or help someone else realize they can break it too. idk man.
