Just like the human being himself, couples are born, grow, come to maturity, grow old and die. Some people have the grace to keep their couple in an almost constant state of maturity.
Other people are not granted that favour and watch their couple, willingly or by force, pass through every stage all the way to decline. A pity!
And yet the kind of relationship to have after the beautiful years of mad love is never obvious.
For many, after love comes war.
For a few, after love comes respect.
For very few, after love comes nothingness.
But what is really the case?
To begin with, the reality is such that it is the way the relationship ended which determines the kind of dealings that will be kept up after the breakup.
In a relationship that was closed properly, the individuals often keep up more or less cordial dealings. It is not always easy, but a relationship that has ended well is one in which both partners came to realize that there was nothing left to save in it. And so a consensual, peaceful ending was preferable to deepening the sorrows and the tears already there.
By contrast, a good many questions arise when the relationship ended on a more or less conflictual note. Here we are speaking of situations where one of the partners is said to have cheated on the other, where she left him to go and marry someone else, where one of them failed to own the breakup and preferred to install silence, absence, contempt or sheer disregard.
It then becomes relevant to ask what relationship to have after love.
Must we look daggers at one another?
Must we have the kind of contact that does us credit?
How do we speak about the other?
How do we speak to the other?
If, after love, we are no longer able to look each other straight in the eye, to speak to each other without condescension, or to share the same space without animosity or shifting glances, it is proof that we were in failure the whole way through.
Failure at the outset, when we thought we had found the one who would set our heart trembling.
Failure in the course of the relationship, thinking we were sharing our joys and our sorrows with someone worthy of our trust and our love.
Failure after the relationship, thinking the other would keep a fond memory of everything that bound us together and everything we shared.
Failure in everything, everywhere, and for everyone.
The moral of the story is that, after love, there is a life.
After love, you have to let go and not keep laying claim to the other.
After love, you keep for the other the regard you had while you were together, and you treat them with dignity.
And above all, after love, you go on jealously guarding the secrets you shared. That is a matter of self-respect and of dignity.
After love, you close a box and throw the keys into the ocean and then, you do not hold in contempt the person with whom you put time, love and energy into filling that very box.
M. Z.
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