By Jerry Mooney

A perspective that gets us humans into difficulty is the idea that things are good and bad. Obviously, there are unwanted things and wanted things, but as we tread on this human path, it is more and more obvious to me that lessons return until lessons are learned. It’s too simple to call something bad or wrong. What’s more useful is finding the lessons in our experiences. And a relationship is the perfect crucible to boil down the essence of what we are looking for in a mate.

What’s the worst that can happen?

The worst thing we can do to ourselves relationally is to hold on too long. When that time comes that we know that our relationship is not fulfilling our needs we must exercise the courage to pull the plug. The problem usually resides in our notion that we can fix it, or we are not quitters or often, we fear the loneliness after the separation.

Pressure Reveals Our True Selves

An expression I like is that pressure doesn’t create who we are, it reveals it. I feel this is also true of our relationships. When we experience a relationship that tests us, it brings out our strengths. We learn how capable we truly are. This serves us as we go forward and explore new possibilities.

Decisions are Powerful

Once the decision is made to move on we become liberated. Regardless of how that decision came about, there is a power in starting over. It’s cathartic. Suddenly obligations are replaced by freedoms. We are confronted with open spaces teeming with exciting possibilities.

Dating is Exploring

Through our relationships we learn what is most important to us. Sometimes a person has enough qualities to commit to exploring a deeper connection with. This doesn’t have to be life sentence. It’s merely query into the possibilities.

Dating Gives Us Insight

We learn who we are by how we are. When we date, we learn how we want to be treated, what we expect from others and how to deal with difference. Even when a partner drives you crazy, it reveals our tolerances as well as things we may need to work on.

It’s very normal to be angry or saddened when a relationship doesn’t work out. There can be a sense of loss and perhaps despair. Often times our perspectives shift and we begin romanticizing the relationship in a way that is not reflective of how we felt while we were in it.

It’s also very difficult to transition from a relationship when we’ve been hurt. And when that happens it is easy to poison the whole experience in our minds. Even those these reactions are normal, it is important to realize that we are dynamic people. We grow from relationships and we do so in ways that are unique to that experience. That is why there is no such thing as a bad relationship.  

Love hard

Jerry Mooney is co-founder and managing editor of Zenruption and the author of History Yoghurt and the Moon. He studied at the University of Munich and Lewis and Clark College where he received his BA in International Affairs and West European Studies. He has recently taught Language and Communications at a small, private college and owned various businesses, including an investment company that made him a millionaire before the age of 40. Jerry is committed to zenrupting the forces that block social, political and economic justice. He can also be found on Twitter@JerryMooney 

Feature photo courtesy of Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license