I have decided that for the most part, concerning other people and their relationships, I am incredibly cynical and unjustly opinionated. This was a difficult realization.
At the same time Sam and I were breaking up, another couple I know also broke up. I do not know them well, but well enough to know they were no longer a couple. Then, about the same time Sam and I decided to work things out, this couple got back together, to the astonishment of a few voyeurs, including myself. I kept thinking, Why would they even try to get back together? Their issue seemed insurmountable to me. My immediate reaction to hearing they had reconciled was, It won’t last, they won’t stay together.
How dare I? Who am I to make such a judgment? They are the only two people who know all the events that lead up to their break-up, the only two who know for certain what kind of foundation their relationship had before things went awry.
Years ago, a close friend of mine broke up with his long-time significant other to begin seeing someone new. I watched them be together and start to create a relationship. I watched them eventually move in together. I watched them begin to involve their families in their relationship. And what did I say? It won’t last, they won’t stay together.
It’s now 15 years later. They are still together, still happy, still in love. They have created a wonderful life and partnership together. Who was I to tell my friend what would or would not work in that relationship? Who was I to think I knew better than they did what they would be able to create in their relationship?
All of this occurred to me just yesterday as I was driving to Sam’s house to have dinner. I suddenly realized that other people have watched our break-up, or read about it here. And I am certain some of them, if not most, are shaking their heads and saying, It won’t last, they won’t stay together.
Having now gone through this process myself, I realize a reconciliation can be just as difficult as a break-up. The relationship that existed before is, in essence, gone. A new relationship must be built; new boundaries, new rules, new understandings. The getting-back-together is certainly more difficult than the initial falling in love. So why do we bother? Why do we, against the odds, and against the advice of our well-intentioned friends and family, still decide to give a broken relationship a second chance? More to the point, why am I giving Sam, giving me and Sam, a second chance?
When I went to see the relationship therapist, he asked me, What is it you really want? I said, I want things to go back to the way they were. He said, You know that is impossible, they can never be the same as they were.
Yes, I know that is impossible. What existed before has been chipped and cracked, if not completely broken. So, why, still, do I want to give a damaged relationship a second chance?
Just as a piece of china, beautiful and pristine, becomes less beautiful and even less valuable when it has been chipped – even if just a little nick along the edges, an accidental brush with the side of a table or other piece of china – that is how relationships are. It’s the history of the piece of china – the memories it invokes, its sentimental purpose in your life, the remembrance if how beautiful it was before it was damaged – that makes us want to repair it. We want to piece it back together; we want to restore some of its beauty. We are hoping, even with uneven cracks and missing pieces, that the piece of china can be salvaged in some way. The fact that it existed at all, that it once brought us happiness, is enough to want to mend it.
Of course the mere fact the china was broken then mended makes the china more fragile and susceptible to breaking again. But still, even a repaired piece of beloved china continues to hold a place in our hearts.
And so it is with me and Sam. And probably other couples who once had something beautiful, something that made them happy, and then had to watch it shatter like glass. We look at the pieces that are left and sometimes realize, yes, this is worth repairing, fault lines and all. We work, painstakingly at times, to carefully align the pieces and find a way to bind them together again, trying to create something out of what is left. We take shard after shard and put it back in place until, eventually, it is rebuilt, repaired, restored.
Others – the onlookers, the voyeurs – may look at the repaired china and say it is ruined, say it was not worth the effort of even salvaging the broken pieces. But for those of us who recognize the deeper significance of the china, it was worth every single careful act of restoration. And no one else, no onlooker, no voyeur, will ever be able to really appreciate why we feel our broken relationships were worth the same effort.
So, we choose to repair something precious to us. Realizing for ourselves that while it is never going to be the same to the eye, it remains beautiful in our hearts. And while others may not understand, we will take the once-broken-now-repaired item and place it out for all to see; not hidden away, and not ashamed that it is not what it was once before, understanding that each mended crack is just evidence of history.
We do this out of love; we do this out of remembrance; we do this with a certain amount of faith and a certain amount of pride. And we do this knowing full well that others are saying it will never stay together.
