By Valerie Kusch
Contributing Columnist
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
When I was a little girl, I used to believe that one day prince charming will ride along in his shining armor, rescue me from my jinxed tower, kiss me and live with me happily ever after. I still believe in happily ever after, I believe in being meant for someone and someone being meant for me. I believe in the one big and unconditional love of my life. Just because it hasn’t happened to me yet doesn’t mean that it never will or that this kind of love doesn’t exist.
However, when you grow up you realize that loving someone today doesn’t mean that you will still love him tomorrow. Reality teaches you that love nowadays means love for a period of time. Partners come and go and as you will have different boyfriends, husbands, affairs throughout your life, you will have different loves in your life. Every new relationship triggers the hope that this might be the one that will last forever. When it turns out that it won’t, you suffer, you hurt. And, like everything that hurts you deeply, it will leave a scar. If you take a close look at my forehead, you will see the little one that I got from stumbling out of the car when I was two years old. If you take a really close look at my soul, you will discover the one my ex-boyfriend of 5 years left there the day I realized that I didn’t love him anymore. We continue living our lives, but from time to time the scar will hurt and we will think back. Sometimes the smell of a perfume (his scent) or the melody of a song (our song) will remind us of him. As time goes by, we will accept the past relationship as part of our history that has shaped us in a way that made us become the women we are today. We move on with more experience and insight into men, relationships, and ourselves.
But in order to move on properly, it is essential for me to accept that my exes are part of my past and therefore should not be part of my present. I believe that men and women can be “just” friends, but I don’t believe that you can return to that state once you have crossed the line to “more” than “just” friends. If you fail as a couple and do not want to end up even unhappier than you already are, you stay away from that guy. When it’s over, it’s over.
So far, I am able to handle my own ex-factors pretty well. The real problem however starts when you begin dating again. Women tend to compare themselves to other women: be it the current girlfriend of our ex-boyfriends or the ex-girlfriends of our current boyfriend. We ask ourselves: is she prettier, thinner, richer, smarter, better in bed than me? We will start comparing the relationship they had with the one we’re having now and worst of all we will ultimately ask ourselves if he loved her more than us and maybe still does. Those thoughts inspire the little Sherlock Holmes in us and even though that little voice in our head tells us not to, we will dig deeper and deeper in his past. We find some old picture in a photo album that hasn’t been looked at in forever, a love note on the bottom of a drawer, her number in his cell phone that might be out of service, or we realize that he is still wearing this ugly shirt that she once gave him for his birthday or (even worse) their anniversary. Ultimately, we might even ask him to tell us something about her. And this is the one and only advice I can give you guys (and that means you men out there): never, NEVER start talking, no matter what answer you give, it is always, ALWAYS the wrong one. It is worse than the “Do-I-look-fat-in-this-question.” Hide all the evidence there is starting with the obvious ones like the framed picture and ending with the inconspicuous ones buried somewhere that we would find nonetheless rather sooner than later. Talking about past relationships is a no-go because it is meant to break our hearts and bruise our souls. If there really is no way around, keep it neutral; we do not want to hear praises about your ex but at the same time we want you to still respect her because one day, it might be us you’re talking of.
By the time we know everything we shouldn’t know and have added some imagination about the parts we couldn’t figure out, our level of jealousy has reached its maximum, our head is spinning and it is time to lock ourselves in a small chamber and bring ourselves back down to earth. The fact that he did love before hurts but didn’t we love before as well? What happened happened and that made him the man we did fall in love with. We don’t need to be his first love as long as we might be his last.
Of course everything tends to get more complicated when he and his ex not only share a common past but a common last name, house, business or children. A child is not a thing you can put back in an envelope or a picture album and banish on the attic to gather dust. It is the living proof that your partner did have a love life before, a proof you can’t just bury in your subconscious mind like a story he once told you about his first love. The essential part is to decide for yourself if you can live with it or not. If you can’t, then get the hell out of there because the longer you stay the more it will hurt, all of you. If you think you can, be prepared that it might hurt even more. His kids will always have priority which can be a very destructive factor if you don’t have children of your own. And, finally you will have to meet them and maybe even their mother. I am not saying it can’t work out but it needs a lot of understanding and love to succeed.
Currently, I am dating this guy who had so many dates, girlfriends, and hook-ups that he could fill a book with them. I would lie if I said that it didn’t bother me, that in my mind I wouldn’t see him kissing another woman, his body touching hers, him confessing his love to her. But if I want to be happy, I have to accept it the same way I expect him to accept my history. And, when we fall asleep then he looks in MY eyes and holds ME close. It is ME he wants to see last thing in the night and first thing in the morning and he tells ME “I love you” with such intensity that my heart sometimes stops beating for a moment. And I believe him because I believe in love, the love that is HERE and NOW.
Valerie is originally from Germany and has an MBA in Marketing and Hotel Management. Besides working in a small luxury hotel, she loves to muse about love, life, and the struggles of relationships.