A West Coast visit was approaching. I was going to spend a few days with relatives. Then with Warren. Now, we could no longer rely on the past to hold us together. We had to find out if the people we had become jibed with what we truly wanted. Had we developed into what our younger selves would have wished for each other to become?
#3. The original problems will always be reactivated. The conflicts that caused the original breakup are absolutely integral to the basic personality and character structure of each partner. In the intervening years there must have been a learning from life, a basic individual growth process in which one has dealt with this core issue, before the reunion can succeed. This is the case whatever the problems that led to the breakup in the first place. Problems that may come between lovers include self-absorption and inability to give appropriate attention to the other person's growth and well-being; excessive ambition; fears about competency; guilt and suspicion about sexual enjoyment; unmanageable competition with the loved one for worldly achievement or other goals; projected inferiority ("anyone who loves me can't be worth much"); personal rejection because of overvaluation of wealth.
It takes years to do this work on the self. It can't be a last-minute homework assignment.
Having learned from other relationships is a major requirement of successful reunions. Unsuccessful marriages in the intervening years can teach a person a lot about the fragility of keeping love alive. Over the years, many formerly emotionally isolated men and women who have had real worldly success may be able now to tolerate more intimacy. Achievers have had enough recognition from the world; performers grow more concerned about coming back to an empty dressing room. They have objectively achieved the success they always wanted and recognized it doesn't solve all problems.
The passage of time has to bring the courage to look the original problem in the eye. Be assured that the outcome will be essentially the same today as it was years ago unless a different way of behaving has been built from having struggled hard with these issues in the years between. One indisputable sign of the accomplishment of real change is to find your old love being grateful, rather than jealous, of the intervening relationships that have given you wisdom.
WARREN WAS ALWAYS A VERY AMBITIOUS man. His sights were set on the big time and I can't count the hours we spent discussing the strategies of his getting ahead in the academic community.
I grew increasingly serious about my own career in medicine. I became the first female surgical resident accepted into Harvard's residency program. In our final year together, I was pursuing a full-fledged career in surgery -- although I later switched to psychiatry. I was something of an outlaw, a strong and passionate woman beyond the usual social prescriptions of the day. Then, as now, I felt free to make up my life as I went along. Warren, as a man, was more bound by rigid social expectations. He wanted a wife devoted to helping him.
When it came down to converting our romance into a life partnership, Warren turned away from the emotional side that had given him so much pleasure. I was not available to Warren on a daily basis to back him up in the social arena of Cambridge academic competition. A wife with her own career was not seen as an advantage at that time. If a man and woman were to both be successful, the man's success had to come first.
Though we never discussed it at the time, I was happy to have a life outside the relationship. I felt that the more roles we brought to our relationship, the richer our life together would be. The very things I thought made relationships work were the things Warren enjoyed but felt were not sufficient. He couldn't allow himself to express this directly.
#4. A review of the original breakup must take place. Reviewing the reasons for the breakup of the old relationship may be painful or at least difficult. But it must take place between the sweethearts. If you can't do this, don't start anything with an idea of getting back together.
In reviewing the relationship history, avoid being accusatory. Using blame or being judgmental may well be what started the trouble years ago. The best approach is to make liberal use of the "I" position: "I felt rejected and unwanted because I did not value myself" (not "you destroyed my life").
Romantic sweethearts rarely if ever split by mutual rational agreement. Cold words may have been the outward form of ending, depending on the cultural background of the parties, but they are an obvious disguise for tumultuous passions at the time. They must now be openly acknowledged.
Amends must be made. The original rejecter must articulate sorrow for inflicting pain without accepting total responsibility for the breakup. Usually, blame has been placed, unfairly, on one partner, the designated "rejecter" who stopped the relationship from going forward at that critical time in the past. There is thus a split of the lovers into "good" and "bad" Such a distinction is essentially false and diminishes the true complexity of relationships. As long as such a distinction continues, healing of the relationship is impossible and a real partnership is unattainable.
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