Everything you need to know about Relationships and Breakups

Oh! In case you are wondering, this is one of my friends bitching about the girl who left him 6 months ago. Let’s call him ‘Rohit’ for the purpose of this gospel. Of course, he hasn’t moved on yet, but it’s worse than that.

Somehow Rohit has formed a profound conviction that he is the best boyfriend to have ever walked down the earth (clearly not). And for the last 2 hours, he has been trying to seek validation on his conviction from me.

Rohit’s relationship in itself is a novel that can be used by people to learn everything a person should not do while being in a relationship. Unfortunately, he himself has not realized this yet. So, on he goes. Defecating the entire emotional injustice that he believes has transpired in his life.

What exactly ensued in his immensely disinteresting relationship?

A connection that was supposed to be about love and support between two people had turned into a stream of intoxicating substances. Unbelievably, to such an extent that his relationship endured only through lies, deception, fabrication, and more than a few inexplicable actions.

Speaking generally, such relationships do not survive for long. Ultimately, either one of the two shall fall to the deepest point in their emotional abyss, where the rage just explodes. And the past, the emotional connection, and whatever reverence existed between two people becomes irrelevant and is thrown out of the window.

Rohit is a lazy lout, a womanizer, and a debauchee who falls for every beautiful woman that he comes across, except the fact that he doesn’t get any sex.

He tried hitting on an office colleague and about four other girls. He lied to his girlfriend almost always. And he had run out of money. He constantly borrowed from friends to buy gifts and to order delicious meals for his girlfriends. He was in huge debt. And amid such a crisis, he somehow managed to buy a diamond ring. Unfreaking-believable!

Well, it turned out that a diamond cannot always save a man. Anyways.

I wish, with a firm conviction, that our governments, instead of building political statues, built something like this – “The hall of fame of most horrific relationship sentiments”. A commemorative to help people understand the basic concepts of relationships. I want this center of attraction to be built in the middle of the city ¹. As one would enter the museum of amusement, specifically designed to highlight the most perfumed aristocrats, he’ll capitulate to the striking revere of inflated optimism showcased by nonpareil lovers.

People like Rohit will feature there to represent abhorrent insanity. But he won’t be the only one. There will be others. Like that dedicated guy who posted a reverse 14-day count for his girlfriend’s birthday everywhere on social media and got dumped just 2 hours before midnight. Or that absurd man who thought there was nothing wrong with his girlfriend clicking “sandwich pictures” between two other guys. Also, the lustful, horny, and penurious creature who thought renting a car and taking his lady-love for a cup of coffee, at the expense of about 50% of his monthly income, was a great idea to get sex.

Also, the sensitive girl who thought her shower of love was divine enough to devour a drug addict, someone who’s used to smoking three lush-green joints daily.

And don’t worry, I’ll be featured in the hall of fame too. My statue will symbolize a false communal belief. An ideology that states that it’s possible to change someone’s opinion through constant love, devotion, and care.

As you’ll move towards the exit of the building, you’ll jump into my scripture carved within the walls, festooned with roses, lilies, and tulips!

Probably, we all know many such people in our lives who can feature in the hall of fame. Well, if so many of us are fucked up, then is it the concept of relationships that is useless? No. Relationships are beautiful possibilities for every person to touch each other’s lives in a certain way. They are excellent opportunities to discover the expression of love within us. But then why are we so fucked up?

Too much pain already? Don’t worry. You need not drive yourself crazy. Because at the exit you’ll also discover a bookstall from where you can buy a short summary titled –

Everything you need to know about relationships and breakups.

I love writing articles with such oxymoron titles. They set the flair of the article impeccably and are unequivocally important. I mean, if there’s a coin, isn’t it substantial to regard both its sides? You ought to know both ‘heads’ and ‘tails’ to have well-balanced odds in life. If you are slightly more exposed to only one, then prepare yourself to be screwed, randomly. It is, therefore, equally important to understand both relationships and breakups to know how to conduct your life in the best possible manner.

“Oh! Come on, Aashish. Just tell me the best relationship advice already and get this over with”. – Wait up, knucklehead. Don’t you wanna know why so many people end up screwing their emotional life?

For many people, the coin toss of their dating life appears something like this – Relationship, Relationship, Relationship, and out of the sky disaster strikes, BREAKUP. Like you were driving so well for so long, but suddenly fell off the bridge. Maybe, because your relationship equation lost balance, or your partner developed an interest in somebody else, or there could be 200 other reasons. But the point is, you don’t know what to do anymore, except crying and sobbing.

This coin toss also works otherwise. For people who enter a relationship after being single for a long time. Single, Single, Single, and damn, COMMITTED. Now they don’t have any clue what to do. This is a major reason that a lot of people don’t have much to offer in a relationship.

Such people don’t have the rationality to decipher the basic nature of their partners. They find it difficult to fulfill what is expected of them in that relationship. Their emotions lag, and thus solitude, exclusiveness, and indignation are some of the very common features of their personality.

Some of us try to overcompensate by taking too much responsibility for our partner’s problems. We feel as if we would not help our partners in solving their problems, they will leave us for someone else.

Such people are mostly benighted when it comes to expressing their own emotions; therefore, they are unable to understand their partner’s emotional needs as well.

There is also the third pattern of a coin toss in the world of dating. It involves people who hopscotch here and there quite often. Generally, these are the ones with the majority and with the most baggage. They are the producers of more than a few drama movies, all in their minds.

But most importantly, all types of people (which means everyone) have been victimized by a denigrating delusion, based upon every coin toss of their life.

Our underlying delusion is that it’s our partner (a second person and not ourselves) who is causing us pain. We think he or she makes us feel happy, angry, anxious, shallow, mean, or loving.

Bullshit. Nobody can do anything to you.

You determine your own experiences. You construct meaning around them. You interpret that meaning by your choice. And then, accordingly, you feel about your experience. 

You are an individual whose seat of experience is nowhere except within you. In simpler terms, only you can determine what a situation will mean to you. There can be shades of outside influence; however, you have complete control to regard or disregard that influence. Perhaps how you interpret a situation is entirely your choice and your decision.

The same situation can mean something else for you, something else for me, and the meaning can be totally different for somebody else. A particular situation that is making you anxious might make me happier and generate confidence. A breakup might tear you apart. But for someone, it turns him into a compassionate human being.

Likewise, for every situation in life, you have a choice to interpret it in whichever way you want. Hence, in the most fundamental terms, your feelings are the subject of your interpretations of the situation.

How can we work on our interpretations to constantly improve them?

You must understand why you make relationships. For 99% of people, the urge is to fulfill emotional needs. I believe physical needs are also a consequence of emotional needs ². The appropriate understanding of your needs would help you rationalize your interpretations of your partner, of yourself, of your relationships, and other connections in a better way. This constant struggle is mentally painful. But this is how you morph yourself into a better and mature person. This is the only way to build healthy relationships. Relationships that will be based upon healthy values.

What are these emotional needs?

Every relationship, friendship, or any other social connection is inspired by three primary factors –  Connection, Security, and Status ³. These primary factors, or as Mark Manson put it, emotional motivators, work inversely for every person. These factors can be found within all of us, more or less, in our justifications of our partners, friends, and all other people around us. We just prioritize them as we deem fit. Some of us prefer connection over status. Some itch for a check against security. For others, status is more important.

Let’s see what these factors symbolize.

Connection: People who accord us a sense of understanding, those who offer us appreciative remarks for our values, decisions, and actions, tend to be comparatively closer to us than others. However, these sensations can quickly turn into a need. Once it becomes a need, then the person would become too reliant on others. He will judge himself through the prism of others.

He will feel as if nobody understands him quite often.

Also, such a person will constantly overlook their partner’s flaws. For instance – “she kind of treats me like shit, but that’s okay. I love her. Probably, there is something wrong with me for thinking like that about her”. Or “she always replies to me after hours. Maybe, she’s too busy”.

The desire for emotional connection can soon morph into neediness. This neediness is like a haze that leads us to delusional thinking. Once it becomes your thing, you’ll seek self-validation through others. Like Rohit tried to do. Probably, you’ll want to avoid this scenario.

Further, the desire for connection can also be morally denigrating. Speaking about morals, I once met a girl who was the ex-girlfriend of my former business partner. Our ideologies matched tit for tat. Her preferences were like a true copy image of my likes and dislikes. I liked books, she liked books. I loved Game of Thrones, well, she loved it too. Knowing me, I slept with her. Though it was morally wrong, my feelings urged that it was awesome to have such an amazing connection with someone. And here is the paradox.

A certain emotional or psychological connection appears great only from the outside. However, it is shallow and meaningless from the inside, if not backed by the right values. I broke up after two weeks, and that is the most common term length of such shallow relationships.

Security: Trust is a major aspect of every relationship. If you don’t trust your partner, then you’ll constantly doubt their love and intentions and everything else about them. Therefore, for some of us, security is a prime concern.

However, the need for security can quickly turn into unhealthy jealousy and obsession. The absence of security in a relationship traumatizes our survival instinct.

Status: How we feel about our partners is also influenced by their social status. People constantly filter their partners through various social metrics like popularity, money, and, probably, depending on what their friends think about them.

Physical looks are, therefore, given more consideration in society than they deserve. We crave our friends’ splendid remarks about our lovers. And we feel distasteful for people who are not approved in our friend circle.

And if you haven’t perceived it already, these emotional motivators are interconnected. Some people who prioritize status seek self-validation through others because of their constant need for appreciation. Appreciation is a way of building an emotional connection.

Some suffer the wraths of unhealthy or one-sided relationships because they feel the need to maintain their social status. Security, again, is only able to affect our survival instinct because we aren’t self-reliant.

Every person parades a different combination of these primary factors. However, these combinations can be changed. The emotional needs can be developed into better, independent, and self-reliant individuals who can overcome the evil suffering in all relationships.

Such developments can effectively change your interpretations and can transform you into an all-pleasant being. Someone whom everyone would want to have a relationship with.

I have laid down some of these developments in the form of the following panaceas –

Don’t try to manage your BF’s/GF’s, just try to involve them in your life.

Is your partner a prized possession for you that you need to win or manage? You must know what a person means to you.

Often, we happen to come across a book that effectively changes our lives. It happened to me this year. I came across Sadhguru’s book about relationships ⁴ and it obliterated many of my layers to effectively change the way I approach my associations. I can probably write an article summarizing the content of the book, as it’s very hardcore and will require a lot of mental pain to read. But still, definitely worth a read.

Sadhguru said – Don’t try to manage the other person, just see how to include them.

He highlights the fact that we spend a lot of time trying to manage or convince the people around us. We get disappointed when they pursue something contrary to our beliefs. He brings to our attention the fact that people try to create relationships based upon too much fantasy, while it should be rooted in reality.

Sadhguru cites that it is not possible to completely manage a human being. After all, he/she has their own beliefs and values. However, if we just try to include them as a part of ourselves, our life will become a beautiful expression of joyfulness, not a pursuit of happiness.

Do not love someone. Be an expression of love.

‘I love you. ’ This is a beautiful English expression, but unfortunately, it has become something else in our society. It has become an act. To love is an act. Isn’t it?

No.

When we tell somebody that we love them, what do we imply? Spend some time with this question. Probably, it will fuck the hell out of you.

This expression ideally should not imply anything and should rather just be what it is – an expression. However, when people use this expression in our societies and cultures, it is inferred as an act. As if you are doing something for somebody or somebody is doing something for you, depending upon which end of the communication you are.

When love becomes an activity, it is measured. I love you more; you love me less. Such measurements and comparisons turn love into a business transaction. The give-and-take culture begins. Profits and losses are assessed. And we all have been told that to give less and take more is the verse of good business.

How can we have loving relationships when business is at the core of them? Therefore, do not love someone. Just be an expression of love.

When you are just an expression of love, exclusiveness turns null and void for you. Then you can love just about everyone. This is courageous and self-empowering. You become independent. Even if they leave you, it doesn’t matter. You are not exclusive to anybody.

Until love is an activity for you, you don’t want to perform it for everyone. You would only do it for certain exclusive people. Now, if they leave you, you’ll create all sorts of mess in your life. This is self-defeating and power-sucking.

There is a lot of nonsense around loving myself in the market these days. If you infer love as an activity, then you can either focus it on yourself (internal) or on people around you (external). But you cannot do both with the same intensity.

However, if love becomes an expression for you, then the direction becomes irrelevant. You can love yourself and also love the people around you. If you are just an expression of love, you’ll do both with equal intensity.

Understand that feelings are not that important. They often lie to us.

Our feelings are the reflections of our thoughts. And our thoughts are generally ubiquitous. You like something today and end up hating it tomorrow, or vice versa. Typically, we are poorly informed about the majority of things around us. We make our interpretations based upon such poor or a lack of information. These judgments are often short-sided, and as soon as we come across proper data, the reality seems to be different.

Therefore, feelings are not appropriate metrics to define our choices. We should rather focus on creating stronger interpretations by striving for facts and information.

Perhaps, before you judge anyone next time, try to discern their true intent. Observing their personality closely shall help you!

Learn to differentiate between yourself and your ego.

Claiming to be egoless is the worst form of ego. Many people tell themselves that it is okay if they feel pain, but promise themselves to continue to spread love and happiness. I made this mistake too. By the time I realized my mistake, the damage had already been done. 

You cannot make anyone happy until you are an abundance of love and joy within yourself. The ego will be there. Always. However, the trick is to know that you can create your ego in the way the situation demands.

It’s about drawing a clear boundary for yourself and placing a stop sign at it. The boundary is a combination of your values and beliefs. You have to consciously choose healthy values for yourself.

What does a breakup mean?

A breakup means two people or two energies that were living or staying together decide to separate from each other. It’s a kind of dissolution of commitment. If it happens mutually, then there is no problem.

However, when it is forced upon someone, especially when he or she is not emotionally self-reliant, they create ⁵ havoc in their life.

When a couple stays together, they create all sorts of drama and fantasies around each other. Both individuals have dreams and imaginations involving each other. When they break apart, those dreams and imaginations are shattered. This is what people perceive as a loss, and this is what they grieve.

When your partner leaves you for someone else, you don’t mourn them. But you feel bereft and cry your heart out because all those dreams that you had formed surrounding them are now subject to unfulfillment.

Then, after some time, a new person enters your life, and the ex is forgotten. But it’s your dreams and imagination that keep reviving in your memory, which causes you distress.

You must understand that nobody can break you apart, and nobody will piece you together. Except you. You are a complete life. You have always been a complete life. But how you conduct this life is your own choice. You can make it an embodiment of pain, or you can turn it into an outpouring expression of love. The choice is yours!

If anyone wishes to leave your life, never stop them. If anyone wishes to come into your life, never stop them. My best friend once said, “I always stand at the door of my life and keep it open for everyone. If you want to go, you can go, if you want to come, you can come. I don’t ask any questions”.

This shit was fucking empowering. Probably, you can cite this quote to your friends. Once you are down with a dozen beers and wanna feel like a professor.

Work on stabilizing your emotional intensity.

Building a strong and meaningful emotional connection requires persistence and dedication. It requires accepting each other’s flaws while supporting each other constantly to work upon them. Often, the couples that stay together are those who are comfortable with each other’s lifestyles and are not interdependent. They are independent and self-reliant.

The relationship seems much more meaningful when two people come together to express their joy and share their love for each other. Not to extract or find their happiness from each other.

As Mark said ⁶, the most accurate metric of your love for someone is how you feel about their flaws.

You must understand that it’s humane to have flaws. Nobody is perfect. Nobody craps 24-carat gold nuggets. If you are in the quest for perfection, then you’ll probably end up wasting your life. If you take yourself to a certain level of mental awareness, then you’ll know that with a little bit of devotion, just about anyone will work.

However, being a proponent of love doesn’t mean that you sulk around or change your lifestyle for everyone. You have to be willing to disappoint people every now and then to stand up for your individuality.

You don’t have to constantly nag your friends about what is wrong with them. However, if you love them, then you must do what is good for them. More often than not, it will require you to be courageous to be unpopular with people.

Alas, this one is kinda pushy, but it is important. So, here it is.

Keep your expectations real.

I know you have heard this a thousand times over. Maybe you have posters hanging on the walls of your room that say Never expect anything from anyone. And see, this is the kind of shit I am pointing out to you. Expecting not to have any expectations is an unreal expectation.

People have their conditioning, and they work accordingly. They will not start functioning according to you, just because you transformed yourself by reading a nice book, or in this case, an article that claims to tell you everything about relationships and breakups. You must focus on your growth because people will still suck, and the world will continue to function the way it has been ever since.

However, the idea is to become self-dependent, empowered, and righteous. Well, the last one is a constant struggle.

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1. Well, for most of us, our life revolves around our relationships. So why not?
2. Emotions are triggered by thoughts. As we grow up, there is so much drama around sex in our societies. Perhaps, the thoughts are easily triggered due to which the mind releases the sexual hormones quite often, and it seems as if it’s our need
3. See: Healthy Relationships, P.6 – Mark Manson | E-book
4. Relationships: Bond or Bondage
5. Yes! You are unnecessarily creating a mess. Nothing in life is existentially painful.
6. In his book: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck