Monthly Archives: June 2007

broken heart, celibacy, life, love, men, relationships, women

The easy way out

Leaving is always easier than to be left behind, but sometimes, when you leave someone, you just feel like a monster or a cold-hearted bitch. This happens especially when your partner struggles with a problem like bankrupcy, depression, anorexia/bulimia, alcoholism,…

Usually, doctors say the love of their entourage helps those who are affected by a mental disease or problems with alcohol. So, when you break up with that person because you can’t deal with his/her problem anymore, remorse isn’t far away.  “When I met her, she was at the top of her game as an athlete. But she started to have eating disorders and life with her just became impossible. I left her in the worst moment of her life, but I couldn’t take it anymore.  The problem was that I felt like a monster after the break up and I wanted to make sure she was OK and could face up her problem. But it poisoned every relationship I had just after her, until she found a new man”  S., 34, said.

Usually, the people who face this situation have this in common: their partner just developed a particular problem a few months or years after the beginning of their relationship, and they feel their partner isn’t the one they were in love anymore.  V. ,43,  fell in love with her husband at at time where he was  reknown and well  respected in his profession. But his situation started to change gradually to the point where he was persona non grata at work. “He used to go out a lot, and started to have a problem with alcohol. He became violent and mythomaniac with me. I had no choice but to leave him, even if we have kids together who thought I was evil to leave their dad and to prevent them to see him. I couldn’t trust him anymore” she explained. “It was and still is really hard for me to deal with this”  she added.

It’s also difficult when his/her entourage judges you for leaving your partner in the worst moment of his/her life.  “She became depressive, and tried to commit suicide several times. I wanted to broke with her, but each time she begged me not to leave her, or she would try again to kill herself. One day, I had enough and called it quits with her. I received a phone call from her parents three days after, insulting me for letting  down their daughter. Each time I met one of her friends or a member of her family, I felt like I was judged like a monster. But curiously, the break up helped her to get a grip, and she began to feel better just a few months after the separation” T., 37, told me.  

If we really love the person who’s going through tough problems, we shouldn’t let him/her down, don’t we ? If the love of your life had a problem like that, would you leave him/her? “I didn’t really love her. I realized it too late” S. explained. “She wasn’t the woman I expected. I didn’t see a future with her” T. said.

But if the problem starts to threaten your safety, this changes everything.

What do you think ?

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celibacy, life, love, men, relationships, wacky, women

Excuse me miss

Aboarding a stranger you fancy is always a delicate matter. You have to find the right words to score, otherwise you will immediately get rejected. But some people seem to have the wrong technic to approach someone. A friend of mine recently told me about her latest disastrous experience with the opposite sex. “We were dancing in a club, and he just followed me to the bar. He told me I was lucky tonight, that I wasn’t going home alone.  I replied to him that I prefered going home alone than with an arrogant guy like him” she said.

B., 29, met a guy who told her he was gay, but willing to make the experience of having sex with a woman, and why not her. “I felt like it could be me, but also any other woman. It just turned me off”  she said.

Worse, some people seem to look just to get laid, and make the same approach with every person they meet.  “I saw this guy at the club who approached every group of women, and got rejected by all of them. He eventually came to me, and told me how beautiful I was, that my father was a burglar because he stole the stars to put them in my eyes, and so on.  How come he think he could possibly score with me ?” she explained.

This reminds me of a guy who used to sit next to me at school. He used to pass a little piece of paper to every girl in the classroom, asking if we wanted to go on a date with him. Every girl knew about it, but he managed to score with one victim (the only one, though). We all felt sorry for her.

Ladies, what’s the worst sentence a guy has ever told you to score with you? And guys, how do you approach a woman you fancy ?

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celibacy, life, love, men, reflexion, relationships, sex, wacky, women

The standing joke of the year (and even after)

Sometimes, you don’t know why, but you end up with a partner you don’t necessarily like, physically or because of his/her personality. Some people are even ashamed to be seen with their partner in public that they choose to keep him/her secret. 

One of my friends dated for one year a guy who was a friend of her friends, but she didn’t like him. “It’s not that I hated him, but he just left me cold. There was no spark or whatsoever with him. It was at a time in my life I had a low confidence in me and just needed a man’s company, whoever he was ”  she told me. I still remember that everybody knowing her wondered what she was doing with him, because he was totally out of her league.

Last year, I was invited to a trip by one company we work with, and all the journalists invited had the possibility to bring their partner if they wanted.  One of them came with his young wife, and we all wondered where he had picked her. We were sitting in a chic restaurant with all the directors of the company which invited us, and she just completely made a fool of herself during the whole evening. She was dressed inapproprietaly for the place (the prostitutes two blocks away wore the same outfit), she was completely drunk, she just kept on talking to the embarrassment of everyone, telling details about her life we didn’t want to know, and calling her husband by sweet names in front of everyone.  Even her husband was embarrassed by her.  I just hope for him it’s not everyday like that with her.

S., 33, told me he dated for almost two years a woman he just disliked, but has something that retained him. “It was just for sex. It was amazing with her. But I couldn’t present her to my friends or my parents. She was way out of my league. I found her really annoying, I hated when she opened her mouth  to say something, and I didn’t particularly find her attractive, but I couldn’t resist her”he explained.

Sex is often the sole and unique reason for this kind of particular relationship,  but there are exceptions. I’m sure my colleague journalist didn’t marry his wife just because of sex (at least, I hope).  But then, what’s the point of staying with someone you’re ashamed of ?

Would you stay with someone you don’t really like ? Personally, I can’t.

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life, love, men, relationships, women

No one knows

How come a relationship evolves in the secret?  When I ask this question around me, many people reply the same answer: it’s because of the aftermaths if the relationship was known to everyone. Some people told me that they love the thrill of keeping their partner secret, but some other just said it was hell.

The reasons behind a secret affair are multiple. Sometimes, they are justified, sometimes they aren’t. For the first category, secret lovers choose to remain in the dark because they fear the reaction of their entourage if they knew about their affair. Y., 34, pursued a three year relationship with one of her parents’ friend. He was married at that time, and for obvious reasons, Y. didn’t want to ruin everything by telling about their affair. “I knew my parents wouldn’t approuve this, and I didn’t want to endorse the bad role of the one who steals someone else’s husband” she explained. Three years later, her lover decided to quit his wife, and offered Y. to make their relationship public. But Y. refused. “I realised all of a sudden he wasn’t the one for me, that I loved more the secret aspect of the relationship than him” she said.

C. , 30, dated for two years her best friend’s fiancee behind her back. “We never had the guts to tell her about what was going on between us. We knew she would be devastated to know this, and we wanted to prevent her from this pain” she said. “Eventually, she left him for another man, and we saw no reason left to keep our relationship secret. But my friend didn’t take the news so well, as we expected. She’s still avoiding us today” she added.

Usually, when we try to keep a relationship secret, it’s because we fear the judgment of our friends, and especially our parents. Presenting your partner to your entourage is one crucial step in your relationship and always delicate. There’s always a chance they will not like your partner. So, if you pick a partner against all their values, chances are he/she will get disapprouved and that you might end up in a dispute with your entourage.

F., 32, has never told her parents she prefers women. She has always pretended the contrary and even invented male alibis for her parents. Her friends don’t know either about her secret.” I don’t know how they will react to this, and I fear to be rejected” she said.

G., 34, told me she believed her parents would never accept her partner, because of his religion. That’s why she keep him secret. And she has no plan to unveil her relationship.

On the other hand, for the other partner of the couple, it’s not that easy to accept a secret relationship. Would you accept it ? 

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holidays, life, love, men, relationships, women

Down by the water

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I’m back in one piece from my holidays. Each year, with the light of my life, we use to go for two weeks abroad, generally in the South of France, just to chill and to spend time together. During the year, it’s quite difficult for us just to see each other because of my job. I travel quite a lot, I work late and sometimes bring extra work at home. And even if we’re just at home together, we manage to avoid each other because of our friends and our family. So, these holidays are really precious to us.

This year, my man insisted we go scuba diving together. I’ve never done that in my life before and I must admit I was a little scared about this. And also, it was during a bad period for me, where I act generally like a bitch. So, I was expecting a fiasco. Instead of that, we ended up in a situation like in the movie Along came Polly  where the newly wed Debra Messing is mesmerized by the diving instructor and leaves Ben Stiller for him. Wait before making any conclusions, I didn’t leave my man for him. The instructor was just looking at me in a non-catholic way and kept on telling me how pretty I was, in front of my man who didn’t bother. In fact, the light of my life just watches me beating cold any pretender with recreation. I wouldn’t appreciate if he intervenes. It would prove he doesn’t trust me.

Would you appreciate if your man starts to bark at any of your pretenders ? And guys, how would you react in a situation like that ?

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holidays, Music, women

A temporary break

That’s it, I will be off for the next two weeks. After such a hectic semester, these holidays are more than welcomed.

Before leaving you for the South of France, I just wanted to thank every reader of this blog, and especially the kind ones who leave regularly or from time to time comments on my posts.

And for those who clicked on my blog because of weird requests about Maynard James Keenan, no, I’m not his fiancee, but I keep him locked in my basement.

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broken heart, celibacy, life, love, men, relationships, women

I felt you long after we went through

Sometimes, we try hard to forget about someone who’s been awful with us, but only time helps us to really erase his/her memory. During the transition period when you broke up and when you eventually forget about your ex,  there can be periods when you think you’re over him/her, and period where you realized your life is so empty without him/her.  It depends a lot on the intensity of your ancient feelings for your ex.

M., 29, needed a long time to get over her ex-lover. “I really loved him, I thought he was the one. But unfortunately, he wasn’t faithful at all. I didn’t realize he cheated on me, until one of his ex came to see me and told me everything about him. I was devastated, and decided to leave him. But I couldn’t stop thinking about him all the time. I had other men after him, but he was the only one who occupied my mind. Once, I even call one of his successors by his name. It was quite a shock for me” she said. it took one whole year for M. to forget her ex-lover. Their relationship lasted only one year and a half.

S., 33, used to date a woman who battled with anorexia. “She was an athlete who stopped her career all of a sudden because she had eating disorder. I was there for her during her whole battle with her disease, we planned to marry, but in the end, I felt she was too self-destructive, and I left her”  he explained. “I felt really bad after the break-up. I thought I was a monster to leave her alone with all her problems, so I tried to stay friends with her. I did try to start my life again with some other women, but each time, I was thinking of her. As a friend, she was quite invasive in my life. I realized  I had to cut all contacts with her to forget about her” he added.

There will always be people you forget easily and some who will mark you forever. In this case, you will never leave the relationship without any damage in yourself. Even years later, when you thought you were over him/her, some emotions will surface again.  “I was sorting some old coats that I planned to throw away, and suddenly, a little piece of paper came out of a pocket of a coat. I recognized immediately the ticket of a play I went to see with one of my ex. He was someone I was madly in love with, but for some obscure reasons, he just left me with my heart broken into pieces. It was four years ago, but the sight of this ticket made me burst into tears” recalled H., 30.

Is there someone you had a hard time forgetting about? Do you consider him/her as a part of your life you will never forget?

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celibacy, life, love, men, relationships, women

You’re just too good for me

Sometimes, we leave our partner because we think he/ she truly sucks  isn’t right for us. Sometimes, we just leave because we think we don’t deserve him/her.

I remember reading an interview of Gwyneth Paltrow where she was saying she left Brad Pitt because at that time, she felt she wasn’t the right person for him.

This is the most glamourous example of self-loathing in a relationship. But in the life of common people, you can find a lot of examples like that. “When I met him, I thought he was the man of my life, he had everything I could wish for. But the problem wasn’t with him, but with me. I went through a severe depression at that time, and I did things I really regret now. I was convinced that my man didn’t deserve the mess I put him through, and that he would be happier with someone else, so I let him go” F., 34, explained. “I’m happy now he found the right person for him” she added.

Sometimes, this situation of self-loathing is just temporary and disappears as the person see the light at the end of the tunnel.  “I had a huge problem of confidence for a long period of my life, but slowly, I started to gain confidence in myself thanks to a therapy and some success I had in my professional career. Before that, I systematically left my partners because I felt I didn’t deserve them.  But since that click, I found my Mr. Right, and I  wouldn’t want to leave him for anything” Y., 35, said.

Some people, on the other hand, haven’t resolved their problem of self-hatred and keep on leaving their partner because of that. Or put themselves in disastrous relationships with a partner worse than them. C., 34, admits she has a problem of confidence, and believes she isn’t worth it. Because of that, she collects disastrous relationships. She had been with a guy who committed suicide, a convict, an abusive personality, a married man who had a heavy turnover of mistresses, …  

It’s obvious that to love someone, you have to love yourself first. But those people with problem of self-loathing had a huge quality: honesty and caring for the other. Some people aren’t that honest and altruist, and involve their partner into their downward spiral.

What do you think about that ?

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