Recently, one of my friends told me her man’s best friend started to hit on her. In fact, she’s been separated from her man for six months, but the separation is temporary and both hope they will come back together when things get easier in their life. Her man’s best friend knew that. He also knew he couldn’t try anything with her. His best friend warned him about this.

It’s been two months now that this guy has been telling her he loves her, that she’s the one for him, that she should leave her man for good and pick him instead. She told me  that if she didn’t date his friend, maybe he wouldn’t be interested in her at all. Who knows?

It’s true that when we are forbidden to do something,  it’s really tempting to cross the line. By forbidding his friend to hit on my friend, her man designated him explicitly my friend as a catch.

There’s also a sense of rivalry in this case. I don’t know really well my friend’s man and his best friend, but from I heard about them, there was always a competition between the two. Before she met him, her man was the one who got the most lucky with women, while his buddy usually dated his leftovers. His business is also more successful than his. And he was raised in a loving family, while his best friend grew up torn between two divorced parents who kept on fighting with each other. In College, her man was also the one who got better grades.

But this dynamic isn’t necessarily only a man’s case. When I was in High School, two of my classmates who used to be BFF were also in that same competition. One was blonde, the other’s a brunette. And the first one was more popular than the other, especially with boys.  They were also competing  to get the highest scores in our class. Well, not the highest in our class, but the highest between the two… They were fighting a lot, especially when they both preyed the same hottie. When we finished High School, they became frienemies.  The brunette managed to get the guy her friend was in love with, but couldn’t have.

This makes me think: does love rise from contradiction like that? As Somerset Maugham said, the things we don’t have matter more than the one we possess.

In one episode of “How I met your mother”, Ted complains about the heavy luggage of the girls he’s dating. Unfortunately, we all have luggage, and those can become a real  deal breaker.

The number one is if you’re still in love with your ex.

Not only the person you date would feel in competition with your ex. If he/she hangs on to you and doesn’t leave you because of that, he/she can become jealous of the time and would take every occasion to fight about that. It is legitimate. If you were at his/her place, you would feel the same. There’s nothing worse than being left secondary feels in a relationship. And if your lover’s heart is already taken, it’s difficult to find your place next to him/her. There is also the fear he/she would go back with his/her ex.

“My ex used to call his ex every night to talk about nothing and everything. They would spend one hour each night chatting like that. And if I had one remark  to that, he would just tell me that it wasn’t negotiable and that I had to accept this. This drove me crazy” H.,34, said. “His ex was sick, and he felt guilty about leaving her on her own. He spent his time calling her asking her about how she felt. And every time she had to go to the hospital, he would rush to see her. To much of my dismay, he also hid the fact he was seeing me, not to upset her. But yet, they were divorcing” O., 37, said.

Another annoying luggage is the family. If yours or his/hers is too present in your life, this can become difficult for your couple. “My ex’s father used to call us every time to give his advice on this and that. He was also in our house very often. And it was hard for us to live a normal life because of that. I finally got tired of this and gave up”  I., 35, said. “His brother was really kind, but he was also unable to do something without getting himself into trouble. And my man had to clean up his mess every time. After their mother died, he had nowhere to go, so my man offered him to stay at our place. Soon, it became almost impossible to walk  in our house without stomping on one of his belongings, and his constant presence became hard for our intimacy too. After one year like that, I asked my man if his brother could find somewhere else to live. And luckily for us, he found a new place with two of his friends. I think our couple wouldn’t have survived if his brother hadn’t moved out” P.,40, said.

And I’m not even talking about the kids, who won’t necessarily love you straight away.

Some people can also come with many luggage. “When I met P., he was heading toward his second divorce. He told me he wasn’t faithful during his marriage, and he even had a love child. He had also an old mistress who kept on harassing him on the phone. This was really scary” G., 36, recalls. “He was recovering from an accident he got because he was drunk when I met him. And he was also a little bit lost in his life. I  thought he was going through  a rough period and that it will pass. But it didn’t. He was constantly acting as a loser” L., 35, said.

Dealing with your lover’s issues can be really delicate.

When the person we love tell us it’s over, it’s like our whole universe suddenly collapses. The person who is at the center of your attention decided you would no longer belong to his/her center. And let’s face it, there’s no worse feeling than being rejected like this.

But in every book of psychology, you will find that we define ourselves by the other’s look. For example, we can feel ashamed because of something bad someone dissed on us. But it depends who says this. And how you care about what this person said about you. I don’t really care if the most stupid person I consider says something bad about me. This would only comfort my opinion that he’s a true asshole. That’s it. But if this person is my closest friend, or worse, the love of my life, those words can become really powerful and destroy me.

The key, to move on in a relationship, should therefore focus on changing your ex lover’s importance to our eyes. But this is not easy. Especially if he/she remains very much in our life after the break up. And also, if you have kids together. Children create an indestructible bond between two people.

But even here, it’s possible to change the importance.

First, there’s falling in love again. But bear in mind you come with a heavy luggage that can spoil your new relationship. Second, if you can, take some physical distance with your ex. And find new interests: it can be painting, photographing, helping others,… Everything that can keep your head busy for some time.

Time will heal the wound. We just have to give time a chance.

And then, there’s the don’t: live with your ex although it’s over for months, live nearby your ex, call your ex every single day to talk about nothing and everything (and not just the children), keep close bonds with his/her family/ friends, …

Not only, you will have a hard time accepting the fact he/she has found love again if it happens, but also, it will hamper you in the process of forgetting about him/her.

Living with the hope he/she will come back into your life can also bring despair if she/he never comes back. It can torment you for months and can become dangerous for your mental health too.

We’re all ordinary people. All of us. When love is gone, we become again that ordinary person. And so does the one we loved. If we managed to move on.  The things we used to love can suddenly become annoying because of that. We can also realize his/her flaws are really bad. And don’t tolerate these anymore.

This is how a very funny guy you were in love with can become suddenly boring. Or a brilliant guy you used to listen every word can get on your nerves. And this is how you can meet, years after, the man you were madly in love with, and ask yourself: “what the hell was I thinking?”.

These are the signs we have moved on.

Some couples feel the need to have a break in order to reignite the flame of love. But this generally happens in a long term relationship. What if you have only been dating for six months, and that suddenly, he asks you to have a break? This is clearly not a good sign you’re going strong, then.

But it can happen. Two of my friends left their respective partners to start a relationship together. Both of them have children, a mortgage, … And these details became problems that force them to take their distance occasionally. Jealousy and fear got along the way. Both feared they would rush back to their ex, and they also had a hard time at the beginning facing the critics of their family, so-called friends, and acquaintances.

So far, they’ve been together for 8 months, and they already had three pauses.

Going through a divorce is something really painful. Most of my acquaintances who got divorced thought at the beginning they could divorce by mutual agreement, without any fuss. But most of them got it wrong. This can happen because their ex or themselves don’t accept the fact it is over, and face the bitterness and anger of their ex.

This is clearly not a good environment to start a new relationship straight away. And this is why rebound relationship can never work.

So, when both of the members of the couple are going through a messy divorce with their ex, they’re not in a healthy, normal condition to be in a relationship. And even if only one of the members is going through a difficult divorce, this can also cause some troubles. “My ex and I ended our 12 years relationship on a mutual agreement. We didn’t fight at all for the separation of our goods. But we didn’t have to divorce, because we were not married. When I met T., 2 months later, he was only separated from his wife from the same period. And his divorce procedure took a long and painful turn. They fought about everything. And it got some side-effects on our relationship too. Every time T. saw his ex and talked about the divorce, he would become moody, terribly aggressive, and couldn’t ease his behavior in front of me. This was extremely difficult for our couple. And we had to separate several times because of that. But we can’t get enough of each other. I know this is only temporary, that we can live a normal relationship once this procedure is over” K., 37, said.

Love happens in the most awkward moments. And it’s something you can’t really control. Love is irrational.

When you break up with your companion, and don’t cut all contacts with him/her afterward, it’s difficult to hide when you find love again.

One of my friends broke up with his girlfriend two years ago, but for practical reasons, she didn’t move out their apartment immediately after the split. It took her a whole year to move out, and she got in a hurry in the last couple of months before the D-Day because my friend started to see someone else. And it became really weird for them to bump into each other in the morning.

Instead of warning his ex he had found someone else, he just let things happened. His ex learned about this when his new conquest came once at their apartment to fetch him. And of course, she wasn’t really pleased about this.

But telling your ex you have found someone else is a little bit cruel. This is why we don’t shout it out loud, unless we want to take revenge on an ex who treated us like a fool.

Generally, we learn our ex has moved on thanks to an acquaintance or a friend. It can also happen we bumped into our ex with his/her new love by accident. If we have moved on too, this is not a big deal. If the break up was really bad, it can be hurtful. But eventually, this news will help us to move on, and to accept he/she will never come back into our life.

There are some special situations. When I broke up with my ex, he insisted many times to know if he already had a replacement. I preferred to tell him the truth about this. Lying in this case doesn’t make really any sense. If I lied to him, and he had learned it in other ways, he would have gone mad after me. Truth hurts, on the moment. But it hurts even more if you had to cover it by a lie.

But my new companion didn’t tell his ex he was seeing someone else. And when she finally learned about it, his reaction was to deny, deny, deny. He doesn’t want this as an element against him in his divorce case.

So, are you trying to stay honest with your ex?