The Art of Letting Go

Chapter 3 Dices of Hope and Despair

As humans, we love to gamble and to risk on things. We bet on the lottery or play cards or bingo hoping that we might win and the odds might be in their favor. Sometimes, too risky even joining pyramiding for easy money then one day all that we have invested gone into nothing. We love to risk and gamble because of hope yet most of the time we find ourselves in the end of the process in despair. Worst, some people get addicted in feeding themselves of false hope in gambling and risking until nothing is left in them. Same as after break up, we try to gamble yet again. We try to find solution hoping that our beloved might come back to us and everything will come back the way it used to be.

This is the stage in breakup psychologists call denial and bargaining period. This is the stage of breakup wherein things are not yet sinking in. You are still looking and working for solutions for your relationship to still work. You are still in the period of not giving up and wanting the situation to avert. A period of trying to win back the person and would do and try everything for the person you love to come back.

In my story, this period brought me down on bended knees. I really tried everything just to win her back. I was trying to talk to her and to convince her. I was there when she needs me. I was even in the point to leaving work early just to be with her because she said she needs me. I brought her boxes of chocolates when she was depressed from work. I paid for her dresses when we went shopping because she was stressed out of her family. I even went further of buying her an IPhone which I promised just to win her back. Yes, I was desperate. I was hoping that through the efforts I was doing that I might bring back the old times and aflame the furnace of love that had gone dead cold for her. This is the period where you cannot accept the situation and would move heaven and earth just for that one person to come back. A period where you are hoping and desiring and you feel that you cannot accept defeat and will not accept defeat.

In the murderer type of breakup, there is still the longingness to bring back the person. Both are still longing to work things out. However, in the thief type of breakup, the longingness is one sided. There is no absolutely wrong in trying to work it out again. But it is very seldom that relationship work in this period of time. If the cause/s of your breakup still lingers - like lack of time, incompatibility, infidelity, or suffocated due to over strictness, mistrust and jealousy, being verbally, physically or emotionally abused (Hill, Rubin and Peplau, 1976) – while working on your relationship then your efforts are doomed to fail. Old problems might or will resurface and the ghost of the past might continue to haunt you.

Another, in this trying out stage, if the cause of the breakup is infidelity, then there is a big chance that it might fail. Cheating is always a choice that is consciously done. It is the byproduct of a partner not satisfied with the present partner. Mostly, a person who falls into the temptation of cheating only focuses their emotion in what they are experiencing at the present moment. They find apparent happiness in the one that they give their full attention with. Cheating simply means that you do not really love your partner as he/she is. It is a manifestation that you have not fully accepted his/her flaws as a person. That is why, what you are focusing on is your partner's flaws and mistakes and start to fall out of love for him/her. Then, you met a person who has the missing qualities in your partner that you have been looking for, and then you start to flirt with that person. From there, cheating comes in.

Cheating starts with the mind and not with the heart. It is because if you truly love your partner and accept him/her fully with all his/her flaws, you will never entertain or think of cheating. Cheating comes from an unsatisfied mind of a selfish person. This person is focusing on his/her partner's flaws and not looking for a solution. Well, so to speak he/she finds a solution of dumping the person. Cheaters will always have the tendency to cheat unless there is a change of heart.

However, everybody deserves a second chance but not everyone should be given. Assess the situation even you are in a confused state of mind. Evaluate if the situation is truly worth fighting for. If it is worth fighting for then fight; if it is not, then end it. Giving up is not a sign of being a coward. It is a sign that you are ready to love yourself even more. In my experience, I tried to fight but in trying to win her back, I lost myself. It was then that I assessed the situation and found out that whatever strategy I will imply I can never win her back. It is because she's decided that someone has own her heart already and it was not me.

At this period it's not bad to cast lots the dices of hope and despair. Always remember that this stage is a big gamble that there is no assurance of winning the situation. Triumph in victory but bow down in defeat not because of humiliation but because of self-respect. The real lesson here is not just knowing when to give up but most importantly, KNOWING YOUR REAL WORTH as a person.

Bible Verse of the day:

2 Corinthians 12: 8 – 10

8 Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me,

9 but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me.

10 Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.