Letter - When a popular radio station raised the topic about whether it was possible to still be friendly with your ex-partner, I thought the topic would be a catalyst for constructive debate and to hear opinions from a wider spectrum.
For me personally, the melancholic jousting began as memories from a Pleistocene era bivouacked in my mind.
We were high school sweethearts in the summer of 1982, young teenagers in the throes of our first journey into passion.
We grew up in the Grease genre, playing out the Danny and Sandy roles with a fierceness that defied all reason and singing Hopelessly Devoted To You and giving it a real new meaning.
Seven years later, the bubble burst.
An unplanned pregnancy, forced marriage and the strains of conjugal responsibilities and parenthood prompted me to succumb to my desire to throw in the towel and walk away like a coward for an insouciant lifestyle with friends.
And so we went our own ways, in search of our own happiness.
I bear no malice against my ex and we have shared an amicable relationship ever since.
But like the Hollies’ song, it has been a “long and winding road” and, every now and then when I look back, the pangs of remembered guilt continue to haunt me.
Many divorced couples are still parochial and inwardly focused.
We all live in a hurting world, searching for hope and love.
Many fall into a chasm of disillusionment and resentment, self-flagellation and their own self-imposed status of exile becomes a perpetual shadow.
Both ex-spouses are often guilty of Schadenfreude, like hens after corn, pecking for information.
Propelled by bouts of ambivalence, many extemporise on the basis of whim, the chatter of others.
The cloud of pettiness and jealousy hovers like a toxic miasma, polluting people’s lives.
It is a component of human complexities that we think and we out-think. We take sustenance from our manipulations.
We swell with pride with every progressive move in the human chess game - where every move can have terrible consequences for someone else - because we believe in something.
In the end, it all becomes narcotic and the siren’s songs are really appealing to our egos.
Many people who have suffered grave hurt will not agree with me.
Ex-partners should have respect and at least be on talking terms rather than being obdurately immured.
We should throw aside the “I don’t swim in your toilet, you don’t pee in my pool” mentality.
Don’t waste your entire life poisoning the well because some one has run off with your bucket!
At this time, I am reminded of these beautiful words: “Some would rather gather roses without thorns, a bright and beautiful bouquet to decorate their world with pretty pleasures.
“The brambles and the briers, they throw away. But you must pick the thorns as well, though they’ll pierce your heart and sting your soul.
Remember, pain is a part of peace and breaking is a part of being whole.”
POST