Lets look at this breakup thing focusing on the understanding of the great writer, Proust.



?In a separation it is the one who is not really in love who says the more tender things,? Proust wrote. This is something to keep in mind, if the two of you are still trying to get back together again. The one who is the most in love (or just as much in love) is likely to be silent. Don't misinterpret silence for not caring. The depth of their feelings may mean they can't get the words out

If he's been unfaithful, it does not mean he does not love you. ?A woman one loves rarely suffices for all our needs,? Proust wrote, ?so we deceive her with another whom we do not love.? Whether or not you can forgive this is up to you. But he's right when he tells you he didn't love the other woman. They usually don't. I've worked with women where they suffer through this part and then he comes back. It is possible to work it out.

Concerning the time when one of the other of you is feeling, ?What was I thinking?? Proust said, ?All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last.? That's why love is a commitment, and a series of actions, rather than a feeling.

We fall in love from a place that does not involve reason. Sometimes it's good to act on it, sometimes not. ?Like everybody who is not in love,? Proust wrote, ?he thought one chose the person to be loved after endless deliberation and on the basis of particular qualities or advantages.? When we are having love problems, we tend to start tossing around for negative ?particular qualities? and ?[dis]advantages? as excuses. But that's not what this is about.

If you are thinking about fessing up to something, think again. I believe, along with Proust, that ?Lies are essential to humanity.? They are, he said, ?perhaps as important as the pursuit of pleasure and moreover are dictated by that pursuit.? Don't get me wrong. If he's lying about what he had for lunch, and you can never get a straight answer out of him, and you find yourself mistrusting him and questioning him all the time, you should pick up on this real soon and get out.

And I'm not one for advocating affairs, but if he does and then comes back and drops it all on you because of his guilt trip, there's something wrong with him.

Now in this breakup discussion, if you're dealing with a brainiac, hang on for the ride. ?Like many intellectuals,? Proust wrote, ?he was incapable of saying a simple thing in a simple way.? For a thinking man, there are lots of things he will have to go over in his mind. He puts a of thought into what he says. You may even get quotes like these. That's OK. That's why you loved him in the first place.

If it ends there will be suffering. Go through it, don't go around it, so you can heal. And you have to do it mostly by yourself, for yourself. (Of course we forgive for our own benefit.) ?Those whose suffering is due to love are, as we say of certain invalids, their own physicians,? wrote Proust, and ?We are healed from suffering only by experiencing it to the full.? Every healer knows this.

You may find yourself turning to great art. That's what it's for. Proust seemed to prefer art for this. I guess he was visual. (He said it was the only way we could learn to see things the way another person sees them, and why I include it in my emotional intelligence course.) Many turn to music. Listen to the great suffering music, ?Time to Say Goodbye,? by Andrea Bocelli, ?Hymne a l'Amour? or ?Mon Dieu? by Edith Piaf. Anything by Rachmaninoff and nearly anything by Tchaikovsky. And when you want a kick in the butt (which you always need to keep going), get with Beethoven.

Great books of course help, half of which have been written because of love, about love, or love gone bad. Therein you will find things you need to know for, Proust writes, when reading a book, ?every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.?

When the time comes to move on again, which is a personal thing, no one is rating you on this, remember that happiness is a moveable feast (?Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible?). Remember that suffering, done right serves its purpose ? ?Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.?

The converse is true as well. Know that grief and suffering wreak havoc on the body, because emotions are directly related to the immune system. Take supplements, get your exercise and eat right ? even if you can't remember why just now.

One thing our losses teach us is to appreciate it when we're cruising. ?The only paradise is paradise lost,? wrote Proust, ?and let us be grateful to people who make us happy. They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.?

Someone else will come along for love to happen for you, unless you fail to do the work of grieving and shut down permanently. It's always a choice to become bitter and brittle. It's a smart choice, an emotionally intelligent choice, to take whatever lesson there is from it, and then move on, ready to love and be loved again. ?In theory,? Proust writes, ?one is aware that the earth revolves, but in practice one does not perceive it. The ground on which one treads seems not to move, and one can live undisturbed. So it is with Time in one's life.? And so it is with Love. Nothing we say about it makes sense, and what we ?know? intellectually, does not effect how we ?feel? emotionally.

Get through it, grow through it. Don't forget the last part. Get ready to love again and be loved again.

And hope you find a man like Proust. ?Let us leave pretty women to men devoid of imagination,? he wrote.