TheBanyanTree: Crash and Burn

[Red Pepper]

Here I am, catching up as usual... sad news, Rob, and I hope you get 
through okay or it works out.  And by the way, there are lots of women 
(me included), who LOVE LOVE LOVE a man who'll cook dinner and enjoy 
doing it. (I am lucky enough to have one and right now he is cooking us 
spaghetti bolognese).

Rob's post and Sharon's response made me reflect on my one big serious 
bust-up (hopefully the only one - fingers crossed). That was the one 
that led me to The Spoon, so hey - no break-up is completely bad. In 
fact lots of good ended up coming out of that one. But that's another story.

After being treated shabbily by that previous [expletive deleted], and 
looking back with a cringe on my desire to deport myself with strength 
and dignity while putting up with his crap, you know what?  I became a 
lot less tolerant of bulls**t behaviour as a result of that incident. 
And if it ever happened again, I would react quite differently - and 
probably a lot more embarrassingly (for other people) but much less 
inhibited (for me).

I would.......

bawl my eyes out in front of him (instead of in private)
yell at him (instead of trying to be civil and fair)
put his car in the "For Sale" ads in the State advertising rag (just 
because)
throw things around the house (not my things though!)
chop up clothing (his, obviously)
tip pot plants over his head (where possible)
throw all the saucepans onto the kitchen floor, making a big racket that 
the neighbours could hear (he hated people thinking he couldn't handle 
stuff)
put an ad in the paper telling people what a pain in the butt he was, 
and how bad his breath was (well...all true)
tell him what I really thought of his bedroom technique (unfortunately 
also true...what the hell was I worried about?)

etc etc.  In other words, behave completely badly - all in the name of 
the grieving process.  It's so easy to gloss over the not-so-nice bits 
of a relationship while mooning over the good bits, but being selfish is 
very, very cathartic and helps one to move on. Bugger being adult about 
it - be a child and throw a tantrum! 

Well, anyway that's my two cents worth. Getting old enough to embarrass 
my children, even though I don't have any (well none of my womb, anyway)...

Anita
xxxx