Ex-communication

By Adam Kuhn
Posted Friday, July 20, 2007

Recently, I decided it would be a good idea to get in touch with an old flame. This flame hasn’t burned, or so much as been poked with a stick, in years. He is now states away and very comfortable in a long-term relationship with someone who bears an almost eerie resemblance to me. Why did I feel the need to contact him? Who knows? Maybe it was my subconscious method of proving to myself that I'm finally over him.

Our break-up was nasty. During the few weeks after, before our wounds had healed enough to handle the thought of each other, we tried the ‘friends’ thing. What a disaster. By thinking we could move forward, all we did was continue to hurt each other. We have no contact with each other today, and I still wonder if it’s because we spoiled it so long ago.

Break-ups are awful, no matter how you slice it. Sometimes, one hurts more than the other, but regardless, both suffer a loss. There’s a trick to getting through the aftermath though; a trick that allows both to salvage at least casual contact, if not a lasting friendship, after the bombs have fallen.

I never understood how people did it. Some people I know remain friends with all of their exes. They have a strong, long-lasting love, followed by a break-up, and then are able to put their heartache and painful memories aside and share a genuine, friendly bond; whereas I, on the other hand, could teach a class on burning bridges.

To this day, I only remain friends with one ex, if one could even call him that. We dated for about a week, decided we weren’t really compatible, and now go out to the clubs every few weekends to have fun and catch up on each others’ drama. The others I haven’t seen or thought of in a very long time. I could never understand how people were so ready to forget about how they were hurt by someone, and then actually bring themselves to still have those hurtful people in their lives.

If he cheated on you, essentially telling you that you’re not good enough for him, or if he suddenly became distant, hinting that he wasn’t comfortable with his heart in your hands, is that really someone you want to keep around? Do you really want to hang out with a constant reminder of ‘what went wrong’? Or is it wrong to hold that kind of grudge? Is possible to forgive someone for breaking your heart?

I’ve developed a theory behind my behavior when it comes to exes, and concluded that my conduct is learned from my mother. Several years ago, my parents closed the books on what was a drawn-out, painful, bitter divorce. After 20 years together, raising two children, my parents went through the worst break-up I had ever seen.

While constantly being pulled from one side to the other, and hearing both sides of the story, I decided that my mother, for whatever reason, seemed stronger and more collected, even though she suffered more heartache. Respectively, both of my parents had their flaws, but through this, it seemed like my mother was displaying a much more admirable ‘cut your losses and move on’ attitude.

The young and impressionable teenager that I was, I grew to respect this and tried to emulate her behavior in my break-up. After all, my heart had just been broken, too. It was probably this attitude that spoiled my possible friendship with my ex. Whenever we would talk, I would catch myself inadvertently slipping in little remarks suggesting the break-up was his fault. I would bring up flaws he had that I thought ultimately brought our relationship to hell. Little did I know, I was only pushing him further away.

I thought I was being strong and resilient like my mother. All I was doing was making things worse, and making myself look more like a fool. It’s no wonder why I didn’t get that enthusiastic of a response when I tried contacting him a few days ago.

I now understand, to a much more thorough degree, that holding a grudge is a horrible thing to do to someone. My mother, in her strength and grace, has essentially eliminated almost everyone in her life that’s ever had a shred of care for her, including her sisters and her children. She now lives alone, in the house we once all shared, having only her heartache and sorrow as company. Is this where I was headed?

Last year, with the help of several very strong beverages served on the rocks, I developed a New Years’ resolution to contact all of my exes. Why? All I can say is, “The drinks made me do it.” I prepared little typed notes to each of them and planned to send them on the first of the New Year over whatever online resource I could use to reach them. They were simple messages, most of them simply expressing “Hey, what’s up?” and “What have you been doing these past eight thousand years?” In truth, I think they were less designed to say hi, and more designed to find out how my exes felt about me based on their response… or lack thereof.

The next morning, I deleted the messages and never thought of them again. I don’t know what I was thinking. Was I doing a service to my conscience by letting go of old feelings, or was I throwing myself to the wolves and opening myself up for attack… again? I was much too confused to do something as definitive as sending out these messages. The ex that I recently contacted, I find, still wants nothing to do with me.

Was this ‘ex-communication’ a good move to undo the excommunication I had done to these people years ago? Could anything worth wild even come of it? It was too scary to think about. After all, what did I really expect to happen from reviving these old contacts? Did I really even want anything to do with these people anyway?

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