This is why you can't get your ex to fall in love with you again

So someone commented on a blog post I wrote a while ago and suggested I watch their videoblog on how to get my ex back. They wrote this in response to the blog post titled "When I got dumped". I thought it was peculiar that they would suggest that & I read that blog post again to see if somewhere it sounded like I wanted to get back together with my ex. But I guess generally if someone you love you stops loving you, you would resolve to try and get them back?!

When the person you love stops loving you, your first instinct is to think that something is wrong with you, that you must have done something for this to happen. Because you want to rationalize it in your brain, have physical evidence of what it was that flipped their switch, to go from loving you one minute & thinking they want to spend the rest of their life with you to you being a stranger to them, and possibly even being repelled by you. You wonder if maybe you are not pretty enough, smart enough for them, aren't funny enough, or maybe you're just a boring person. And your mind keeps  going over all the possible reasons of why this person has stopped loving you. You just don't understand. And I guess some of us will even actively try to get them back, try to win them over again, try to get them to remember maybe that they love you.

But the honest truth is, there's probably little you can do to convince someone to love you again after they just don't anymore. Because love is there, until it's not. And you will understand this once you stop loving someone who still loved you, once YOU BREAK SOMEONE ELSE'S heart. It will all suddenly make sense because you will understand how little the process had to do with you. That you could have rocked up the next day looking like Halle Berry and they still wouldn't love you because the switch went off, just like it went off with you. Like you know that if that ex boyfriend of yours came back a billionaire that looked like Terrence J, you would still tell them that you just don't love them anymore because you just don't. People really do just outgrow each other at times. Or there will just be this one thing that you can't put your finger on of why this person just isn't the one. In any case, love isn't always rational or reasonable now is it?!

And as much as it will suck having to break someone else's heart, you will feel so liberated when you finally understand what it was that your ex went through when they left you. When you get that physical evidence that your mind needed to rationalize everything. It can have everything to do with you or absolutely nothing to do with you.

That's not to say that people don't get back together, of course they do. Some people are even stuck in a pattern of break-ups and make-ups but those people generally both still loved each other, I would think. 

If someone has stopped loving you, just let them go. Someone else WILL love you again. If you've broken someone else's heart you will know that guilt you feel when you speak to this person and they want to get back together & you have nothing new to tell them except that you don't want to be with them. You will try to be nice about it, and say it in the kindest of words of why you don't want them. You might even lie because you are so wrecked with guilt at how you ruined someone else's life. Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself if you would want someone to put you through that?! 

Envy: The art of counting another person's blessings instead of your own

It's a rather difficult thing to do at times, not to envy someone else for what they've got. Because you look at them and they seem to really have it together you know, probably have the next to perfect life that you dream about and you wonder why it's not happening for you. You think to yourself how they have this perfect boyfriend or husband who buys them a Mercedes for their birthday and buys them flowers every other day and tells them they look cute all the time and...they generally just look like they have their shit together. But the operative word here is "LOOK"...because you're on the outside looking in, you don't get to see the behind-the-scenes of Instagram and Facebook pictures, nobody twitpics those. Nobody posts about the real deal that goes into making relationships work or marriages work. And I'm not talking about the generic answers here of how to snag a man, I mean the real things like forgiveness, compromise and how sometimes the person you love can hurt you in ways you couldn't imagine. 

Me and my mom have gotten to that age in our relationship where we talk about pretty much everything and every now and again she will remind me that "Ungabo yihhalela into yomuntu" which roughly translates to "Don't yearn for what another person has..." We are usually discussing relationships though when this crops up. It's happened more times than I can mention when a couple who seemed near perfect suddenly loses it all and we're shocked because from the outside everything looked like heaven. So I have always understood it as her reminding me to be present in my own life and appreciate the good things about it, always. You will always fall short if you compare yourself or situation to another person. I'm not saying it's not good to aspire to the goodness you see in others but you must always remember that just as much as you are envying someone else, someone else is envying you and wishing they had what you had. So why count the blessings of another person instead of your own? It's an insult to yourself actually....

Another important thing I have learned is that we are all on different journeys in this life. I would hate to think there is some template we should follow for our lives. How boring would that be?! 

A simple illustration of this always came up with my own mother. I got an opportunity to study abroad for six months and I would be complaining to my mom on the phone at times how I desperately wanted to come home and she would laugh at me because she would remind me how so many people wished they were me, in Switzerland, doing what I do. And that would always put things in perspective for me. Perspective is everything. 

I mean, it's not a competition. If you make it one, you will see yourself as losing when good things happen to other people and that will lead to envy and hate etc. You will be incapable of being happy for that person. Don't get me wrong, it's good to want good things for yourself and see qualities in other people that you aspire to, but be careful not to compare and contrast and sink yourself into a deep depression in the process. 

And also, don't be this guy LOL 

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned.

So this blog post was inspired by something that recently happened to a friend of mine. An ex girlfriend of her current boyfriend sent her an email saying she must be careful of her man coz he was going to unleash a world of hurt onto her. It really got me thinking about what would possess someone to do such a thing. How would what they did not be interpreted as just someone who is bitter,trying to cause trouble?! What I'm struggling with, more than anything, is that well, why would they feel the need to take it upon themselves to caution someone, a stranger, to not date somebody? I mean, from every angle I look at it, I don't get it. We've all had our fair share of exes that we think were completely crazy coz of the messed up things they did or because they turned out to be horrible human beings but I have never felt the need to caution who ever dates them next that hey, that man is crazy, he is a liar and he is an all-round bad person. Does this make me a bad person? That I don't care about a stranger?

Firstly, my reasoning is that it's possible that I brought out the crazy in that person, lawd knows there are people out there that have brought out not such good things out of me, just like some people are capable of bringing out the best in me. Another thing is that, maybe, just maybe that person has changed, maybe they found Jesus after realizing it's not right to mess up other kids lives. So who am I to deny that person another chance at being happy? Especially if nobody asked me. Even if that persons girlfriend did ask me, I doubt I would be like they suck, stay away from them, just because I want nothing to do with them. 
So why do some people feel the need to perform this public service? What are they hoping to achieve? That that person wises up and takes their advice and writes them a thank you letter? What exactly?!

Every relationship between two people is unique, unique in its badness and unique in its goodness. No one can presume to understand a couples brand of insanity, as hard as you might try looking from the outside. You can judge, point fingers, give unsolicited or solicited advice but you can never predict the outcome unless you are in it. How many times have you given a friend advice on their relationship and watched them do the exact opposite?! Or say things like how you would never stand for what is happening in their relationship yet your friend is still there, in it, because frankly you don't know what their heart and mind signed up for when they started dating that person. So who on earth would listen to a strangers UNSOLICITED advice?!

I don't know, maybe I'm the crazy person, but I don't imagine anything good can come out of it without you looking like a crazy, bitter ex who can't get over stuff. Even if you are right about all the things you say, my honest advice is save it, coz nobody cares.