Break up and shut up!

Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston’s divorce is old news so six years since the break up, the marriage should not be spoken of unfavorably. This week in entertainment news, Brad Pitt succumbed to media pressure to spill the beans on his split with Jennifer Aniston in an exclusive interview with Parade magazine. The beans left a bitter taste in the mouths of gossip consumers globally. He cheated, and then justified his actions by bad-mouthing the victim. 

Aniston commented after the split that Pitt was missing a ‘sensitivity chip,’ and it seems she was right (even though it was wrong to bad mouth, she had a bit more right considering he cheated).

I’ve never believed that following a break up you can become good friends with each other; that is too painful and too murky. Sure enough, this interview should do the trick to end Brad’s faux friendship with the former Friends star.

I’ve heard many stories in my short life on why old wounds can never heal with the presence of an ex. 

Firstly, it makes it very difficult to see what’s next if you’re still friends with an ex. 

I know of one instance where a break up was over and a man returned to a friend to tell her that she was still the greatest catch he’d ever come across. Of that he was sure. 

I say, if you can’t catch the catch, then simply don’t play ball. After breaking her heart, he returned many unattached times to reminisce on the good times he had but never with a promise of return or an apology. He never accepted his part in the break up or the pain and remained a painful existence instead.  His presence was toxic, agonizing and stifled her growth. While it served his ego and killed his conscience, his relationship back-tracking was a waste of both of their times and emotions. It’s called a break up because it’s broken. At that point, if it’s not marriage, you step away. If it is marriage, you fight for it, not comment on how “dull” it was for you (ala Brad Pitt). I was once told if you ever feel bored in the place that you are, then the only boring person within that place is you. I’m a big believer in making light of most situations, having fun wherever I go and leaving everything I touch with the knowledge that I did everything I could to maximize that situation. Living like that means living without regrets and for me, that’s the only option in life. 

When my friend’s ex would later speak of the break up he would speak about her inability to complete him, not his inability to keep her. Perhaps the better thing to have said or concluded would just be that they were simply incompatible, that it was a relationship with some good but not enough to sustain a relationship for life.

There was another instance that I was close to in which it took four years for another lovelorn girl to recover from the salacious lies that her ex had spread. It was four years before they could even look at each other. Four years before he admitted his flaws to others but at that point, the gossip was spread, the damage was irreparable and the memory of what they almost had would always be tainted because of the dishonorable way it ended. 

It should be a general rule that when love ends, conversations about it should too. Of course both parties should be allowed the acceptable grieving period where they go through the motions of healing. 

Take time to get over the shock of the split, come to terms with the fact that you’ll no longer be together, don’t adopt denial in the belief that seeing each other might reignite old feelings. When you realize it’s over, find an outlet for your anger, and rise from the depression by looking optimistically at the happiness that may later come. Once you accept that, you’ll quickly notice the men/women out there ready to make you smile again. 

An ex serves a great purpose to shape the person you become. Through the experience you learn what you do and don’t want in a person. You learn about the greatness of receiving love, and you perfect your ability to give it because of the raised standards that you have for yourself at the end of it.

It is no great service to society for you to stop somebody else from finding love because it didn’t work out with you. Your trash may be someone else’s treasure and no matter the heartbreak, the pain or the time it takes to heal, you at least have the lessons to treasure and a better you to show for it. 

Everybody deserves somebody and you’d hate to be responsible for someone else's loneliness.

Weiner and Woods get women wondering about love.

This week, Congressman Anthony Weiner’s private life was exposed because his private parts were exposed to women other than his wife. The Weiner’s and the Wood’s (Tiger that is) have something in common, where balls are involved, games will be played and the first ladies are put second to the lustful sport of adultery where little men in powerful positions gamble love for garbage.

It’s no wonder women are constantly losing faith in the male species. I almost did this week until scrolling through my twitter feed. A subscriber of all things loving and romantic, one person I followed tweeted ‘don’t say there are no good men left, say I go to all the same places expecting for the scenery to change and to meet new people,” (I’ve paraphrased but that was more or less the point…and WHAT A POINT IT WAS).  Here I was wondering where Mr.Right was when I was hanging out on Dormant Drive – there would be no volcanic, earth shattering romance here – I had little option but to keep walking, keep searching…anywhere but here.

Then a funny thing happened….Mr.Right-Now came knocking at my door. Now I can say with certainty that he is not right for me, but he is present in my life, this minute. He came…also on Twitter (and yes, it is fall of twats) with another perspective on what it would take for me to give him my heart. He said, ‘an intelligent man opens your mind, a handsome man opens your eyes and a gentleman opens your heart.” How nice I thought. I want a combination of all three.

While he claimed gentility, his words when not attempting to court me suggested otherwise and as I questionned his inability to maintain the myth he'd portrayed, alas, an answer came through Lara Bingle. Also trending on Twitter, she said, ‘women fall in love with what they hear and men fall in love with what they see…that’s why men lie and women wear make-up.” Who knew Bingle could speak with such profundity? Experience educated her – her beauty reeled Cricket Captain Michael Clarke in to love but her scandalous photos and foul play made what was visible less desirable and so Clarke’s sweet-nothings ceased to be whispered, making Bingle single.  

Some couples are able to weather any storm though with Weiner’s wife pregnant in her first trimester, she has (as far as we’ve read) promised to stand by her man, seeking guidance from none other than Hilary Clinton on how to wipe the slate clean. I guess the lesson from Hilary for women is, when your man doesn’t know how to conduct himself in public, keep him private… and then wear his pants.

Edmund Burke (not on Twitter) said “the greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.” These men, clearly unable to prove worthy of their power and abusing it when they have it, need women like Clinton and Beyonce to ‘run the world’ to keep them from misbehaving. Clinton wears the pants and Beyonce doesn’t wear any – perhaps finding a happy medium between the two is the secret to good governance of MANkind.