Holding On To A Dead Relationship: Love Or Arrogance?

A youth from West Bengal recently sat on a dharna outside his girlfriend’s house, after she broke off her relationship with him. Shockingly, it ended in him getting married to the said girl. India Times has reported that when his girlfriend of eight years stopped taking his calls and blocked him on WhatsApp and other social media sites, he sat on a fast outside her house, holding a placard which read “Give me eight years back.” As the families from both sides got involved, the girl was married off to her boyfriend quickly. But who is to say that she is happy with this alliance?

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• A youth in West Bengal sat on a dharna outside his girlfriend's house after she dumped him.
• It is difficult to move on from a relationship, especially if it wasn't you who broke it off.
• But is it love which makes it difficult for us to accept rejection or arrogance?
• Relationships aren’t about holding on to the one you love, no matter if they want to be let go.

This isn’t the first time one has heard of pestering exes who don’t understand when to pull the plug on a dead relationship. It is hard to move on after a break up, especially if it isn’t you who broke things off.

While there is no way of knowing whether the girl broke off things with him under parental pressure or because things were not working out for her, this seems like a case of a bruised ego refusing to take rejection. But this isn’t the first time one has heard of pestering exes who don’t understand when to pull the plug on a dead relationship. It is hard to move on after a break up, especially if it isn’t you who broke things off. It isn’t just about a broken heart, is it? It is about your love and affection being tossed out of the window. All the work that you put in to make things work was for nothing, or so it seems. So, invested are we in certain relationships that we just don’t want to move out of them, simply because we have put in a lot of effort. We don’t know what else could we have done better? Does that mean that we are doomed to fail in love for the lifetime?

Hardly! Relationships aren’t about holding on to the one you love, no matter if they want to be let go. They are about making an effort, basking in the bliss that love and attraction brings, and walking away when that initial bliss wears off and there is nothing left to hold you together. It is not love which makes someone go on a dharna or spam your ex’s inbox with messages and threats. It is arrogance and entitlement. Such people feel that they deserve love, because gave love. They feel they have earned companionship because they have done whatever they could to make their partner happy. But alas! That is not how love works. That is not how relationships sustain.

It is not love which makes someone go on a dharna or spam your ex’s inbox with messages and threats. It is arrogance and entitlement.

Besides, forcing someone to marry you doesn’t guarantee a happy ending for your relationship. There is a lifetime of adjustments which awaits you, with a partner who resents you for forcing an alliance on them. The very thought should send a discouraging shudder down one’s spine. And yet, we see youths threatening to take life, creating a ruckus and pulling off stunts to “win” back their exes. Perhaps this has got do to something with the way we are brought up believing in happy endings, which mostly talk about marrying the love of your life. We do not talk about what happens to relationships after that happy ending, and this has bereaved men and women in this society of a foresight. They have no idea what they are getting into.

So before you embark on the very filmi journey to “win” back your ex, ask yourself why do you want them back in your life? Why have they moved on, but you haven’t? And where does all this begging and threatening leave you in your own eyes?

There is much more to love than arrogance. There is much more to relationships than rejection. Stand up, dust yourself and fall for someone else. The happily ever after may never come, but happiness will, if you are with a person who wants to be with you.

Picture Credit: lovelivehealth.com

Also Read: Why You Should Reconnect With Old Friends Offline

Yamini Pustake Bhalerao is a writer with the SheThePeople team, in the Opinions section. The views expressed are the author’s own.