Break-ups and make-ups

When two people decide that they want to spend the rest of their lives together, usually there is no way the rest of you who claim to be their friends are going to change that. Maybe they are just going to live together without getting married, maybe they are not right for one another, maybe the sky is falling. The point is, by the time they come to tell you, it is meant to be a way of notifying you, not asking for your opinion.

There is a myriad of reasons why any two people would fall for each other. There are countless reasons why they break up too. Their friends always seem to feel that they owe them an explanation when things go wrong. The friends seem to forget that these two consenting adults made a decision and that whatever they let the world see was just that, for the look. Everyone knows that it is a tough call being in a relationship. It takes guts to get stuck to one person who is so unique in a uniqueness that only God can understand.

So what if one partner went and pulled the carpet from under the other’s feet? That is what we see. These two are the best of friends and the rest of us are just observers brought in when the two think they want to get a second opinion, an opinion that they seldom take anyway. We do not know the inner dynamics of this show and to them; the world of their friends is a stage on which puppets do their thing.

When friends break up, there is the urge to blame. It is so strong because we think we know them so well and we should have been consulted before they made their decision. We however don’t want to remind ourselves that we were not there when they met. In fact, in some cases, when they met, we were aghast. How could you fall for him, what do you see in him? The experts in us were very up in arms.

Someone has to take the blame. A head must roll. So we get out our knives and start looking for the nearest back. All the nice things that we said about them to their face are gone forever. I-told-you-so becomes so easy to say to say. Both of them are your friends but at that moment, all the friends are divided into warring camps that are rearing to go. They must taste blood.

Where do friends get off crucifying one person when they have not been in the relationship? That someone waited until one month to the kuhingira before she said she did not think it was a good idea is our business only as far as they let it be. As friends, I understand the whole routine about accountability and why your real friends should read you the riot act when they think you messed up bad. But isn’t breaking up with the love of your life enough grief? What pushes a person to abandon a match made in heaven? I don’t know. And I cannot accuse anyone until I know exactly what that person was going through.

People make mistakes. Sometimes you believe in something so much, you are ready to take it even with all its faults. When you love, you accept the other person’s faults. The mistake some of us make is to think that we are going to change that person. The marriages are countless where the core of the problems, under all the drinking, the philandering and the fights is that they thought they would change each other.

But it should be a victory when one opts out before things get too far. What is the point of sticking with a person among whose many attributes there are things you will never change. That is the way his God made him and if he does not show signs of change during courtship, probably he’s not your man. His real woman is somewhere else waiting patiently. Wise thing for you is to get out. Wise thing for us the friends is to shut up and support you both.