Reviving A Dying Relationship

Two days ago, I had a long chat with a friend I haven't seen (and heard of) for a long time. Chat at this time and age do not mean sitting down and talk face to face (of course, some do it with a camera), but sitting and typing our hearts away. What started as a "hi-hello" , ended with thoughts about long lost loves and coping with the stressful search for sweethearts.

So X (he doesn't want me to mention his name) has been "separated" from his wife, four months after their wedding to work in the US. He is processing his papers, but since this takes time, he continues to do his work in the the Philippines. (A background: x was a school mate in the university, he used to date one of the girls from my class but nothing came out of that for reasons I do not know.) After a year and half of waiting for his papers and intermittently meeting his wife, he decided to call it quits. He said he got "tired".

I probed further on the matter, because you can't say get the hell out of my life to someone for nothing. He was evasive to the point that he was irritated by my questions. In the end, I said my good luck and wished him happiness.

I really don't understand relationships. I know that success in a relationship depends on a lot of things. Mostly it would be on a case to case basis, but the general ingredients should be there: love, trust and the willful desire to make things work out.

My "friend" must have his reasons and he must have NOT seen what he had. Probably it wasn't love at all. Probably it was something else. I have seen people get married for convenience, and I have seen people wrap their hearts in iron cages for the sake of those conveniences.

But that is beside the point. For someone like me who spends a lot of time away from people, including my family, I have yet to learn how to revive a dying relationship and let go when the moment comes. As a doctor, we were taught how to rescucitate the dying -- and when you see the point of no return -- you just have know when to stop. It is a tricky thing for a lot (including me) to hold on to long term relationships HOPING that it might come alive, long after everyone realized that what you are having is buried six feet under. We tend to rationalize, then bargain but most of us never come to accepting the fact that something is supposed to be over.

Love can be forever... and I am so happy for those people who have found themselves in love with the same person. But the recent roll of events has made me question the aspects of love and being in love. I am not cynical. I am a realist. It would certainly hurt the living shit of me should I fall out of a relationship, but that it is life and I have to move on.

Maybe when I find the answer to these I can have a more sturdy look on love and relationships... Maybe it would be the end to queries about mid-life love- panic attacks. And maybe then I could give my "friend" a better advice.