Relationship Advice: Taking a Break

by Anonymous

Reader Post on Taking a Break: 'The best relationship advice I ever received came from an unlikely source: an episode of 'Sex and the City'. The girls discussed problematic relationships and wondered if you sometimes had to get some distance in order to get close. The answer they decided on was 'yes'!

It made me think of my own relationship and some challenges my boyfriend and I were experiencing. Serious challenges. We were hurting each other and losing our respect for each other because we were fighting all the time. In hindsight, we were both stressed to the max from working demanding jobs, and we were taking our discontent out on each other. Not good!

I wondered if taking a break would help. If a little space could be a helpful thing.

I was very scared to suggest it. What if we didn't miss each other? What if we couldn't find our way back to each other? What if he decided he wanted to move on?

As angry as I was and as disconnected as I felt from him, I didn't want 'us' to end. I wasn't ready to give up.

The amazing thing is I found that exactly the opposite was true. As soon as I moved out, I started missing him like crazy. All the fights we used to have seemed so insignificant. And best of all, he felt the same. Suddenly he texted me all the time and even sent flowers. That was a first!

It was almost like we re-created the romance that we had when we first fell in love.

Sometimes you have to take drastic measures to make things better. Taking a break was definitely in our best interest. We decided that we'd use it as a tool in future too. Not as in moving out, but just mini-breaks to give each other space. A weekend fishing with his friends for him, or a workshop in a different city for me does the trick.

I learnt that a break is not the same as a break-up. It can be a very good thing. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder.'

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