When Best Friend Becomes Enemy No.1

“You’re joking!” you say in sheer disbelief, as your partner of a decade or more announces they’re walking out. Of course, many of us have been in this situation; even worse when it’s involved cheating or it comes right out of the blue—or both!

Nothing can prepare a person for something like this barring the sort of approach to grief that you can only really learn as a consequence to a life event such as this.

And even having said that, many people do not learn that the purpose of this sort of event (for those unfortunate to suffer same) is to resist the devil’s overtures to mark the unrequited partner as enemy No. 1.

This is a hard word for many, but I don’t apologise for stating it in this way. I found out via my own personal experience, in resting on God’s promises and in his strength, that he helps us to never lose our companionable love for our former partners. Today, like always, my former wife and I are on friendly terms. There’s trust there based on mutual respect. And the children have been blessed because of it.

The divisiveness of separations causes unnecessary enemies for a great many reasons. But think of the consequences. Most of the time children, and certainly other family, are involved. Anyone drawn into the torpor of love to the hating of otherwise loved persons is affected and it’s never positive.

Some thought-space things that we should try to be aware of are:

è Try not to polarise into your own world. This can feel like it is almost impossible, particularly in the rawness of the moments/months after, but it pays to keep a balanced view of life as far as possible—as far as it depends on you.

è When we suffer it always pays to open our eyes wider to the suffering world in general. Our suffering can actually be a blessing in disguise as we start to understand how fortunate we really are (in the light of others’ plights).

è Love gone wrong twists us and torments us emotionally, mentally, and even eventually, physically (the results of poor sleep, for instance). Now is the time to go easy on ourselves; back off the pressure. Nothing is that important that it must be done now.

è Remember others and your behavioural impact on them. For instance, there are so many screwed up (adult) children in the world because their divorced parents nurtured a vociferous hate toward each other. I don’t say this to condemn these parents; it’s merely a fact. People in these circumstances can always do things to improve their situations, yes, even now; it merely propounds that prevention is far superior to cure.

Our former partners ought to never become the enemy. When we do this only negative impacts can occur, both personally and in all our other related relationships.

Break-ups are our opportunity to shine the God-light into a world that expects us to fight dirty back. If we resist this temptation, we and others affected will only be blessed—even beyond our own conception of what might be possible.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.