When It's Time to Just Let Go

It's safe to say we've all had our good relationships and our bad ones. We learn from them, and we try to better ourselves for the next one....at least some of us do. When we keep failing at relationships over and over again have we ever considered that maybe the problem is us, and not the other person?

Well let me tell you about my good old friend Arnold. A nice guy in his early 30's, steady job, overall nothing to complain about. But the one thing was, Arnold didn’t have the best track record with women –at least not after his break up with his high school sweetheart. He had no wife, no kids, no girlfriend, not really anyone. He was getting a bit impatient in finding his life partner and wasn't having much luck. He tried hitting the bars, online dating, he tried pretty much everything and nothing seemed to work.

Then one day, when he least expected, along came Margaret who he met on Facebook. He found her attractive even though she was a bit older than him. What began as an innocent chat on Facebook soon led to an exchange in cell phone numbers to then officially meeting in person and eventually sleeping together. Arnold felt a real connection with her but later found out Margaret was married and had a son. Every other person would have walked away in an instant, but by the time Arnold found out all this, he was already too emotionally involved.

The problem was that Arnold met Margaret at a weak point in her life. She was having marital problems and was in need of “comfort”. When Margaret needed someone to talk to, Arnold was there for her. When she needed a favor because she couldn’t depend on her husband, he was there for her. When the husband wasn’t around to be a father to his son, Arnold was there for that too. But the moment things were fine with her and her husband, she would drop Arnold in a second. Not only that, she prohibited him from contacting her so her husband wouldn’t suspect.

Eventually the day came when Margaret told Arnold that he needed to completely disappear from the picture. She noticed her husband wanted to work on their marriage so she decided to focus on fixing things permanently with him and in order for that to happen she would have to cut the cord with Arnold for good. As if he never came into her life, as if he no longer existed. This was crushing to him because he had invested so much time in trying to get her to fall in love with him. But even though Margaret made it very clear she could never see or speak to him ever again, Arnold put it in his mind that he wasn't going to give up on Margaret. He was going to keep trying to make her fall in love with him. He wasn't ready to let her go. He was determined to go after her and make her his. This is the point where I knew Arnold had become obsessed. It's true what they say, sometimes if you love someone or something so much, you should just let them go. But Arnold couldn't. He would continue to contact her even though she was completely ignoring him. He even began to show up at her job to try and see her. That's when things turned for the worst.

She warned him to never show up again because she could get in a lot of trouble at work. She reiterated to him that she was a happily married woman and he was to leave her alone and move on. So what did he do? He would start following her in his car and would leave love letters on the windshield of her car!

At this point he was crossing the line. Wasn't it clear to him that she wanted nothing to do with him? No matter what anyone said to him, he was convinced that he could get her. He would think to himself - "one day she will have a change of heart", and “she'll come to her senses” and "she will see that I am the real deal". And guess what? She never did. This toxic cycle just kept repeating itself for almost 2 years! So you want to know how he was finally able to let her go? It took him eventually meeting a new girl at work to do so, but the sad part is, history was about to repeat itself...

To be continued...