I work a lot on practicing the advice I give to people, because there are some things that are just harder for me to follow through on. I started, ages ago, based on something I saw on an episode of How I Met Your Mother, writing a letter to myself at the end of a relationship, reminding myself why the relationship ended, what lead up to it, the things I did wrong and needed to change, the things the other person contributed to that would need to change, else the situation would never get better. I would do this in case I ran into this person down the line and thought they'd changed and thought it may work again... I could go back and remind myself, "This is why it ended. Are you seeing these things still there?"
Unfortunately for me, I sorta stopped getting in the habit of doing this. I still bring it up as a suggestion in discussions as something that might be positive to do, especially for when you're vulnerable and think it really may be different this time... but I've found myself writing letters less and less. And what's even more unfortunate is that it took a negative situation in my life, in which a letter would've REALLY helped me avoid a lot of hurt, to remind myself that, "Hey... that really is a pretty good idea."
When it comes to ending a relationship, you hear all of us preach all the time about owning your shit, and this letter is no different. Writing from an emotional place where you blame EVERYTHING on the other person is going to get you nowhere... but taking a calm approach to it and being able to outline things like, "This was my first poly relationship and I had jealousy issues. Perhaps poly isn't for me, but to know for sure, this is definitely something I need to work on." This will help with your own self-improvement as well. The letter shouldn't serve as a way to vent about the other person, or to bash them (even though the only person that should see it is you)... bashing your ex never gets you anywhere productive. But the letter should serve as a reminder: These are the areas I needed to grow in for this to work; these are the areas they needed to grow in for this to work. That way, if you're ever faced with this opportunity again, you can sit down and ask yourself, "Have I grown through my jealousy issues, or is it still going to be a problem? Have they gotten better with their time management between their submissives, or am I just going to feel neglected again?" It allows you to objectively look at the situation, as opposed to getting caught up in the emotions of the moment and that temporary optimism of believing that everyone can inherently become the perfect version of themselves, if given enough time to discover it.
Because trust me... being caught up in the emotions and allowing yourself to do something that you later regret... can be more detrimental than the initial relationship ending was in the first place.
I know I'm pledging to go back and write myself letters... and to keep up the practice of doing so. Because at this point, with the mistakes I made up to this point, I can't blame anyone but myself to allowing myself to get put back into the same situation I was in years ago. I didn't look at it objectively... I looked at it emotionally. And maybe if I had that letter staring me in the face, I could've been shocked into objectivity.
Sorry I haven't blogged for awhile. I've kinda neglected my own blogs too. It's been an interesting time in RL and in SL, but things are slowing down again and falling back into rhythm. I should try to be back more consistently soon.
In service and in spirit,
tivi
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