Waaaagh!

Relationships can be hard...
There are no roadmaps - no matter what Dr Phil might want you to believe - and the pressures that the world puts on an individual are bad enough without the added pressure of having to take some things through the filter that is a significant other. Every relationship ends... it's just a matter of time and circumstance... and people who let the relationship dominate who they are have lost what it was that got them into said relationship to begin with. The world goes on when Britney leaves K-Fed... it goes on when a parent dies... it goes on after we elect Mitt Romney and he decides man-made global pandemics are the way to solve our political differences with everyone else (ok, so maybe it doesnt go on quite so well, but you get the idea)

There are so many ways to do it wrong - and people's radars flat out suck when it comes to making good decisions here - that you really have to expect people to make some colossal mistakes when it comes to who they choose to become involved with. The hope is that you learn from them... and if you find that dating the dumb blonde, or the crazy girl, or the fratboy, or the workaholic, or the narcissist &c &c doesnt work - then for gods sake STOP DOING IT.

Early on - people have to LEARN those lessons. It's why I have such a low opinion of so many younger relationships. Still - they dont want to listen when you tell them 'you really shouldnt date so and so... that whole crackwhore thing is a bad idea...' - they have to suffer through it, and then you get to be there, as a friend, to pick up the pieces.

So say you have 2 people who love each other but cant seem to figure out what it is that was keeping them together (other than good sex... that seems capable of holding lots of total crap relationships together - been there). In the end - it's about those people being willing to figure it out - amidst all the emotional turmoil of a struggling relationship - and asking all the hard questions... was this something that never worked? is this going into 'destructive' territory, where 2 people can love each other but there's something twisted under the surface (been there too, though no one ever threw a bowling ball at me)... these are all normal things to go through in the early phases of a relationship - and hopefully people are smart enough and self-aware enough that they see bad situations for what they are earlier and earlier and act to resolve them.

Now if you get 2 people who've been at it for a while - a couple years - and in the breakup process they're at the point where they're willing to say 'look, there are things about this that arent working, and even though it's hard i recognize that i want this - and i want to make this work - so what the hell is going on here that we can fix' - then ganbare!! - but you dont get years into a relationship and not be able to say 'i want this'. Sure, people go years into a serious relationship and say 'nope... i dont like it' - and that's ok (not my thing, but then you cant expect people to know themselves and what they want quite that well) - but you dont go years and question the basic premises of why you got into it in the first place. My ex does that - and there's a reason she should be on Wellbutrin and has a tendency to some extremely ugly and unhappy cycles in her life.

IF 2 people choose to try - then NO one should be upset over it. In the end - it's their call - it takes 2 people to try to work things out... and even if people feel protective about one or the other in the equation - the principals must be given every opportunity and encouragement to make the damned thing actually work. Hell - the world isnt such a serious place that 2 people who fit shouldnt be able to attack their issues (given a lack of foundational cracks). But the real advice is - dont freaking let something that works get to that state -- focus on the damned thing. Treat it like another person - give it a vote... if X wants to see a movie, and the relationship wants to see a movie, and you'd rather sit on your sorry ass and farm gold in Netherstorm then you lose. If your attention to the relationship wanes due to work - then stop treating work like it's so damned important. Communicating is all we have - and if you find someone you can share a complete conversation with across a crowded room with no more than a subtle glance... well... i went from meeting her to engaged in 6 weeks. Dont mess around with it.