Bryce Shaw
Aug 23, 2017 · 2 min read

How the end begins

Lunch one of these days. I was with the boys at a Hawaiian restaurant on the west side of town. While we were waiting for our pokes, we talked about break-ups.

The conversation was not about those volatile relationships that begin and end before you even have a chance to truly know each other. We were talking about true love — and how it ends.

One night he kisses you goodnight and says he loves you. The next day, everything starts to fall apart and when you least expect it, he says he doesn’t love you like he used to.

Love doesn’t end suddenly. The problem is that in most situations the partners get used to pretending that everything is okay. They make you believe that nothing has changed — even if deep down, you know that the relationship is no longer the same. Until the last drop makes the glass overflow and everything collapses…

So how can we realize when love is ending?

It all starts with late feedback — we can also call it indifference. That moment in which you begin to realize that the messages of love that you used to send, are ignored and the interest in maintaining a dialogue ceases from one side.

So they become rude. Public displays of affection become rare moments. Patience becomes scarce, discussions turn into fights, and every little slip turns into a storm.

The “I love you” begins to be said by custom, the long-term plans they used to make are avoided in the conversations and things that were normal before, start to irritate him.

The worst part is: these signs are not always clear. Most of the time we only realize afterwards that everything is over — because deep down there was still a flame of remembrance that all that could be just a bad phase, but it was not.


Unfortunately, the forever always ends. There is no “one that got away”.

When you least expect, love happens. And when you least expect it, it ends.

We can’t choose to live unhappy with someone or force our partners to be in a relationship where there is no love. Let them go!

It is easier to sink your emotions into a ghost than to commit to someone in front of you, but it’s not the best option.

The past is like an anchor holding us. Sometimes we have to give up who we were, to become who we will be.

)

Bryce Shaw

Written by

Cocktails and lovers. Bryce is a fictional character.