calculating separation
Mercury is 43, separated with two teenagers, and she has calculated that for every day you spend trapped in a marriage or romantic relationship with a man who loves you less than you love him, you can expect to spend an equal period of time getting over him when the relationship ends.
"I made the calculation in relation to romantic attachments, and I have no idea how to calculate the recovery period for other types of broken relationships," says Mercury, “but I expect that when there is no love, no attachment, there is no recovery period at all.”
"In a lopsided relationship - such as I once had with my estranged husband," says Mercury, "I was happy and free the day we split up. Whatever love I once felt for him had turned to indifference a long time before we separated – in fact, for the 16 years we were married, 8 years were good and the remaining 8 were blah."
"We could have separated after 8 years,” says Mercury, “but then I would have spent another 8 years getting over him as a single mother, ruining my life, so it was fit and proper – especially for the sake of the children – to spend those 8 blah years of recovery with him, getting myself on track for my day of freedom.”
"Now that I’m separated I’m having lots of unpleasant experiences where guys hassle me when I don't want an ongoing relationship with them,” says Mercury, “but that's essentially their problem, not mine - and what I experience is relief, not grief, when a fling ends."
“I get out of these flings quickly," laughs Mercury, “because I know it will take me as long as the spark lasted to get over the guy.”
"With casual friends that you don't want to see any more it’s easy to separate from them - you don't answer their calls or emails and they get the message," says Mercury. "It's universally understood that it's bad form to hassle people who don't want to know you."
"With close friends, family members and adult children the relationships can be difficult when differences arise," says Mercury. "This is especially true with parents and grown children where there's a shared history and a unique and special bond between you – I’m still having problems with my parents and kids about the separation, but it’s no big deal, they have their own lives to lead now.”
"There's a respectful friendship between us,” says Mercury. “There's a remembering of birthdays and a sharing of other important family events - but otherwise there's a more distant relationship than one would have with a romantic partner or a close friend of one's own age."
"Nevertheless, when a relationship with a parent or an adult child goes wrong," says Mercury, "it hurts a lot more than a broken friendship but a lot less than a broken romance, but that’s typical of all families – not just separated families.”
"When the person you love in a romantic relationship doesn't love you as much as you love them and doesn't desire the commitment and closeness you need, you feel shattered," explains Mercury. "Your heart is broken, and mine was after the first 8 years of my marriage."
"I’m really happy to be separated with my broken heart healed,” says Mercury. “I don’t have to protect my heart by avoiding situations where I’m likely to be reminded of my lost love, and I have no emotional need to get involved in a rebound or a revenge relationship – which so many separated people do.”
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