For Goodness Sex (11 page)

Reliable commitment patterns are the last quality of healthy relationships that I teach. “If I say I’m going to do something for a friend, and I don’t, I’ll be marked as unreliable,” I’ll tell my kids. It’s important that people show up when they say they’re going to show up, that they call when they say they’re going to call. There’s responsibility in relationships, whether it’s a sweetheart relationship or a friendship. I want them to know that it’s important for them to consider their own behaviors as much as they do those of their significant others. It’s easy to forgive our sweethearts and make excuses for them when they don’t live up to our expectations, but it’s important to see the relationship with clear eyes and remind ourselves that we deserve reciprocity. If a sweetheart isn’t treating us the way that we treat them or want to be treated, it’s probably time to have a serious talk or reconsider the relationship.

For many of us, adults included, the beginning of a relationship is a magical period. We work hard to not see the flaws in each other and to reveal only our best traits. We groom ourselves meticulously. You give your sweetie all of your attention while ignoring those little quirks that otherwise might annoy you. But as time goes on, there’s a point at which you have to give up that illusion of perfection. Here’s the way I address this in class: “You can only hold in a fart for so long,” I tell my students. They howl, yet they know exactly what I mean. There’s only so long that you can snuggle with each other on the couch or play together in bed before somebody farts. You think,
Who are you? What is this person?
It’s the moment when our authentic selves begin to come out, because there’s only so long that any of us can hide behind this idea that we’re perfect. Real and authentic people are imperfect. “If a relationship is going to last and become long-term,” I tell my students, “you have to be willing to acknowledge and engage with the imperfect person.” This is also a great moment to make a related point. Nobody in porn is ever awkward, right? Nobody ever leans on someone’s hair or gets a cramp. It’s just not reality.

Reassure your kids that they’re not supposed to have it all figured out. They’re not going to be relationship experts or navigate relationships perfectly the first few times out of the gate. That’s not a realistic expectation to put on teens. All we can expect them to do is try to create healthy patterns of relationships. And we can tell them that it’s OK to stand up for your bottom line. Sometimes the hardest part about being a kid is finding the strength to admit that you’re different or that you don’t want to do something that everybody else is doing. It’s the push and pull of adolescence—you want to find out who you are, but deep down you hope that you’re just like everybody else.

Many students sometimes find themselves in situations where they’re asked to do something that doesn’t feel OK, and I push them to trust their instincts. Many of them can acknowledge that deep down inside something doesn’t feel right. “You’re the best gauge for what’s normal in your relationship,” I tell my class. “You’re the expert in your life. When you do something based upon your own values, that’s powerful stuff.” Many of my students nod appreciatively when they hear this. I remember one student saying, “Wow, I didn’t know I could trust myself with this stuff.”

“If you don’t feel like you’re being your authentic self, if something doesn’t feel right about the relationship, whatever it is, then it’s OK to name that thing and deal with it. What if your little sister or brother was in the same situation—what advice would you give them?”

Surviving Their First Breakup

S
everal years ago there was a young man in my class who was experiencing his first broken heart. The girl he had been dating for over two years, his first “true love,” had broken up with him. While she wasn’t in our class, she was at our school, and he couldn’t avoid running into her or seeing her on campus. He came to see me one day, and my heart ached to see him so sad and upset. On the verge of tears, he asked for advice on what to do, how to get over feeling so devastated. What I said to him seemed like common sense to me but was a revelation for him.

“I can see how sad you are about this,” I said. “Are you letting yourself be sad? Have you cried about it?”

“No,” he said, “My friends all tell me to cheer up and get over it. They say I shouldn’t let her make me sad, that I should be strong. I try hard to smile and look like I’m OK.”

I looked at him and said gently, “I think you should let yourself be sad. It’s a really sad thing that’s happened. It hurts so much because what you felt for her was real. If you didn’t really care about her you would be able to just get on with things. But you did and still do care about her, don’t you?”

He sniffled and nodded.

“So let it out. It’s OK. It’s honest and it’s what you need to do.” He crumpled onto his desk and sobbed. I patted his head, handed him tissues, and waited. After a good cry, he lifted his head.

“Nobody told me it was OK to be sad,” he said through tears still streaming down his cheeks.

“What else can you be right now?” I asked. “Allowing yourself to be sad and to express it is the only way the sadness will end.”

Although adults may not think that their kids are capable of forming “real” relationships, high school relationships are very real to your kids. To suggest anything else is disrespectful. They may not be at the same level of intimacy and depth as romantic relationships in our adult years, but to your kids, they’re every bit as emotional and important. A six-month relationship may feel goofy to us. But to your kids, six months is an eternity.

“Can you be in love when you’re sixteen?” your children may ask you. Of course you can. But I’m not sure it’s the same kind of love you might share with someone when you’re twenty-five. I often encourage parents to have a talk with their children about what it means to be in love at sixteen or seventeen, and how it’s different from being in love when you’re older. A breakup is a good time to talk about the lessons of love. Part of building a healthy sexuality is helping kids walk through these experiences in their early years, when there’s less at stake and they have people around who can guide them. Another critical move you can make as a parent: acknowledge that there is a process that people go through when relationships end and give your kids permission to feel their feelings.

Albert Angelo, a longtime friend and fellow sexuality educator, offers a perspective on breakups that I find helpful when speaking to my students. He suggests that after a relationship ends, people go through emotional stages very similar to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s model of the stages of grief. Thinking about it in this way makes clear what a powerful life event a breakup can be and why so many of us can still feel a tinge of pain years after a relationship has ended and we have moved on. When I offer students this perspective, it helps them feel that they’re not crazy, that it’s normal to feel the way they do, and that their emotions are legitimate. Another nice thing about using this model as a reference is that it speaks to both parties in the relationship—the one initiating the breakup and the one on the receiving end of it. When we’re face-to-face with a young person who’s hurting from a breakup, it can be very helpful to be familiar with this model. It gives us a framework for a conversation that will be helpful as well as comforting. It’s also important for young people to know about this model so that they aren’t blindsided by the feeling they experience when they have that inevitable first breakup.

8 Stages of Grief and Healing after a Breakup

1. Denial

Even though at some level one or both partners know the relationship is in trouble, it can be frightening to admit there’s a problem. If the problems can be brought out into the open and addressed, the couple could try to work on the relationship. Sadly, this may not happen. In addition, one partner may actively hide feeling unhappy and wanting to leave the relationship in order to “not rock the boat” and/or to secretly plan an exit strategy. That deception may help the other partner stay in denial. But when the denial breaks, the pain begins.

2. Anger and Confusion

The person who will initiate the breakup may feel frustrated by the other. Just being around that person can be enough to make the initiator feel annoyed. Personality quirks and other qualities that were never a problem start to get on his or her nerves. The person who will be on the receiving end of the breakup may feel genuinely confused as to why his or her sweetheart suddenly seems so angry or upset all the time. When the breakup does occur, the partner on the receiving end may react in angry outbursts, such as “You can’t do this to me!” “I won’t let you go!” or even “I hate you!”

3. Bargaining: We Can Work It Out

This is when both people realize the relationship is in trouble and might be coming to an end. Even for the person who wants to break up, it’s scary. Things look bad, but sometimes you might think you can fix it. When that doesn’t happen, the person on the receiving end of the breakup may become obsessed with trying to mend the relationship and win back the other, resorting to bargaining: “Please don’t leave until we graduate from high school” or “Can’t we wait and decide whether to break up after the summer’s over?” Couples may repair a relationship at this stage if both really want to do so. A relationship will continue when both partners believe the work of staying together is worth it. A relationship will end when at least one partner believes staying together is just too much work. It takes two to stay together but only one to break apart.

4. Acknowledgment and Grieving

This stage can begin only when a person admits the relationship is over—the denial has ended. It is in this stage that grief is felt most acutely and most deeply. As I told the brokenhearted young man who came to see me, “If you’re feeling bad, it’s because what you had was real. If it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t hurt so badly.” I also reminded him, “When you’re hurting, you’re healing.” While both parties experience some level of grief, the one who is left may experience more and deeper levels of it in the form of abandonment and rejection, and the sense of not being good enough to keep a sweetheart from leaving.

5. Evaluation: What Went Wrong?

Grief offers an opportunity to shine a light in the dark, painful space of the breakup and look at what went wrong. It’s like an emotional autopsy. The person who initiated the breakup may begin to experience some feelings of regret, recognizing that there were good aspects to the relationship—it wasn’t all terrible. And after some time apart, the initiator may come to miss his or her sweetheart. (Note: I’m happy when kids can get this far in the process. They’re not always emotionally equipped to continue from here.)

For the person who was on the receiving end of the breakup, this stage often offers a time to reflect on what wasn’t great about the relationship. Many of my students come to realize during their grief that their ex wasn’t perfect, and that being out of the relationship may have some unexpected benefits. They may realize how their stress level has declined, or how they don’t have to keep a tally of time spent with a sweetheart versus time spent with friends. They may even realize that they feel happy, something they may not have felt in a while, especially during the earliest stages of the breakup.

6. I’m Not the Same Person

In relationships, you can sometimes forget your own individual strengths and likes. Once the relationship ends, it’s normal to try to reconnect with your old self.
I love to paint but I never had time to paint when I was with him. I like to cook at home but she always wanted to go out to dinner.
This is a stage that offers both parties the opportunity to grow and develop into their most authentic selves as they rediscover the interests and personality traits that make them who they are. However, this can be a tricky stage for teenagers to understand, as most teens are still forming their identities.

7. There’s No Going Back

In this stage a person accepts that it was right that the relationship ended. Breaking up wasn’t a mistake. We all know that this becomes easier as you get older, but in our early relationships, we don’t always have the perspective or life experience to know that ending a relationship that wasn’t working is the right thing to do. It’s helpful to let your children know that life gets better and that happiness is in moving forward and opening their hearts again.

8. Peace

You can interact with or be around your ex and not feel bitter or angry or disgusted, as many teens initially do. When they reach this stage, it’s important to communicate that they don’t need to feel any ill will toward a former sweetheart. After all, they’re going to be around each other a lot if they go to the same school, and when teens are angry about a breakup, they can be cruel to each other. Because many teens (and quite a few adults) will never get to this stage in the process, and because we live in an age where momentary rage can be crystallized forever in a Facebook post or a tweet, when rumors can be circulated in seconds, it’s especially important that we help young people quell the desire to lash out, hurt, or even bully their exes or their exes’ friends. You don’t have to be completely at peace with a breakup to know that deliberate cruelty will only make things worse. My students often ask me, “What are the signs that a relationship is going badly?” I tell them that one warning sign to look out for is a shift in the balance of power to a less equitable arrangement. When your sweetie seems to be more interested in criticizing you than in complimenting you, it’s usually the beginning of the end. Teasing can also be a sign. Friends tease us in a loving way all the time, but sometimes with a sweetie, teasing becomes something that feels bad. It pushes the two of you apart. These are all behaviors that may escalate at the end of a relationship, but they don’t need to continue after a relationship is over if both parties can achieve peace.