There two most prevalent issues that arise when we think about relationships are ones of interpretation and ones of breakups. Well, relationship interpretation is similar to the Bible: ask three people to interpret something and you’ll get four different responses. And there’s no real way of knowing who’s right. You don’t know, until you know, ya know?

Regarding breakups, people just seem to want to know if their relationship is really over or how to get over the relationship they can’t seem to get over.

Now, I’m no stranger to breakups. While I’m not the worst person on the planet at being in a relationship, I’ve definitely sucked at my fair share of them. Well sucking at relationships makes you a marksman at breaking up. I’ve also been “broken up” with before. Though the jury is still out on that one.

However, whether you have been the dumper or the dumpee, there comes a point where you truly feel at your lowest of lows and you do more introspection than you even knew was possible. You’ve tried to talk it out. You’ve tried to reason why it may work. Hell you may have even gone back to spend time in hopes of regaining that thing – whatever it was – that you thought was there in the first place. But at some point, you’ve exhausted all possibilities and you truly have to move on.

It’s one of the hardest things in the world to do, as evidenced by the numerous questions we receive from disenchanted men and women trying to make sense of what once was while listening to Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know” – a song which is more apt than most people give it credit for. In fact, that song is sneaky resonant in that most relationships end up that way with both people moving further and further apart to the point that you are each just somebody that the other person used to know. The bonds that used to exist not only cease to exist but its hard to remember why they were ever there in the first place. That, is real demise.

The only true way to move on from a relationship is to acknowledge that its actually over. For the vast majority of us, this is the most difficult and most undesirable part. I’d wager that nearly everybody has sort of hoped or considered the idea that maybe they made a mistake and perhaps the person they’ve spend so much time depending on and confiding in isn’t but a clarifying conversation away.

But at some point, the conversations don’t matter. They don’t solve anything because each of us have gotten so far into our feelings the possibility that the other person can’t even feign contrition sends us into fits of despair. Vulnerability is a contact sport and impact pushes two people into opposite directions. The location is completely up to the individuals involved and one can only hope that everybody lands on their feet where they end.

I suppose the point of this is that breaking up isn’t easy for anybody and the resulting confusion and dissolution of self makes the only true necessary step for moving on nearly impossible in the short-run. But acknowledgment is the key.

And sadly, its the likely the key to happiness and understanding in life, a feat that most of us will never truly see.