Rebecca: There are many signs that can alert you that your relationship might be near its
end, if only you'd listen. Hi, I'm Rebecca Brighton and welcome to
watchmojo.com, and today we're speaking with author J.M. Kearns, whose book
Better Luck Next Time, gives us insight into predicting when your relationship
might end and what to do when you're finally on your own.
In the book you list some darkly humorous signs that your relationship is about to
end. Could you maybe give us a few examples?
J.M. Kearns: One of them is you feel sad when your partner is nice to you. The sound of your
partner eating feels you with homicidal rage. Another one is your partner thinks
they’ve told you things when they haven't. And it means they're starting to lose
their focus on you as an individual and you're not so much their ear, the primary
ear that they want to talk to as you use to be. Another one is you find yourself
lying in bed late at night inventorying the household possessions and figuring out
which one’s you're not going to let go off. That’s not a good sign.
The last time, which I don’t think is actually listed in the book, is that your partner
seems to be very irritated by your sense of humor. Like they don’t seem to think
you're funny anymore. Or you feel that way about them.
Rebecca: Is there really any step by step program someone can follow after break up?
J.M. Kearns: On of the things you need to do is honor your own sadness. When you do feel sad,
don’t try to shrug it off or laugh it off or something. And then when you get over
the stage of sadness, inventory the things that you’ve lost. Because we actually
lose assets, real assets when a relationship ends. We can even lose financial
assets. And you need to protect yourself.
You also need to make sure that you don’t go it alone. If the relationship was
really powerful, then our friends and our family have mix loyalties. So it’s hard to
be honest with them. But you need to find someone you can really be honest with.
Develop the parts of your life that have nothing to do with your ex that you may
have neglected. When the relationship ends, there's an opportunity to pick up the
things that you drop. Your dreams and the friends that your lover didn’t like.
Rebecca: And finally, for all our viewers who maybe going through a break up or thinking
of going through break up, what's your one final thought for them?
J.M. Kearns: Even if it feels like bad news. There's a good news side to it. The good news is,
once you get over that disappointment, that your plan fails. You actually discover,
it wasn’t such a good plan after all. So you really can do better next time.
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