What happens when a relationship – friendship, love, work, whatever – falls apart but you still have mutual friends in common? Negative energy, that’s what. You, perhaps, spend a lot of time thinking about how you’re going to act cool around the person when you see them next or imagining the uncomfortable moment and what you’ll do to avoid it. Or maybe you spend so much of your time in a sea of resentment or sadness or fear at what they’ll say or anger or loss that you decide to blow off the mutual events entirely. Maybe you involve your friends in the argument (in the guise of pretending you’re not but, hey, you want to get people on your side) or, the opposite, work really hard to keep them out of it.

NEGATIVE ENERGY

All this is negative energy because it’s taking energy AWAY from you whether you’re with the person or not. The goal, in any troubled, dissolved, or dissolving relationship is to get back to zero, to a space where the decisions in your life aren’t based around what they might do, say, or feel or what you might do, say, or feel back. Zero is real neutral, not “I don’t care!” but actually the ability to go through your life without losing energy on the situation.

By the way, moving into positive is NOT the goal. Positive motion requires both of you; often, one party wants to heal or move forward and the other doesn’t; the goal in this situation is zero and not a positive number. Don’t forget, something real – and perhaps unexamined – led the relationship to form and later dissolve. Were you the same person then as you are now? Are they? Did expectations or life change in some way that made once-tolerable behavior no longer acceptable? Are you looking for something from them that they can’t give you because you need to find it within yourself – like validation or a sense of worth or any of a number of internal states that have nothing to do with them (even though you think they do)?

Positive Motion Brief Sidebar

Positive motion requires the following: desire to move forward on both sides, independent self-examination on both sides, a willingness to be wrong on both sides, a willingness to take responsibility – and not issue blame – on both sides, a mutual discussion of the process of the relationship, an examination and reworking of the interpersonal communication, and an agreement on a new process for the failed relationship. If both sides are willing to do that, then by all means move the relationship forward – it’ll probably end up being stronger for it. If not, all you can do is get yourself back to zero. Here’s how.

STOP!

I have an exercise: Before continuing to read this section, quickly jot down the five or ten people you consider to be closest you.

Done? Okay.

DEFINING CLOSENESS

Relationships are defined by how the people in the relationship treat each other. They are NOT defined by what we tell ourselves a relationship is or what he hope it is or wish it could be. It is defined by behavior, specifically the least-close behavior in the relationship. So, before understanding how to get back to zero, you first have to take a good, hard look at what the relationship really is. But how do you know where you stand with each other. Well, via the Three Hallmarks of Closeness: Reliability, Emotional Honesty, and Demonstrative Behavior.

Reliability

The first Hallmark of Closeness is reliability. One way to create distance in a relationship is to become unreliable, aka flaky. You call the person back three days after they call you; you bail on plans; you avoid making plans at all by being really wishy-washy about your availability; you’re always late, showing little, if any, respect for their time. Your actions are saying, “Don’t count on me! I am NOT gonna be there for you.” It’s not that you dislike the person; it’s that you want to keep them at arm’s length.

By contrast, when you’re close with someone, you’re reliable – you show up on time; you follow through with what you say you’re going to do; you’re there when they need you. Your level of reliability, then, becomes one marker of your relationship with another person.

Emotional Honesty

The second Hallmark of Closeness is emotional honesty. How real are you with the person? When they say, “What’s going on with you?” do you say, “Nothing” or “Not much” even when there’s a lot happening? Do you share inner truths with them? If you’re feeling hurt by them, do you discuss it with them? Do you believe your relationship could survive a real discussion of your feelings? By being emotionally dishonest, you’re creating a lopsidedness in the relationship in which you’re sharing less with them than they are with you. By contrast, when you’re being emotionally honest, you’re being vulnerable, inviting the other person inside.

Demonstrative Behavior

The third Hallmark of Closeness is demonstrative behavior. One way we distance ourselves from people is by being reactive instead of active: you respond to their calls but never initiate; when you see them at a party, you’re friendly and at all other times it’s out of sight out of mind; even if you do think of them when you’re not in their presence, you don’t do anything about – the dynamic is that they have to reach out for you.

Demonstrative behavior, by contrast, means thinking about someone and then DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT. This can be as simple as a phone call – “Hey, what’re you up to?” In a more romantic guise, it’s flowers perhaps or a gift. A mass emailing of a joke is NOT a demonstrative behavior in terms of closeness; a joked emailed to one specific person because you thought they, specifically, would think it was funny is. The point of demonstrative behavior is that it indicates that you were thinking of the person when they weren’t in your presence, that you remembered their existence and reached out to let them know. How often you engage in this behavior with someone is an indicator of how close you are to them.

EXERCISE PART 1

Draw two bullseye targets with 3 rings – inner, middle, and outer – on two separate pieces of paper. Pull out your list of five or ten names. On the first bullseye, go through each name and ask yourself, “Am I reliable with this person? Am I emotionally honest with this person? Do I enact demonstrative behavior with this person?” Go core here and really examine the truth. If you do all three for the person, but their name in the center; if you do two, put them in the middle ring; if you do one, put them in the outer ring; if you realize you do none, then put their name outside the target. For any person who gets less than 3, jot down where you distance yourself, e.g. “I’m reliable and I share my thoughts and feelings but I never call them.”

When you’re done, go on to part 2.

EXERCISE PART 2

On the second bullseye, go down the same list, only this time asking yourself, “How does this person treat me? Are they reliable to me? Are they emotionally honest with me? Do they enact demonstrative behavior with me?” Do the same as above – if a person is close to you in all 3 ways, put them in the center; if not, note where they distance themselves and put them in the appropriate ring.

EXERCISE PART 3

Put the two sheets side by side and look for disparities – without judgment. Are you doing all 3 hallmarks for someone but they’re only doing 2 back for you? Or the reverse? This tells you where you really stand with people you consider to be close in your life.

SO NOW WHAT?

You don’t have to be close to everyone – who has the time? However, the reality of any relationship is defined by the lowest number of Hallmarks; if there’s a disparity, THE LOWEST NUMBER IS THE TRUTH. 3 means close; 2 means friends; 1 means acquaintance; 0 means a stranger.

Yes, it totally sucks to discover that someone you consider to be a close friend actually treats you like you’re a bare acquaintance. This is, of course, all about you and your expectations and has nothing to do with them. They’re telling you what you are to them by how they treat you, not what they say or what you tell yourself.

And this is where the negative energy comes from: they-treat-you-like-a-2 minus you-treat-them-like-a-3 equals NEGATIVE ENERGY. Often, this negative energy comes with resentment, blame, a desire to change their behavior, and a twisting of interpretation in order to expand their 2-ish behavior to fill up your 3 space. You need to zero this relationship.

GETTING TO ZERO

Getting to zero means accepting the other person’s behavior and forgiving yourself for staying in an unequal relationship for so long. It means, ultimately, allowing the relationship to be what it is – a two, a one, a zero – without being punitive. Here’s how: apply the 3 Hallmarks of Closeness TO YOURSELF. This is the only way to zero –being totally real with yourself, feeling your feelings, and moving on as opposed to lying to yourself, denying your feelings, and staying stuck.

SELF RELIABILITY

Is your stress getting in the way of your self-reliability? Have you told yourself you’ll do things – go work out, see a movie with someone, pay your bills, etc. – that you’re not doing because you’re so upset? This is negative energy because the dissolving relationship is subtracting from your life. In the process, you’re distancing you from you by becoming unreliable on your own behalf. Set goals for yourself and DO THEM. This action will be one step toward zero.

SELF EMOTIONAL HONESTY

One way we deal with dissolving relationships is to act unaffected around the other person. We feel we need to act “cool” so they won’t know they’re getting to us in some way. This act perpetuates the negative energy because it’s allowing THEM to dictate our behavior and feelings instead of us. Instead, be with your feelings. If you’re feeling sad around the person, be sad. Stop trying to act like it doesn’t matter and that you don’t care. It does matter and you do care – and that’s okay.

The longer-term the relationship, the more negative you can expect your energy to be if it ends. Give yourself a break; you can’t get from, say, -200 to 0 in an afternoon. Relationships take time to mourn. Unless you’re a stalker, this is generally much easier if the person vanishes from your life. However, especially with friends, there are often social ties that force the two of you to be together. This togetherness can exacerbate your upset. LET IT.

Friends Sidebar

Being emotionally honest with your mutual friends is NOT the same thing as dragging them in the middle of your dissolving relationship. Dragging them into it means talking about the other person; emotional honesty means talking about yourself. Remember, emotional dishonesty is a distancing tool – you’ll create distance with your other friends if you don’t share your feelings. If you want to tell them how you feel, tell them. If they have their boundaries in place (see previous blog below), they can relate to both split friends without consequence. If they can’t be emotionally honest with you or allow you to be emotionally honest with them, well, time to re-examine where they fall on the target and deal with the truth of that friendship.

SELF DEMONSTRATIVE BEHAVIOR

Are you sitting on the couch and running through the relationship over and over in your head? Are you lying in bed all day? Are you eating ice cream then hating yourself for it? Getting drunk all the time to numb out?

Self demonstrative behavior means enacting caring behavior on your own behalf. By contrast, we often engage in punitive behavior that we later hate ourselves for; “you did something bad to me so I’m going to punish myself” is classic alcoholic behavior – “I’m really mad at you so I’m gonna go drink!” Simply stopping doing this self-punishing behavior IS self demonstrative behavior. Focus on your future happiness, your goals for yourself, small or big, whatever they may be, and your efforts toward reaching them. Even small things, like patting yourself on the back for being vulnerable even though you got hurt, is self-caring behavior.

The other person isn’t “winning” if they get to you; you’re not condoning their prior bad behavior if you forgive them for it. Show yourself you matter to you because that is the road back to zero.