Separating from someone leaves a huge gap in our lives and whether we are happy or not to be apart, at some stage it’ll feel like we have been through a bereavement.   All our routines change, our homes change, our relationships change with other people, sometimes for the worst as they only knew us as part of a couple, and even our looks change as we either smarten up or dumb ourselves down.

Separation and divorce can be seen as an opportunity however.  It is an opportunity, after the initial shock or change, to assess what we really want from life and whether the way we’ve been going about it, is actually creating what we want.  If your relationship was tired, how were you contributing to it?  If your relationship was one sided, what did you need to add or take to balance it out?  If your relationship was lacking intimacy, what did you need to do or not do to get your needs met?  You may find that your partner in life was as much responding to what you were giving out as they were contributing to the impasse.  Perhaps you have both learned the steps to a dance that only you two knew how to do, and to change that dance routine is going to take you to step back and each learn new, more intricate and adventurous steps.  Do you have the courage to do that?

Because to have courage means to admit that perhaps you were partly responsible.  To have courage means to back down and be prepared to look at what you brought.  And you may do that within your tired old relationship, or in a new one.  But before you completely scrap any idea that your old relationship is salvageable, take an inventory of what you brought and ask yourself if, whatever you had at the beginning, is worth the hard work of relearning your dance steps together.

And I’ll tell you why I’m writing this today.  My ex partner and I are back together again after nearly a year’s separation.  We have been with other, what we thought would be more exciting or caring people, only to find that we really wanted to work on what was going wrong with us.  And both of us have taken an inventory of what we brought to our tired old relationship, and we are working on relearning our steps and challenging what used to make us unhappy.  That means all those times we used to just not say how we felt, or bite down our frustrations, or sacrifice this or that aspect of our relationship for a quiet life, are now being discussed and, amazingly, resolved!  The journey is bringing us closer together in a way that was completely unimaginable in the past.

So I now have a blueprint for working on a relationship that has gone wrong and knowing, in practice, not just in theory,  that it can be put right again.  But it really does take both parties to have the courage to look at their own failings and to resolve to admit to and work on them – together.

If you want to do something about that, you know where I am.  Just reply to this email or call me on 01371 859994.

Tim runs a cookery school with a difference. He offers a range of courses and themes which could be of use to anyone who is newly single. And I’ll tell you why. Blokes. Yes. Apparently, pulling power comes in a saucepan! Knowing you can cook is apparently very attractive to women. Looking for a new partner on the internet? Tell them you can cook! So if I notice whilst surfing one day men who say they can cook, I’ll assume you they got it from this newsletter!

I love cooking. There’s something very rewarding about being able to provide beautiful food to my lover, friends and family. And there’s also something very attractive for me, about men turning out beautifully cooked and presented food. I feel nurtured, cared for, appreciated, loved. All those things that make women feel valued and important. Tim’s philosophy is a hands on one! (This email is loaded with innuendo. Apologies!) We learn by doing. Which is precisely what I was saying just the other day. You may think you know things, but it’s not until you do things that you really understand.

According to Tim’s business card, he quotes “Not knowing hot to cook is like not knowing how to make love; You’ve got to eat for the rest of your life so you might as well know how”. Hmmm…. I can think of a few of my past loves who have definitely not known how to cook! Go to http://www.just-cook.com. You’ll notice on there too that it’s not just for blokes! Just-Cook offers courses for ladies, and for those who are given to entertaining alot as well as courses on regional cooking including Thai cuisine and Spanish tapas. And all based in Newport, Essex!

There’s a tapas course running on 13th August, and a ‘basics for blokes’ course on the 27th August. Book on now and tell him I told you about it!

Susan Sarandon in her role says “Why do we need a partner ? To act as witness to our lives. To say we existed and who reflected who we were.” That set me off reflecting on my life and my philosophy and has left me feeling deeply pensive and reflective about the nature of partnership. How many people isolate themselves from partnership, leading solitary lives and frightened lives just in case someone hurts them – again? How many people leap into partnership and, repeatedly, in their desperation to have a witness to their lives, choose the wrong person for them? And how many people live in quiet desperation, needing a witness, any witness, just to assure them that they exist? Lives of quiet desperation where the heart cannot sing nor the mind be free to express itself.

Are you suitably pensive at this stage? Can you see yourself in any of the descriptions? I’ve seen dozens of people who fit any one of these descriptions. Marriages that have worn out and yet survive in familiarity and complacency – just waiting for one or the other partner to find excitement with someone new. Partnerships that are so volatile that they burn out and die out like the final display at a fireworks show. And people who are so scared or stagnated at the prospect of having any kind of involvement because they have got used to nothing moving or changing in their lives. How have we, as a human race, become so inflexible and unprepared to change and learn and move with our hearts? Has our nuclear society really placed so much routine and responsibility on us that we can no longer find our own hearts? What would we be doing if we listened to our hearts desire and had the courage to follow it?

Big questions. Ones that may take our lifetime to fully answer. But questions none the less that we will be foolish to ignore. If we want to feel deep fulfilment in our lives, and avoid living a life of quiet desperation, like lady Havisham’s Dickens ‘Great Expectations’, we need to pull off the veils and cobwebs draped over our hearts and minds, and allow ourselves to step into the new. And stepping into the new shouldn’t be so difficult for us….but it is. Courage, tenacity and preparedness to face the unfamiliar will give us the tools to open our hearts and minds to new learning, new experiences, and new ways.

And we need others in our journey to help us open those hearts and minds. We need the encouragement and the belief of others that we can, after all these years, still grow and become who we want to be. And we need to make sure that the people we have around us are people who can help in that way. See if there’s anything by clicking here that might help you along that journey.