Single File: Heartbreak hurts at any age

DEAR SUSAN: Your recent column about the end of love really hit home. At the tender age of 75, I'm experiencing the painful breakup of a two-year relationship. It seems that even at this age, there are men in our lives who can't be trusted because they don't know what they want. Marriage was never an option for either of us, nor was living together -- except for short periods, as we lived more than 50 miles apart. But you'd think that by this age, a person would have developed empathy and a conscience. I guess some never do. Anyway, I identified with the feelings you described -- and wanted you to know I understand and wish we had happier endings.

From the "Single File" blog

DEAR BLOGGER: Your sincere empathy is much-appreciated; shared heartbreak is a durable bond. But my advice went way beyond solace, suggesting a way to make sure the end of love doesn't bring your whole world crashing down. It may be difficult to believe right now, but there is a way to do that. And it's not by rationalizing or sobbing. The solution (the only one reliable enough to pass along) is to maintain your own spheres of interest, your own friends, your own support system, even when (especially when!) there's a very nice someone vowing eternal love. Holding tightly to your selfhood is a sure way to make sure your universe doesn't eddy down a black hole if love ends. That balance is crucial to the decision not to wrap your whole life around him (or her, but I see this as mostly a female thing) and to fight the tendency to surrender your very soul in the heat of togetherness.

Behind that self-sabotage is the belief that total surrender of one's identity is the real thing and that anything less is a delusion. Oh, how misguided! The truth is that keeping a reserve for yourself is the only way to wholly love another person. (Care to read that again?) Holding on to your own life when you enter your lover's is really an act of supreme generosity because it eases the pressure on the other person to be all things to you. And it makes you more interesting, alluring, mysterious (I love that) and sexier. If you can't get up and go with your love every time he or she whistles, you'll be more respected (and desired) when you are together. But most important is the strength you'll find when your beloved makes a choice you don't like. Hmm...