Source: Shutterstock

About a week or so after retired Pittsburgh Steelers player Kordell Stewart filed for divorce against his reality TV star wife, Porsha Stewart, rumors began to surface that the estranged couple were looking to work things out and attempting to mend the broken fences of their marriage. Initially, I began to think that it was a good thing that they were trying to make it work and from the outside looking in, Porsha appeared to be very dedicated to her marriage. On the other hand, I began to think of the manner in which Porsha says she learned of Kordell’s divorce filing, which was through the media just like the rest of the general public. He called it quits. He threw in the towel, but he never informed her. A representative on behalf of Porsha even came forward saying that Kordell misled Porsha, allowing her to believe that he was committed to working it out, then turning around and filing divorce papers. His method in ending their marriage was pretty harsh.

We hear every day that marriage is something to be worked at. We hear that relationships aren’t easy and that it is ultimately a team effort. But what happens when one teammate  just up and quits seemingly “out of the blue?” Does that negate the union? Does it cancel out the promises and responsibilities that the team has to one another? How do you give your heart back to a person who made it clear that they’ve given up on you and the relationship? What assurance do you have that they won’t quit on you again?

In an interesting Psychology Today article titled, “Contemplating Divorce: Would You Take Your Spouse Back?” licensed therapist Susan Pease Gadoua explores this very subject. Gadoua surveyed a group of people who were three months into their divorce proceedings about whether or not they would take their spouses back. A surprising 90 percent responded, “No.” Gadoua goes on to note that there is often an eye-opening epiphany experienced by the abandoned party in the relationships. At first, they desire for their former partner to return. Then, they begin to see faults and flaws about their ex that they hadn’t seen prior to their heart-wrenching splits.

“In my experience, when a person is the leavee, they often tell me initially they would take their spouse back if he or she wanted to come back to the marriage. This is true particularly when the spouse being left didn’t see it coming and didn’t think the problems in the marriage were ‘that bad.’ But then something interesting happens. As the divorce proceedings take place, the leavee witnesses all kinds of behavior that they’d either never seen before or they had denial around,” notes Gadoua.

She went on to imply that the trauma that comes with being abandoned often stirs up disdain and even sometimes disgust within the “leavee” for the “leaver.”

“One woman had a classic response when asked if she would let her husband back in if he were to ask her to reconcile. In a word, “EW!” Another client told me that after his wife had him served with divorce papers on Valentine’s Day, he wasn’t sure if he could even look her in the eye again, never mind let her back in his bed!”

Break-ups are rough, but being totally abandoned by the person you love and having your teammate switch sides, becoming your opponent, seems unfathomable. While a successful reunion in a situation such as this one seems like it would be ridiculously challenging, I suppose the outcome is really contingent upon the parties involved and their love left for one another.

Would you take your man back if he ever walked out on you or have you ever taken back your ex after left you? How did things turn out?

Follow Jazmine on Twitter @jazminedenise.

Source: WENN

Kimora Lee Simmons has survived two public splits and still walks around with her head held high. The über confident and undeniably fabulous mother of three recently had a chat with Daily Mail, where she discussed being a single mom, maintaining relationships with her exes and re-entering the dating pool. Peep some of what she had to say in her interview below.

On her break-up with ex Djimon Hounsou:

“Relationships do change throughout the course of your life and I always think in terms of relationships changing and evolving rather than starting and stopping.”

On maintaining healthy relationships with the fathers of her children:

“Kids never go away from your life and if you’ve been married, that person probably never goes away either. You never get rid of anyone and they never really get rid of you,” she said laughing.

“Gosh, it’s not always so easy, but I try to do everything from the viewpoint of what’s best for my kids. I have three kids and two great dads and it’s not always easy, but you have to try to be a little selfless and we manage just fine.”

On dating after her split with Djimon:

“I’m not with anyone at the moment – it’s just my kids and their two dads I guess.”

“I think they are sometimes [intimidated], but men are intimidated by a lot of things, you know, such as jobs and bit of determination. They have a lot of insecurities about who we are, what we have, what we look like, what we’ve accomplished and what we’re capable of because we’re fabulous and capable of doing so much and juggling so much every day.”

“People might be mad I’m saying this, but [men] do have a lot of hang-ups. But that shouldn’t deter you ladies from being great! You don’t have to dumb down – you just have to find a clever, good, secure man. I’ve found a couple – I’ve been lucky – but it’s probably hard for everybody to find that true love of a good man.”

While Kimora probably isn’t everyone’s favorite person in the world, you’ve got to respect the woman for how she handles her affairs. She speaks of both of the men who father her children with the utmost respect and seemingly managed to have two of the most amicable break-ups in Hollywood.

Shutterstock

Most of the time, there is no excuse to leave one person and jump immediately into a relationship with another. If you’re so emotionally prepared to be totally entwined with a new man, you have probably been emotionally checked out of your relationship with your current man for a while. And you should have addressed that a long time ago, instead of bringing things to the point where you just walk out for someone new. However, sometimes, you can think you’re perfectly happy in your relationship, and you just meet someone who changes everything. You see now that your current partner is not right for you, and you can’t un-see that. So what do you do?

“You’re still the best girlfriend I’ve ever had. My life would’ve turned out so differently if you never left,” my ex said hopelessly in a voice just above a whisper. We were having our monthly debate about why we can’t and shouldn’t get back together. Judging by the seriousness in his voice, one would think that we had just broken up a few months ago, possibly even a year ago. One would think he hasn’t had anyone special in his life since we parted ways. That isn’t the case though. The truth of the matter is that we’ve been apart for nearly six years. In those six years, a slew of women have entered his life. One of which he had a child with, and another is actually his current girlfriend who he’s contemplating proposing to.

He was the first man I loved romantically, my high school sweetheart. He was also the first to break my heart. I met him during my freshman year and we were inseparable all the way up until senior year. One October afternoon, out of the blue, he called me up at work to tell me that he no longer wanted to be in a relationship. I was floored. He had to be joking. I gave him some time to call me back and apologize saying, “I don’t know what I was thinking.” We had broken up only to get back together a few times before, so I expected that would happen again. That phone call never came. I called him for a few days in a row, crying and making a fool of myself. But after awhile, I gave up. I told myself it was over, gave up any hope of us getting back together, had my grieving period, and got over it.

About four months after receiving that dreaded phone call, I received another one. This time, he was telling me how he was ready to get back together. I took him back, but I instantly realized that things weren’t the same and they’d probably never be. Emotionally, I was finished, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t revive those old feelings. Sure I loved him, but being in love with him was a different story. I stuck around for a while and tried to work it out. More than anything, I didn’t want to hurt him in the same way that he hurt me. But, what could I do? It was done and so I eventually ended it. In time he got over it and we remained friends, but not without him initiating his bi-monthly “I think we can work it out” conversations.

Six years later, a couple of boyfriends on my part and several girlfriends on his, we’ve still managed to maintain quite a strong friendship. I can’t really imagine him not being in my life, but at the same time, I will never deny that our friendship is abnormal. He still appears to be very much in love and hopelessly believing that there’s a possibility of a reunion between us, no matter how many times or how many ways I tell him it isn’t going to happen. I feel the guilt that I could possibly be sabotaging his current relationship by knowing how he feels and continuing to maintain communication with him. I know that I would never want to seriously date a guy who was still carrying on this kind of friendship with his ex. “I think I may propose to her,” he told me one afternoon on the phone. “That’s great, have you started looking at rings?” I asked him. “Are you sure you’re not still in love with me?” he responded. “I can’t imagine that I still love you this much for no reason,” he continued.

It’s conversations like that one that make me feel like I should cut off communication. But, no matter how many times I’ve tried, it never seems to work. Somehow, someway, we wind up speaking again. Sometimes it’s a death in his family. Sometimes it’s his daughter’s mother giving him grief. Sometimes he just needs an ear. And somehow, I always wind up being that ear.

Watching Joe Budden and Tahiry week after week on “Love & Hip Hop” with their constant back and forth is like looking in a mirror (minus the drink throwing and substance abuse, of course). It makes me come to grips with the fact that these dysfunctional and emotional relationships are unhealthy. It’s like they hinder growth and progress in a sense. One week they’re fighting about old stuff that happened during their relationship, the next week they’re friends again and the following week she’s his counselor and confidant. It’s all emotionally draining and you eventually have to ask yourself, where does this road end?

Follow Jazmine Denise on Twitter @jazminedenise

Photos courtesy of Hip Hop Gossip Site + Shutterstock

A break-up is a fairly difficult experience to get past. The thought of no longer being with a person whom you once loved. The embarrassment or shame that sometimes comes with informing your family and friends that your “we” has just become a me – myself, and I. A bad break-up can certainly be among the most heart-gripping experiences that we as humans endure, and while Hollywood loves selling the myth that getting over your ex is as simple as over-indulging in a tub of ice cream, crying over your favorite playlist of sad love songs, and throwing darts at a photo of your ex, in the real world, we know that this simply isn’t true. These cliché and romanticized methods for dealing with a break-up are actually counterproductive, among countless others. If you’ve recently experienced a break-up or are simply struggling to get over your ex, here are 15 common behaviors that are most likely hindering your progress.

Monitoring your ex’s social media profiles

I know how tempting it is, and I’ve been there. But checking your ex’s social media profiles to see what he’s been up to is not such a smart move if you’re serious about getting over him. For one, you run the risk of having your feelings hurt by seeing things that you don’t want to and were never supposed to see, such as photos of him with or flirty interactions between him and a new love interest. It’s a horrible feeling, take it from someone who’s been there. If you have it in you, I suggest deleting him from your friend’s list completely. If you can’t bring yourself to hit delete, that’s okay, too. Just begin practicing self-control and don’t give in to the urge to check his page. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

If there was one thing I used to resent myself for, it was the way that I would fight tooth and nail to hold together a relationship that was clearly over. I mean, I would be so emotionally worn-out by the time I finally accepted that the relationship was coming to an end. Not even because of the nature of the break up, but because of how hard I would fight to hold everything together. I never slowed down long enough to even ask myself if there was anything left in the relationship worth saving. All I knew was that I was about to lose something, and I don’t like losing things. I would be like an insane person, sitting at a table with a pile of broken glass from a shattered mirror in front of me. With my fingers all cut up and bleeding, I’d attempt to glue the slivers of glass that once formed the mirror back together. Of course, in the end, I’d never achieve the goal of putting the mirror (relationship) back together fully, at least not permanently anyway, because in many cases, once it’s broken, it’s broken.

One day, it dawned on me that once a season (or relationship) is over, there’s not much you can do to bring it back and sometimes attempting to do anything and everything to piece it back together only makes things more painful and strained. As I reflect on past relationships, it amazes me how much emotional energy could have been saved and pain that could’ve been avoided if I just accepted the fact that the relationship had simply run its course and it was time to move on. I also eventually realized that we sometimes aren’t even actually fighting for the person themselves, but for what being with them represents and against what not being with them symbolizes. We commonly associate break-ups with failure because to some of us, it means admitting that we were wrong–wrong about a person we trusted. It means admitting that while we thought this person was the one, we somehow miscalculated something, somewhere along the way.

Cutting your losses and moving on doesn’t mean that you didn’t love or care about the person because you’re being realistic about the fact that it’s over. It just means you love yourself enough not to constantly subject yourself to the pain of forcing something that’s finished. Everywhere you turn, we’re being told that love is worth fighting for and while I do believe this is true, there are some instances when fighting against a break-up is only prolonging the inevitable, especially when the other party makes it clear that they have no interest in salvaging what’s left of the relationship.

Breaking up doesn’t always require crying, begging, pleading, struggling or even getting indignant. You don’t have to always do something to spite the person just because they hurt you. You don’t have to seek revenge. You don’t have to struggle to make that person stay with you, because the truth of the matter is that when a person desires to end a relationship, they’re gone long before they actually leave anyway. Sometimes breaking up means being mature enough to understand that the love is gone and and it’s best for your growth as a person and happiness if you move forward. Sometimes it means being lady enough to depart from where you’re no longer desired, but recognizing that somewhere down the road you’ll meet someone who will. Sometimes it means leaving with your dignity in tact. Sometimes breaking up simply means taking a deep breath and letting go.

Follow Jazmine on Twitter @jazminedenise

All photos are courtesy of Shutterstock

Shutterstock

Let’s get this out of the way: most people cannot be friends with their ex on Facebook. It takes a person with an absurd amount of self control to watch their ex’s life pass by on Facebook, day in and day out, and not send a message eventually. It can slow down your healing process tenfold. It can depress you. However, if you’re passed the point of being emotionally drained, being friends with your ex on Facebook can shed a lot of light on that relationship for you. Here’s why.

Shutterstock

Are you being too picky? Is this simply a transitional phase in your relationship? Are you PMSing? These are all perfectly normal questions to ask yourself when you’re feeling less-than-great about your relationship. Nobody wants to fall out of love. We fear it so much, that we’ll make an excuse for every single broken thing in our relationship (even when literally every single part of that relationship is broken) to keep up the facade that things are fine. But sometimes you just can’t deny that you have or are falling out of love. And the sooner you face it, the sooner you can move on and fall back in love with somebody new!

WENN

Nowadays, celebrities like Chris Brown and Rihanna make headlines not so much for their musical or acting endeavors, but very much for their relationship and marriage drama. We read about it in magazines, we follow it on Twitter and we watch it on TV with fascination. But though the scandalous details of celebrity couple ups and downs may constantly bombard our senses in all forms of media, relationships like Chris and Rihanna’s are nothing new.  Hollywood has been a hotbed of impassioned, and sometimes ridiculous, scandal for decades. To prove it, here are fifteen celebrity couples whose relationships were characterized by craziness – to us anyway.

Overcoming trust related issues is one of the biggest challenges that a couple can come up against. It is an emotionally draining  situation for both parties involved and unfortunately plays a major role in the demise of many relationships. Having been a person who has struggled with trust in the past, I realize that this can sometimes be a difficult mindset to break away from; however it is not impossible. If you find that you too struggle with trusting your partner, here are a few tips that just may help you out.