The vicious cycle

(What’s love got to do with it with Ruth Chigubu)

“It’s so good loving somebody and somebody loves you back. To love and be loved in return is the only thing my heart desires…just appreciate the little things I do…you the one who has got me inspired. Keep on lifting me higher up….needing somebody and somebody needs you back…” sang Teddy Pendergrass.It is a fact that it is so good to love and need somebody who loves and needs you back. We hurt and our hearts break when the love is not returned, when we are not needed back. We get confused, how come?
Some peope have found themselves in situations where they loved and were not loved back, where they needed but were not needed back. It does hurt but it can be survived. And it is true: time heals.

Sometimes you may find yourself in a  Hot/Cold, On/Off relationship. You are  never sure where you are at any given time and you not sure to whether you have any claim. How do you draw up a list of expectations and boundaries within the relationship, if you can call it that. You don’t even have a title for it. So what is going on, are you together? Do you belong? Are you accountable? Or it’s a case of see no evil hear no evil? You never going anywhere and there is one party who fears commitment, wishes to have their cake and eat it…sadly enough they are and it’s a rich chocolate cake too!

Just as you are finally done with such a shoddy relationship and have made up your mind to walk away, the ON/HOT button comes back on and you tell yourself that perhaps this time it will be different, we have learnt our lessons , have realised the gap, and you find yourself in yet another vicious cycle, round and round you go.

Unexpectedly the OFF/COLD button goes back on without warning. The phone calls go unanswered, no meetings in fact all communication is cut off, one is simply off-line without an explanation, no qualms about it and you are expected to go on, wait for them to come out of hibernation. What the heck! Sure sign of not caring, of being taken for granted so why do you keep on making excuse after excuse of wanting to be with the person.
You find yourself in this whirlwind confusing relationship but somehow you want more. It is like a drug and you experience withdrawal symptoms during the OFF/COLD episodes and thank God for the HOT/ON episode. You are unable to function and constantly on the look out for the ON/HOT button.

How come these kinds of relationships fire our imagination more so than a committed one? We equate suffering with loving as a species and there is such passion and the only evidence that the relationship exists is when you are actually together, the rest of the time we are in the waiting space…the other part has gone AWOL. Do you continue on in the vicious cycle?
-Ruth Chigubu is freelance writer and businesswoman based in Harare. She can be reached on ruthchigubu@yahoo.com