Unka Glen

katvonbee asked: I was with a guy last year, who told me he loved me from the first day that I met him. I got wrapped up so quickly that he moved into my apartment. He also cheated on me, and yet months later we were engaged. In February I broke off the engagement and found someone new in May. This new guy is everything that I prayed for, but the guy I was engaged to found a girl 3 weeks ago and is now engaged. I’ve become obsessed with this past relationship and it’s effecting my new relationship. How can I move on?

Unka Glen answered: Well here’s the thing about old relationships, we can often deal with the pain of a bad breakup, as long as we can picture the person who screwed things up in some lonely place, weeping, and perhaps crying out “why, oh Lord, did I let the best thing to ever happen to me slip away!?” I mean, it’s not like we wish them to be in any pain, because that wouldn’t be Christian, but ya know, maybe just single forever and consumed with solemn regrets.

But this guy has the nerve to not only find somebody new, which should just not be allowed, really, but he goes out and gets engaged before you get engaged. Which, as you know, means that he won the breakup. And now we’re all living in a world gone wrong. Down is up, left is right, dogs and cats sleeping together, mass hysteria.

Of course none of that is reality, that’s just the way it feels in your head. The truth is: you are the victor. You had the strength and dignity to get yourself out of an unhealthy situation, and to find someone new and awesome. You drew the line and held to your principles, and when dude didn’t measure up, you cut him loose. 

In truth he is the one who has lost, because he isn’t able to begin healthy loving relationships and see them through. He is crippled by this inability and he is doomed to a life of pain and loneliness, leaving a trail of failed relationships behind him, unless he comes to a place of healing with God. Part of getting over things, as a Christian, is having eyes to see things for what they are.

Looking at this with the eyes of Godly wisdom, there’s nothing to see except the need to pray for whichever poor gal who finds herself stuck with him, and indeed to feel a sense of pity for a broken, unfaithful, and inadequate man. 

Brush your shoulders off. They call it the past for a reason— because it’s not here anymore. “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal” (Philippians 3: 13b-14a).