A New Nail Does Not Remove The Old One

No matter how much we like to think this is true, a new concern doesn’t distract your mind from the old one. A new nail does not make the old one disappear. This also applies to relationships, because a new relationship is not the best way to get over a broken relationship. This is not right! Entering into new love relationships as a pain reliever for the grief of a broken relationship is not the best choice. That nail, stuck deep in our hearts, can only be removed with the same hammer that drove it in.

Surviving a broken relationship is something no one can prepare you for. As Dr Vicente Garrido says,  we often go desperately looking for the answer to the question ‘why’. It’s hard for us to understand that sometimes relationships just break down because people have free will. Because the love between people simply disappears, or simply because the other person is not mature enough to handle the responsibility.

Accepting the last goodbye, the distance and starting a new life with an empty place in bed and in your heart… It fills you with despair. Our brains go into a state of panic. It interprets the pain as something real, just like pain caused by a blow or a burn. We need something that will relieve the pain, a good dose of dopamine. Something that is quick and easy, and that relieves the pain in our souls.

Some people manage to avoid this process by going through an acceptance process. A slow and delicate process where they repair every broken part, one at a time. However, others refuse to accept the ending and desperately try to make amends with their partner. And finally, there are those who take a path that doesn’t always work: a whole series of short relationships.

The nail that is in your heart

The classic expression ‘ one nail removes another’  first appeared in Marco Tulio Ciceron ‘s book ‘Tusculan Disputes’ , published in 44 BC. popped up. This text was directed against Marca Gross and he writes in it: “ Novo amore, veteram amorem, tamquam clavo clavum, eficiendum putant.” That is,  the new love will drive out the old, as a nail drives out another.

However, it is clear that there is nothing better than starting a new stable, happy and mature relationship to give ourselves another chance. As long as you’re ready for it. While it is true that no one is irreplaceable, we are not interchangeable. No one needs to be a band-aid on a wound, or a temporary pain reliever for the melancholy of one’s broken heart.

The broken relationship, a chemical wreck

Lucy Brown is a neuroscientist at Einstein University of Medicine and an expert on the brain’s response to love. She explains that it can take between six months and two years to get over an emotional separation. There are many personal differences, of course. But according to some studies, it takes men longer to get over a broken relationship. It has a greater emotional impact on women, but they get over it faster.

The end of a relationship is experienced as a traumatic event, because our brains are programmed to communicate and connect with people. When we create a spiritual bond based on love and affection, few things are more satisfying. Breaking that bond is an authentic chemical wreck.

If it happens during the first phase of the relationship, the passion is attached to the most primitive part of our brain, just like loss. Grief also comes from that area of ​​the brain. For a time, your emotions dominate your ability to reason. But little by little we come out of the shadows again, although the taste of loneliness and tears is still on our lips.

A time to cry, a time to love

Starting a new relationship soon after another has come to a painful end doesn’t mean all your pain will go away. It won’t distract you, or make you feel happy again. Not processing your grief can leave you in a void, with all your senses wide open. We long for love, for comfort. We’re looking for intensity, not that calm that just reminds us of someone who doesn’t love us anymore.

We don’t want to do anything halfway, and this can lead to nasty side effects. For example, the other person may fall in love with us, while we are just looking for a temporary distraction, an emotional pain reliever. Obviously everyone is their own person. And maybe that risky plan will turn out better than you expect. But the fate of every nail is to be driven into something. So before you just make the hole bigger, it’s good to think about this.

Emotional Thieves

Starting a new relationship just to make up for your deficits, desires, and frustrations involves taking something from the other person. Like a thief who comes at night to steal your things. It’s just immoral.

We live in a society where it is very common to hear someone say that they are ‘progressing’. When someone asks us how we’re doing, we tend to always say that we’re fine. It is as if it is our obligation to always participate in this race where everyone who stands still loses.

But it is necessary to pause every now and then. We don’t live with Alice in Wonderland. There, where the Queen of Hearts demands that her subjects run faster and faster to survive. Our brains also need rest, and moments of introspection, where you can pick up the pieces, let the wounds heal, and rebuild your life.

There is a time to cry and a time to start loving again. Not necessarily others, but to love yourself again. Because a mind full of resentments and broken dreams will feed low self-esteem. And nobody, nobody at all, can be happy with that kind of baggage.