REBOUND

Bag Jan

It will be my pleasure to meet you! Please contact my through the contact button on my page and we can plan it! Great!

Alaaf Va Boz

Rajab Agha,

Moama chon hal shavad assan gardad.

I love men because they are so easy to please. I also like them because they keep us girlies in our place with their one-liners. It took me 8 paragraphs to say what you said in one sentence.

Monkeys carrying dead weights

Nazy Jan,
I recall the piece you quote. I wept when I read it because I know exactly what it feels like to carry that dead person/relationship with you everywhere. I know. I have been there - done that and , yes you guessed it - got the handbag. But eventually one does put that weight down and straightens up and it is only then that one can be available for a live healthy individual.

Thank you for the compliment. I have submitted pieces to Iranian.com in the past. Some have been published under different pen names. I have been encouraged by others to write and publish. A blog ? Well, I never thought of that. Maybe I could go on line for Jahanshah as the on-site therapist extraordinaire - the BAG LADY! :)

I would love to meet you in person. You seem such a cool type. I will be in/around Carmel next weekend. Let me know if you want to hook up.

Keep writing.

Bag Jan

Thanks so much for taking the time and for writing from your heart. I should like to copy and keep a few of the sentences you wrote as some of the best things I have read on the site of late! You should blog and write here my friend, you have so much to offer so many lost souls!

I think the reason I love love is that I have experienced it in my life. I so understand when you say you have moved mountains for love. The words I use is "I have walked through fire for love." It's true, relationships do end when the love disappears. I wrote a piece on divorces and breakups, something I definitely understand and know about, in 2007. Here's an excerpt of it.

"I was once watching a nature documentary on television. It was about a particular species of monkeys which bear surprising similarity in their behavior to that of humans. A female monkey’s child had died. The mother monkey was holding her baby in her arms, going about, pretending as though nothing had happened, swinging from tree to tree, and engaging in her daily activities. She refused to give her baby up to a burial which was something this particular species of monkeys did when one of them died. All the other monkeys in the tribe, who knew the baby was dead were trying to grab the dead child from the mother monkey, and she was resisting it, jumping around, avoiding the painful realization of her child’s death; until one day in an instinctively collective effort, all the other monkeys in the tribe descended upon her, took the dead child and buried it. Now she sat and wailed and cried and mourned her child."

"I think for many of us, a broken marriage or relationship is like that dead child monkey in our arms. We know it’s dead, and we know it must be buried, but the prospect of losing something so dear and familiar to us is so overpowering and saddening that for a long time we go around pretending like it isn’t dead and that we can manage our daily lives carrying it in our arms, giving a Herculean effort to carrying the dead weight of something which is very heavy by virtue of its significance."

//iranian.com/Kaviani/2007/May/Divorce/in...

P.S. As I got used to my neck and shoulder pains, I had to give up all my handbags in favor of my lightweight foldable nylon Longchamp bags in all colors and sizes! I own ten!

Dear Zan Amrikai

Heeh! No Iranian Personals for you! My friend said she saw a reputable businessman in her area on the front page of Iranian.com, being advertised as the "cute-du-Jour," and the picture was removed within the hour! It could happen to anyone, I guess! I'm too chicken to try it!

In the meantime, I wait for the thunder to strike me, though as my friend pointed out to me recently: "honey, I have never heard of the thunder of love striking someone sitting at her dinner table in her house!" And for some strange reason, that notion doesn't make me sad at all, so I laugh!

I hope you are enjoying your trip and that you join us again in full force when you're back.

Bag lady this is not that

Bag lady this is not that difficult. It is difficult when people make it difficult. It is difficult as it is and certainly doesn't need more complications but people are different, some can't live with easy and some can't live with difficult.

Bottom line, the grass has to taste sweet to the goat! Although no goat likes grass soup!

Cool - Sage - Wise? Surely you jest

Nazy, Nazy, Nazy

You make it sound like I don't believe in love. You make it sound as if simply because I say it cannot last I am saying it does not exist. YOu make it sound like I have sussed it all out. Honey, I have not. I just 'guess' based on what I have seen. I have learnt not to be fooled by the outward appearance of a relationship. I have friends who have been in marriages for decades - marriages which from the outside looked perfect and I am only now finding out that they had crumbled within. It was all show. Now that is sad.

Let me give you a favorite analogy of mine. This one I truly love.

LOVE - little girl, sleepyhead, pitter patters into your bedroom, pouty lips, chubby cheeks, dragging her doll and blankie. Mommy I want cuddles. I am sick. One look at her and your heart melts - the lump in your throat pushes its way right up your tear ducts and you weep from joy of this little creature tugging at your heart strings. LOVE. Pure, unadulterated - whole. Does she love back the same? NO. Do you begrudge what you are giving or experiencing? ABSOLUTELY NOT - NEVER

Swap, little girl for big man. Repeat once a week - in the middle of the night, waking you up from deep slumber? How do you feel? LOVE?
EVERY TIME? ALL THE TIME? Be honest now! :)

I don't know about you but I love flowers. I know plants are sturdier but to me nothing is as beautiful as the sight of the front shop of a florist, jam packed with all kinds of freshly cut flowers from all corners of the world. I buy them all the time. I love looking at them and I marvel at their shapes, aromas. They make me feel very good inside. I take good care of them; change the water, buy pretty vases for them; display them in a prominent position in my home. Fact is they all eventually wither. They start to get smelly and brown. So they find their final destiny in the trash can.

Now, a plant. That stays and blooms. But does it bloom every day? It is hard work getting a plant to flower? And I have yet to find a plant that is prettier than flowers. Some plants even miss a season of flowers. So your toils end up being for naught.

I believe what happens in LOVE is that we buy the flower expecting it to be a plant. Well, not so. We buy a promise with LOVE and it is up to us individually to create the plant and up to us to keep loving it.

A hopeless romantic? Yours truly. Definitely been there, Definitely done that and Have one enormous bag collection to show for it. I have moved mountains for love. I am proud of that. I have had mountains moved. I have never left a relationship which promised more happiness than the loneliness I ended up with. Whilst going through the turmoil of the break up I battled with blame, his fault, my fault, their fault, the timing, the plac, the this, the that. Fact is in the words of my beloved guitarist BB King - 'the thrill is gone'. It always goes - eventually - even when you move mountains. Sometimes it just ain't enough. So, you learn to love and let go and accept.

Peace

Commitment

Ajab:

I am all for commitment. You should see my resume ;)

Love is the promise. If marriage is the road to having children and acquiring property , this very long road of hard work, sleepless nights, toiling at mundane jobs - of course the 'dare baghe sabz' to entering it MUST promise incredible personal fulfillment - we call it LOVE and that compels us to sign up with Mr/Miss love on the dotted line. A kiss, a touch, thrills down your spine, a poem, an outing - make that ten outings, make that a hundred kisses. Eventually we stand at the 'pearly gates' Aghah - miya too ya na!! Yeah - I'll have some more of that for the next oooooh 30, 40, 50 years. LOVE (more specifically lust/romance) gets you to go through the gates.

And then once through there - what are you going to do. Of course you can't change partners. You have been sold a ticket to Nirvana as a two-some. It is a couple's resort :)

So, you find a corner - lay out the blanket for the shabe zaffaf. You cut open your hendooneh - ghache aval taghdeeme mashoogh meekoni and you take a bite too. Sweet? Bland? bitter? aabaki? khoshk? Well - it all depends on your level of hunger, thirst and expectation doesn't it.

Some hendoonehs are sweet - this theory only holds for pre genetic-engineered Costco variety where all hendoonehs are sweet. So, you and the Mrs. got lucky. Yeahh sweet hendooneh. Dance, frolick.

Some not so lucky. There entereth commitment and delusion.

What to do now?! hmmm

Some get up from the blanket, throw away the hendooneh, leave the park looking for another hendooneh.

Others, well, they don't have the money for another hendooneh, nor the energy to go after another, or they know the odds only too well. They may not end up with a sweet one anyway. So, they settle with the hendooneh they got. They go and get sugar or salt or whatever is needed put it on the hendooneh to make it edible. They LEARN to love it. Enough years of that and they won't know the difference. They LOVE their hendooneh even if , in and of itself it is not sweet.

Commitment creates LOVE not the other way around.

In the same vein, what we have here is a bunch of hendooneheyah already ghache-shodeh walking about looking for the sweet one. A taste of this, a nibble of that. Grazing like that is good only if you don't plan to buy or be bought and you are not holding your breath for getting a full price for half a hendooneh that you have by now become.

Crude analogy but hey I haven't had my coffee yet.

Peace.

I believe you and I believe Marjan

It's easy for me to believe these characters because I have known a number of human beings in my life! (HA!) They are often--WE are often--just as simple or as complicated as we can be.

I won't comment on the zillions of things that have already been said, many of them well said indeed.

But Nazy, I do believe in true love. I think that it's scary to know if, once you find someone with whom you have tremendous connection, it might just not be "destiny" and that it might not just be meant to be. Now THAT would be a reason to mourn the loss of the relationship. See, I don't think Majid was really that much of a dream come true for Marjan. She just turned him into one for whatever reasons she had to project so much of her desires onto/into him. Anyway, what I mean is that there are some relationships that have incredible potential for intense connection and happiness, but they don't always end up transpiring past an initial connection. There are other relationships less "perfect" but we end up in them for decades (we know about that, don't we, Nazy?!) or a lifetime.

As for the online dating stories, what are we going to do if we recognize ourselves there????? HELP!

;^)

Dear Kourosh and Princess

Thank you both for sharing your reflections about relationships and love. Heeh! We might be a minority who still believes in love! My friends tell me to do this and that to meet men, and I tell them that when the time is right, I will meet him and will be struck with the thunder of love! Ha ha! I feel sheepish even typing those words here! Too old for this kind of talk, Rajab and Bag Jan will tell me in a jiffy!

I will write about online dating one of these days. The stories my friends have told me would make you cry if they weren't so funny. A lot of energy is spent rummaging for love in unlikely places. I prefer the even more unlikely route of "thunder."

Thanks again.

Bag Jan

What I wouldn't give to have the same outlook as yours into relationships, love, and marriage. I am a romantic fool. I love love. I love seeing people in love. When my friends tell me they have found somebody, my silly heart is filled with joy and a dance of celebration! When they fall out of love, get hurt, and hurt each other, I go around moping like an idiot, taking their pains of love oh so personally. That's how I can write about it, I guess, but that's about the only good thing about it. In my mind, there is so much hope for happiness, loyalty, and respect for couples. I am convinced that if they look hard enough, if they act wisely, and if they follow their hearts, their happiness is guaranteed.

In this, what I know you will sagely call a completely gullible way of approaching relationships, I don't see relationships as transient or transitional. I see them as a point of hope for staying together, for making it, for growing old together. I know they don't work all the time, and you can see my stories are a testament to that. But sometimes they do! Not all relationships fail, not all of them end. There are people who found each other 20, 30, and 40 years ago and haven't yet let go. Yes, it might be a different relationship now, with less passion and more trust, but those guys have figured out a way to make it work.

I know this all sounds so childish and juvenile, because this is the 21st century and people are saying and doing different things, choosing "alternative" relationships, serial monogomy, and such. I know about them and I respect those choices for people who are comfortable having them. But I still hold that the most peaceful way to live and love is to have one person who understands you, appreciates you, tolerates you, and loves you still.

An incurable romantic I am and I know it. But I still envy your cool and wise outlook. I know yours is a lot more practical and pragmatic. This makes me sad.

Bag Lady I think commitment

Bag Lady I think commitment is a good thing with the right person. It is part of life and love may or may not have anything to do with it! Mostly it does. None of my comments are meant for anyone in this series in particular.

Nazy you are right. You got me right. But look around you, as you say it is not just me. It is a whole generation of us who are going through this and this is new to all of us. This won't be new to 2nd and 3rd generation but it is for us. So we're alone in it but it affects a lot of us.

As for Marjan finally figuring this out being Majid's problem, is that really so?! Who says this wan't Marjan's fault? It was her fault to get into it with a separated man in the first place plus bunch of other stuff.

So in the end, don't forget the 1st rule of breakup! It is all encompassing. All the time she spent worrying her "pretty head" analyzing is wasted. Wouldn't you say so?

Dear Rajab

O.K. I think by now I'm understanding you a little better! You have middle-aged Iranian women around you who are thinking and acting all wrong and even if they seek your advice on what to do, they won't take it, and they are ruining their lives (and yours out of boredom with their predictibility!)!.

Believe me, I have them around me, too! I'm actually faring a lot better since I've come back to live the US, because the kinds of things I used to hear about outlooks and approaches on relationships were pretty ridiculous in Tehran, no matter how old or how experienced my friends were! The rush for the altar, as in do whatever it takes to marry him/her as quickly as possible, was rampant among men and women young and old. It was surreal. At least in these parts, people have a slower pace reaching marriage decisions, saving themselves and others a lot of heartache in case of a mistake.

Though I understand you better, I can't get over your anger for middle-aged women who are caught offguard by life's events or who need help. The only thing that comes to my mind is that some very dear and very close women in your life have been hurt like this and your inability to steer them in the right direction (because they won't learn and they won't do the right things), makes you be so harsh on these poor characters!

Tough love, I know that one! And just as tough love must be administered in the case of drug addicts, it should sometimes be administered to love addicts!

Anyhow, I doubt we are that far off in our thinking about the problem--I really appreciate your straight-forward and honest comments. I think our approach to the characters are a little different, though! I embrace them and convey their pains the way they tell me and you want none of what you call "sugar coating" people's shortcomings! That's fair, I think.

Let me just leave this comment with one more thought for you. I think Marjan was having a therapeutic and philosophical discussion with herself all these months, trying to, as Princess said so aptly, "exhaust" that love which was not reciprocated. She wrote the letters to Majid and never mailed them.

On the very last line of the second letter, I think you will see that Marjan's penny (do-zaari!) has dropped. For the first time she sees fault with Majid. For the first time she understands how bad it is to mess with another person's life when you are not available. And for the first time she acknowledges that if she continues this, she will be a "monster" like Majid.

I think that last sentence shows what she is going to do with her life, moving on from Majid and going to the next relationship with a lot less baggage because of it. Of course, I might be wrong!

I bet you are really fun to talk to, and that's why people torture you all the time!

Love and Marriage

Ajab Khan:

I did not take the 'pretty head' thing to have been meant for me. I am the 'au naturel' type - sorry to disappoint. I've earned every line on this face and like to show it off. :)

Stats are for statisticians. So please - let's not even go there. Every time you flip a coin there is a 50% chance of head or tail - every time.

Marriage is a corporation - on that we agree. There is work and then there is the weekend. Still, there has to be an ongoing commitment - oooooh that dreaded word - to make it through the week - every week. It still requires two people to want the same. It requires faith and trust and jolly hard work. And, it doesn't hurt if either party has little other option - there entereth children and property - to bind and to hold ;0

We place the shackles on ourselves - willingly at work because it affords us a paycheck and a weekend - same as marriage. In that sense - mister - in the words of Tina Turner - What's love got to do with it?

Enough already. I am spending far too much time on this blog.

Peace.

Bag Lady yes that was a

Bag Lady yes that was a compliment. Just to make sure the "pretty head" doesn't get misconstrued it meant to followup on closure issue, where one would look in the mirror putting on make up (forgetting how much makeup you're adding on and on and on ;-)and constantly thinking why, akhe why?!

Anyway, having a good relationship or marriage is not always luck, luck luck. Sure there is an element of luck. Just finding someone, ANYONE is luck. Keeping that someone ANYONE is not necessarily all luck.

You have to work at it and it is hard work. I'd think in terms of a contract. You can get into it and you have both good and bad and you think you rather be in this relationship than nothing or jumping from one to another.

NO relationship is perfect but 50% of relationships work, right? 50% divorce thing. Most 2nd marriages work and that percentage is higher like 65%. Why? Because you've learned what NOT to do in your second marriage.

So bottom line nothing is fantasy. Work is not fantasy and not fun but we work, right? On a different level love and marriage, (love and marriage ;-) is good too despite limitations it may put on you.

When we are in it we think we are limited and OMG if I were single I'd saddle women left and right or I'd break every guy's heart that I come across. But when we are out of it we're alone staring at walls!

Well Put

Mr. Kourosh,

Well spotted on the drawbacks of the transitional.

Personally I think ALL relationships are transient. They ALL have a shelf life. Some longer than others though and they are ALL sweet in their own way. I still cherish my first crush on a boy of 12 in Iran. I found him on the net recently. We 'loved' each other back then. Does that mean we need to get together now? Not a chance - it was summarized by a couple of visits to the local ice cream parlor and a secret visit to Ghasre Yakh! It was true love - innocent and pure. It lasted one season.

Transitional relationship dynamics is a THEORY. That is one way of looking at the short love affair after the long relationship. There are as many ways to justify our behavior as there are people. plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose
(My French is a lot better than my Spanish)

I think we are all on the same page of 'good will' which is very encouraging. Now, if only we could all sit in a room and discuss things in such civil ways as we do on the net. Not bloody likely!

Peace

Move On and Up

Ajab Rajab - neveshti seh vajab - kardee mano ba khodam laj :)

I take your note as a compliment.

Move on and up. That's all we can do.

Honey, I have been around the block a time or three. I have read a lot of the psychobabble and the gobbledygook of man, woman etc etc. It all sounds great. It makes me sound , oh so, learned - don't you think?! :)

Fact is - boy meets girl, they do the horizonal mambo, girl wants more, boy wants less, or boy wants more, girl wants less. They get up, do the jitterbug and mosey into their destinies.

Millions make millions out of why the boy and girl didn't want to keep up with the mambo for ever and ever and millions buy into the fact that there may be a reason. Fact remains, there is no damn reason. Loving someone is easy, having the same person love you back, damn lucky, keeping that two way LURRVE for ever - fat chance. Somehwere between 'damn lucky and winning the house ' - that's where all these blogs are born.

I guess like all things - so also in love, it is better to be lucky than good. This last point is best demonstrated in the movie "When Harry Met Sally". luck, luck and more luck.

Peace

"I love female characters

"I love female characters who hurt , hurt terribly. But they learn from that hurt. I love female characters who would go begging and pleading with the guy to find out WHY they were left."

Bag lady as Mike Meyers would say in Wayne's World; Excelllent! ;-)

Yes let's focus on that. What to learn from a breakup. First rule of breakup recovery; F*** closure!

There is no such thing as "closure"! Closure is a word created by someone long long time ago when the feelings after breakup became known! Not sure how long ago was that, take a guess!

The fact is you don't need closure, you never get it, it doesn't exist. Your partner probably told you the reason(s) but you were either still caught up in trying to argue or were singing to him/her; love and marriage, love and marriage (Married with children song) while your partner was either filing her nail or scratching himself!

Again, you can try all of these "side effects" of a breakup in your first or 2nd tries but not continuously and over and over again.

2nd rule of breakup recovery; F*** rebound sex or relationship! It doesn't exist. It is just in your head when you ignored the first rule and you are just letting yourself go, regardless of how the rebound thing ends up being.

When I say independence for women both emotionally and socially, I'd like to compare women to men in general. Men in general.

Women are at a disadvantage from the beginning for a variety of reasons. As we discussed in previous articles we're not going to get into all of these social and cultural issues but we all know them more or less.

Men in general have their careers and when they meet someone they'll fall in love and go from there. If the relationship is moving right along and they're ok with it, it goes on and they are more or less happily ever after.

If the relationship doesn't go well by the time breakup comes up they feel free at last, thank god almighty I am free at last! But women? Women are in breakup mode and all discussed above and below!

So don't excuse yourself. Learn how to be independent for ever and enter your relationships as an independent woman. Go with the flow and enjoy everything and have your life but if it fails, don't spend your "pretty head" thinking or sulking about it. Learn to say f*** it and move on! Moveon.org was established based on this very reason! NOT!

Bag or no Bag, no

Bag or no Bag, no commprehende.
Mi amiga:)

A very eloquent description, Indeed. Basically she
/he "uses" someone else to get that desired healing.
i don't believe that it is the Relationship that chooses people, even of the transinet or transitional kind. To say that it is akin to say that you believe in pure magic. You even mention at the bottom that "marjan would have to decide for herself". It is always, and i mean ALWAYS, people who choose to get involved. I am not saying they know exactly whom they are falling in love with, but they playy a big role in making the choice to begin with.

Getting into a transitional thing may be very common but it is not as simple as the "ghave khoone sare rah" analogy, although i think it is an interesting analogy.
There definitely is a different approach involved, but based on what i have seen, especially in women, she still needs a lot of time to know what and who this transitional buddy is and she gradually begins to let him be that partner, all the while, with not an inkling in her mind that he may be the one. There can't really be "ultimate healing" here, because her heart and her mind are in another universe, totally. again.. and unfortunately... been there and played it.
Here in our case
even though marjan maybetotally devoid of any emotions or certain feelings while laying there in his arms and can't return his full of emotions and "ehsasi" looks, something is definitely going through her head to let him do certain things with her, Hence it her who is doing the CHoosing, not the mr/mrs. relationship fairy.

Princess.

What i am trying to say is that deep down all she wants is to be back with majid. That is what she wishes in her heart, because i wonder where do all these words and thoughts come from? The feelings she has for him and the constant thoughts in her mind. she may not be asking him literally and outright, But I think if he starts calling her and sending signals she is not so Beemale to throw herself all over him.

On that last paragraph, I could not agree with you more. Please, don't even let anyone calling you a sentimental person! I think all human beings know this yet somehow avoid amditting it and do a good job of covering it up. You are right, It is nearly impossible to actually know whom you are falling inlove with, but when you do, you know exactly what you are doing and it is done with totall awarness.
I can see that you are for real, and really are a strong woman, because you admit the truth. Notmany people have the guts to speak like you do.

Take care all.

Way too harsh on Marjan.

KouroshS: Thanks for your comment.  And I agree with your modified version of the quote, love is – or at least should be – sharing both our pleasure AND pain, but in general we are more open to sharing pleasures than pains, or at least I am, so in my view sharing our pain is a bit more special. :)

  Regarding your answer to my question I just would like to make another comment on your last sentence. You say: “…the odds are heavily in favor of her keeping her feelings for the other man, and that she will eventually find a way to convince him to take her back.”   While I agree with the first part that the odds are that she will continue her feeling for the other man at least of a long while, I am not sure that she would always WANT to go back to the man she loves.  

This might sound a bit confusing, but when I read your sentence and thought about my personal experience, although I knew I loved my “Majid” and I was suffering to the point of madness, I never wanted to “convince him to take me back.”

It might be the romantic idealist in me, but my feeling is that it’s like a spools yarn; once it’s undone, one can never quite put it back together in the same way.    Speaking for myself, I might not mind the “imperfection” in the majority of my relationships, but in the most meaningful ones I find it very difficult to compromise. That is what is so desperate about the situation. It’s a pain you know you have to endure until it exhausts itself. And in the meantime, all you can do is withdraw and lick you wounds, and keep up a brave façade for all the judgemental people out there.  Now I am not assuming that Marjan is like me, in this respect, but I still believe this process cannot and SHOULD NOT be rushed. It will take as much or as little time at it takes to get over these things and we normally find our own ways to cope. Remember, Marjan is not SENDING Majid the letters; she is just putting her thoughts and feelings in writing and addressing them to Majid possibly as a way to alleviate the pain however slightly. She is not asking him to take her back.   

As for all these comments, psycho-analysing Marjan’s character to death, I have this to say:

What does falling in love/ being in love have to do with a lack of self-esteem? Some people take longer to get over a failed love than others. I mean do you  actually calculate who to fall in love with after you have weighed all the pros and cons? Call me a sentimentalist, but love is not a business transaction. And since when mourning for a lost love equates being “needy”?    

 I personally find “independence” and “strength” are over-rated. And believe me that is coming from a very independent and strong young womnan. What I am reading from these messages is that anybody who is not as “strong” as we would want them to be deserves no compassion. I think claiming that she lacks self-esteem is a cop-out and completely misses the point.

I guess I am a bit amazed by all these harsh judgements that are being passed here overemphasising rationality at the expense of emotions. I just find it's amazing how different we all are.

I’d better wrap this up and get back to work, before I get too carried away here.

Transitional Relationship

Mr.Kouroush,
I am afraid I am one and the same. I have a number of "Handbag" handles. Variety is the spice of life. ;)

YOu might want to google Transitional relationship. I could not do it justice as to its psychological necessity or place in a person's phase of emotional well being.

People don't choose a transitional relationship. It chooses them. After a long term relationship, there is heartbreak, denial, grief, bargaining and finally acceptance. Then some time goes by and the fond memories return to soothe the bruises without regret. Some manage to heal completely through therapy, introspection or both. Others have residual unfinished business. Here entereth the transitional relationship. She/he meets a person who may/may not be just like the ex. The dynamics of the relationship ends up being not too dissimilar to that with the ex. Thus She/he gets a chance to replay the final act of the long term relationship and its ensuing demise, In so doing, the wound is opened a little and finds healing in a different approach by the transitional partner. She/he may mistake the partner as 'the one'; especially because the partner has been the ultimate healer. It is the relationship and NOT the partner that achieves the final cure. The transitional is the 'ghahveh-khaneyeh sare rah' on the way to Shomal. Enticing - absolutely. You get to stretch your legs, have a cuppa' and you may even fantasize about wanting to just stay there forever. Fact is you will eventually tire of it soon after your thirst is quenched; get back in the car and drive to destination - the Caspian sea.

I shall leave it to you to figure out how what Marjan is experiencing is NOT a transitional. Of course Marjan will have to decide for herself - ultimately.

Peace

Good question.

Nazy

oh please. I save you the hassle. IT has been nine years since the biggest break up of my life and although it took me a long time to get over it, now that i look back, i am so happy that it is over though. It is over because i finally decided to end it for myself, and it was not because i had found someone else, and that i found closure because of it.
But to answer your question,fortunately or Unfortunately, most men are experts at hiding the pain and the heart break. Talking about it, is like stripping them off their honor and their pride. I admit that even though i have seen many friend going through some bad times in their relationships, they somehow were able to deal with it in many ways, a lot better than i ever would, or could. I , on the other hand,always wore my feelings on my sleeve. so to speak. .

Princess. I actually believe in a slightly modified version of that quote: " Love IS shared pain and pleasures" and of course sharing our vulneribilities:)
Also to give my two cents in replying to your question, I would NOT even dare entertaining the thought of making a move on such a woman and let her be in the confines of her feelings for the other man and just keep her in a distance, or rather keep my distance.:) whichever one is more convenient.
You are right that there are indeed some men out there who'd go out of their way to capture that woman's heart, But all in all it is a very risky ordeal, and even if the woman would give them a chance, purely out of respect for his courage and making the effor, the odds are heavily in favor of her keeping her feelings for the other man, and that she will eventually find a way to convince him to take her back.

Been there done that... i am sorry.. bag or no bag.
It is just that your comments are so very , eerily similar to a person who once came on this thread as Been there, done that got the bag or the hand bag. could there have been a little change of name there?.. :)anywho..

I have a question for you, regarding this "transitional relationship" concept: I am particularly puzzled when You say that such a relationship is an oasis to recovery, after a long term relationship. If marjan knows that she has no future with this guy in her heart of hearts, and this just a temporary phase, then she has no reason to feel any happiness at all with this second fellow, short term or long term, so Why would you say:
"If this were to have been Marjan's transitional then she would be ecstatic with her relations with the second fellow. He is not ulitmately the person she would settle with"?

Gracias:)

Keep it going ladies and gents. It is getting very interesting.
P.S.I learn a lot more here than by listening to Drs. Mc graw and Holakoi, collectively:)

Bag Lady!

Right on Rajab. That is hilarious. I am laughing so hard, I may actually, ahem - wet myself.

There is no solution and none sought I should think. It is life - funny and sad and everything in between.

Let's just blame the demise of the current diaspora on the British - as per Daee Jaan Napoleon. Maybe he knew a thing or two. Afterall wasn't the British missionary who brought 'morality rules' to Persia in order to exploit its citizens?

This could turn ugly - bringing in politics and history.

Signing out.

Still laughing. LOLOLOLOLOL

Marjan

Nazy Khanoum Jan,

I don't believe this Marjan character. Perhaps I don't know enough about her. I think it is very important to fill in the details to be able to put the whole character together. I realize these are short stories and are based on real life events but you have got to give your characters more 'meat' so the reader has something to 'bite' into. Otherwise they will be crucified. As you have Marjan in this precis, she could easily be a teenager as a 30 some year old spoilt princess and a comic character if she were to be a woman in her 40's. You've got to differentiate if you don't want the character to be unfairly assassinated.

I love female characters who hurt , hurt terribly. But they learn from that hurt. I love female characters who would go begging and pleading with the guy to find out WHY they were left. Love can move mountains and does. It would make sense to fight with every ounce of your being if that sort of love exists. It is so rare and so worth going after. Love knows no pride. But what happens here?

What does Marjan do? After a couple of months she goes and dates someone else. She then gets physically close to this other person and this is where I have serious issues with Marjan. She does all the right things - says the right things - she plays with this second guy - possibly hoping that this will 'show Majid'. I have a specifically huge issue with Marjan experiencing a climax with this man, all the while when he is staring in his eyes and not being able to reciprocate the same sentiment and yet able to come. I simply don't know how that is possible. At least have her her close her eyes and think of Majid while she soars into the abyss of orgasm but for goodness' sake she is looking at the guy AND she still comes. So what does that say about Marjan? She is a robot - a fake - a nympho - or maybe she has never expereinced a true climax! ;)

Anyway. Nazy I enjoy your stories tremendously . That is why I come back again and again to read them. I am learning.

I have been in love myself. I have had to let go and I know the pain of a breakup only too well. It takes a long time , more than a couple of months to get over a person who meant a little to you let alone a lot. So, I am not the 'beeach' you or others may envision. I have a heart. I have managed to keep it intact and not yet sold over to the other side - the bitterness and cynicism many of the women in my age are resigned to.

In our latter years we are free to love freely - so why not. There are plenty of men who love and love to be loved also. It really does not have to be painful. The parting is painful - yes. The lost dreams perhaps - the thought of what could have been. We mourn the extrapolation.

Afterall it is better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all.

My good old Gramma used to say : Eshghe vagheeee Naneh ooneeyehkeh behesh naressi. Oh yes - the unrequited.

In that sense one could argue that Marjan will love Majid for ever because the relationship never advanced to normalcy, the laundry pile, the paying of the bills and the regular chores that have the power to silence the most ardent lovers to introspection.

One last thought before I sign off is the notion of the 'transitional relationship' which is what Homeyra points out to. These relationships are particularly pivotal after a long term relationship - a marriage for e.g. It is the relationship that the person has with another which, inadvertantly addressing the unfinished business of the emotional divorce. Some mistake it for the 'real thing' but it is merely an oasis to recovery. It is the final chapter of the divorce and/or the break up after a long term relationship.

This is differnet from what Marjan experiences. If this were to have been Marjan's transitional then she would be ecstatic with her relations with the second fellow. He is not ulitmately the person she would settle with. He is there to take her over the bridge to self and release her onto a meadow of freedom.

We all think we are terribly unique but let's not forget we are more similar than different. Relationships are limited to certain types. At the end - hameyeh jaadeha be rome khatm misheh.

Peace

I have contempt for her

I have contempt for her because she gave up and became like a deer caught in a headlight. I don't like it when women regardless of how old or young they are become such a basket case that they do crazy things! They are only shooting themselves in the foot.

That is one of the things about learning from relationships and like I said in my first comment, it is ok to become a basket case in your first or second breakup but not over and over again. If Marjan is such a relationship expert why is she so dumbfounded and caught in yet another crying game? What is "devastating" this time?!

By the way women with strong self esteem and strong characters don't need help. Their stories is good and we'd want to be like them, so we won't have anything to say about them.

It is the problem women where we feel the need to guide and help. Solutions are easy and we all know them and even the women know it too, but they tell us one thing and do another. It is the breaking of this cycle which is at the heart of this matter. She can be as loosy goosy and liberal or as strict and old fashioned as possible, what she does with them is important.

Dear All

I’m taking a good beating this time! Heeh, not to worry, I can handle it! Let’s see what we have here:

Marjan is real. That’s how she thinks and that’s how she feels. I didn’t make her up, so I can’t make her stronger or better or different. She is not a novice in relationships and she is not old, so Rajab can’t take his usual stabs at her “kind!” Though prudently selective, she does have liberal views about sexual relationships. Her problem right now is that she loved a man and the breakup has affected her deeply. That’s all. Did I make her character look prudish?

Marjan doesn’t want to hurt the new guy. In fact she is trying hard to build something of the relationship which would anchor her heart in it. If she were a slut who wanted to hurt this guy, she wouldn’t think twice about any of this. As we speak Marjan is still seeing that guy. My advice to my friend has been to work on this relationship because this guy looks like a keeper.

Some of you really hated her character. I’m a little surprised. Some of you said she looks weak to you. Why is that? Because her life was disrupted with the breakup (she missed work)? Because she cried? Because she couldn’t forget Majid? I have seen many women who have taken a long time getting over a lost love. Heck, I have seen men who have taken years to get over one!

Let’s talk about the mirror thing again for a minute here, and I will share what I don’t like about what Marjan is doing to herself. Remember how she said Majid never found any fault with his ex? Look at the way Marjan talks to Majid, like he has no faults. She needs to cut that out and start seeing the guy as the jerk that he was to her, and that will alleviate her pains greatly! Another thing you can’t see is how nice Marjan had been to Majid during their relationship; just as nice as the new guy in her life is to her. What possibly made Majid feel guilty and what is now making Marjan feel guilty, too, is how nice the new partners are, making reciprocating in kind difficult when you don’t love them. It’s not clear from what you see in the story what kinds of promises and noises Majid had made to get Marjan to follow him for that whole year. Did I mention that they had been together for a whole year? I don’t think I did, but in the story, she talks about mutual friends, etc., which should be enough to tell you that they were not a short-term or a limited partnership.

Anyhow, this comment got too long again.

Ajab and No handbag: Thanks so much for coming back. Please tell me again why you have such contempt for Marjan! Talk to me!

Princess, welcome to the discussion! I have read your intelligent comments on other threads and am delighted to have you join us. I’m with you on this!

Azarin Jan, thanks for your kind comment. Marjan is real, so I can’t apologize for her or make her better. I can only try and make her better understood.

Kourosh, are you for real? I’ve got to go back and read to remember what you said about your current status! How come I have never heard another man talk about that pain before?

Zan Amrikai Jan, thank you for your honesty.

Everybody else, thanks, stay with us!

Bag lady :-) come to think

Bag lady :-) come to think of it there isn't really any solution. It is true that the best solution would be to sit down and write down your experiences in your recent relationships (steady and imaginary ;-), if you are a middle aged woman, and look at the pattern.

But if our lady can bring herself to do that then not only the problem is solved but she is a neck shaking beeach who knows no boundries and sky can be the limit for her!

I think we can learn from these exchanges and learn a thing or two and move on. Who knows maybe someone can have a light bulb moment here or pass it along to a friend or family.

The fact though is that these women are real and they live among us. If they have low self esteem or teen queens in their 40s or 50s it just comes with the territory. Nazy's sugar coating them doesn't make much of the difference in the heart of the matter.

Nazy Jaan

I read it for the third time,can't get enough of the PLOT !.

I'll be back again!!

sepaas

Smooth and compelling, but...

Nazy Jan,

Such a great story-telling treat! I have always admired your craft of writing, but I am starting to feel frustrated by the women-characters in your stories!

Are they all for real?

Why they’re so needy, with such a low self-esteem? I would like to see a strong woman in your next story who knows exactly what she wants and how to get it too! Someone like yourself my dear!

I think, because of our traditions and culture, our history has been full of forgettable weak and dependant women…but the ones who have remained eternal through our literature and poetry are strong and free-spirited like Shirin, or passionate like Leily.

We need stories with this type of lovers: zealous and independent!

But on the bright side, after reading your charming stories, I glance at my sweet hubby and feel so lucky that I shouldn’t go through these types of dating-rituals ever!!

Thanks for sharing your wonderful work with us!

Your true fan, Azarin

Love is...

KouroshS

I very much agree with you and would just like to share a quote that relates to the gist of your comment: Love it not shared pleasure, it is shared pain. It’s about sharing our vulnerabilities.