Turn the Car Around :: The Importance of Taking a Break from a Bad Relationship.

By R. Lewis Lightner on June 18th, 2010

South Bass Island Beginnings

I take myself back to where I was when I first heard “of a revolution” otherwise known as OAR. It was South Bass Island on Lake Erie and my band was playing at the Beer Barrel Saloon (see Guinness Book of World Records for World’s Longest Bar). Playing in the biggest club on a small island, our shows were generally done rather early for the world of rock & roll, and thus we were able to go back to the dressing room, shower, and go out and partake in the Mardi Gras/French Quarter type festivities prior to the bars closing. It happened every night….the last song…in addition to being played like clockwork at the both the top and the bottom of the clock…that last annoying song that everybody else seemed to get but the band I was with and myself. Was this a local band or something? Why was everybody so into this song singing about how “That Was a Crazy Game of Poker?” I remember asking several people who did the song so I could figure out where all the hype came from, including the bartender that was obviously annoyed that I would even have the nerve to ask, much less not already know some how who this was. Being stricken with rock star deafness and in a loud club, I tried to decipher the words that she seem to be mouthing to me. I missed it the first time. Was she spelling the word oar? Was this a local band that named themselves after a much needed piece of non-engine small boat paddling equipment??? After the third attempt she shouted “OF A REVOLUTION” at me as if I had done something I was about to get thrown out of the club for and stormed off. I decided to leave that one alone and it wasn’t years until I found out who they were, and how much they had to say about my life.

Back To Our Roots

Its kind of serendipitous what actually brought me back to thoughts of the island. It was a combination of things that led to writing this blog and a new perspective on life. Working backward, it was hearing this song performed live by OAR on Palladia….and stumbling across a picture of a much younger self with perfect short spiked bleached rock star hair in a BMW convertible in line for the South Bass Island Ferry. A few days prior to this, I spent over 4 hours on the phone late one night with one of my best friends, You Tube Viral Percussion Legend Steve Moore (THIS DRUMMER IS AT THE WRONG GIG!), whom I toured with years earlier. We were discussing life and our careers, which made me think of this trip to South Bass Island, where I appeared in the Steve Moore video “Over the Barrel” which featured the band that Steve and I toured with. This was few weeks after I caught a live Jason Mraz show on Palladia and realized that I knew his trombone player, Reggie Watkins, who attended the same college music program as I. I started thinking even more about my life and the fact that I was living a totally non-creative life at that moment in time and that I was miserable because of it. Well, that and the relationship that I was in at the time that just wasn’t quite working. That, of course, led me to thinking about my relationship and to my would be wife Danyell’s trip to Tennessee with her mother to list a home and piece of property with a realtor, followed by spending the remainder of the week with a bunch of her family at a timeshare in Gatlinburg…without me. This brings me to the main thrust of this article. Danyell’s trip afforded me the opportunity to get a bit of a break from our now tortuous relationship and to take a step back and gain some perspective. Things had been very difficult in the recent past. I had taken on a job as an account manager for one of largest banking companies in the United States after the forced closing of my nightclub business. We had been fighting about money. We had been fighting about trust. We even fought about fighting. In the bigger picture, I was in a bad relationship rut at best…but more likely I was just stuck in a relationship that had long since run its course. Fortunately, due to her trip, I was able to get nearly two weeks with little or no contact which afforded me the opportunity to take a good, hard look at our relationship, my life, and where I should be…versus where I was stuck.

A Lot To Be Learned from a Rock Song

During the aforementioned chaotic chain of thoughts, I had mentioned stumbling across OAR live in concert on Palladium. I simply struck by one of the songs they performed and could not get it out of my head. In this song, Shattered (Turn The Car Around), OAR vocalist Marc Roberge is addressing one of those relationships that you need to get away from, but the love for that person, the attraction, the whatever…leads you back…over, over, and over…only to leave you broken…or, as the case may be… “shattered.” Roberge addresses some of the fundamentals that we should examine in a bad relationship. He’s trying to get away…kind of…but keeps getting drawn back in even though he knows that he shouldn’t. He admits that he’s good without her, and wonders how many times he may break until he shatters. He knows he’s gone too far by saying “over the line can’t define what I’m after,” or maybe this is a reference to his goal as wanting to be over the line in love…or whatever. He is asking for some time to make his own patterns…to have his life not to be governed by the other person…but still, every time he leaves, he turns the car around. “All that I feel is the realness I’m faking…Taking my time, but its time that I’m wasting” addresses how we can be stuck in such a rut that all we are doing is wasting time by being there, faking what a relationship should be, just going through the motions, but not really experiencing a healthy union of two souls. He admits to being good without her…and even makes the suggestion for her to give it up and break the endless cycle. In the bigger picture, it may well be that that Roberge is looking at the world for greener pastures because he feels he needs a change, but then realizes that he needs to come back to where he belongs…but that is not what I feel from the song. Its more likely that the he was going through the same thing that I had been feeling…the drawing addiction of being with someone that you really shouldn’t …but having to break the old habits and let go of that person…hence the last two lines…”Don’t wanna turn the car around,” indicating that the realization is ever present that he can move on and doesn’t want to fall back into old habits…followed by, “I’ve got to turn this thing around,” now no longer referring to the imagery of the car, but more the whole relationship and bad direction in general. Turn it around and make a change…a much needed change.

The Break

My break kind of landed in my lap. I feel lucky, as I may never have taken it otherwise and may not be sharing this wisdom with you. Danyell and I were already breaking up. She took the first truckload of stuff from our home as she headed back to Delaware on the front end of the Tennessee trip with her mother. We hadn’t been talking much when we were apart anyway prior to this trip. (Danyell traveled back to Delaware nearly every weekend to help her mother cope with the loss of her husband…Danyell’s father a few months prior.) The two of us love each other very much, and most likely always will…but after 8 years of on again, off again…the conclusion was had that things were never going to fall in place like they should and we should go our separate ways. Due to the stars aligning with the condition of our relationship, my new job offering me a lot of free time I wasn’t used to, and the aforementioned fact that we didn’t talk much when we were apart anyway…I was afforded the time to take a good hard look at myself, my life, where I was, and where I needed to be.

Getting Back To Yourself/Finding Your Compass

The main gift built into taking a step back from a bad relationship is the ability to better see the relationship for what it actually is. It is all too often true what has been said about when you are too close to something, you can’t see anything at all. It is so hard to define what is wrong with a bad relationship when you are stuck dealing with the drama and negative emotions on a day to day basis. The first few days of our time apart were mostly eaten up by just doing things that I never seemed to get around to with her in the house. It actually took nearly a week before I really started thinking about the relationship without my thoughts being clouded by anger from recent events. What we really often need in this sort of situation is to look at everything that is transpiring objectively. You nearly have to step out of the relationship to really see how it is affecting you. Ultimately, you need to take a look at the positive and negative characteristics of the relationship. What are your issues? What are the issues of your significant other? Are they a scorekeeper? Are they a faultfinder? Are they a bottomless pit? Will they not forgive? Will you not forgive? Is their insecurity or jealousy destroying your relationship? Are you the one that is causing all of the issues? In most cases, it is a combination of you and your significant other that is leading to the downfall of the relationship. In the majority of cases, it is not just one person entirely in the wrong. The bottom line here is that you need to see the relationship for what it really is. You need to find yourself again. You need to find out exactly what it is that you want, as well as trying to figure out what your significant other wants. Do these two wish list have enough in common that the relationship can survive…or most importantly, survive happily? Ultimately, you have to find yourself again…reset your internal compass…and make some hardline decisions about what you want out of your life and if this relationship fits into the future you see for yourself.

Where Am I Now?

I can’t say that after my break I had all of the answers. It is rare that we ever find all of the answers or feel that we should move 100% in one direction or the other. Being torn doesn’t make you wrong…it just shows that you are human. What I did discover was a very important aspect of deciding whether to stay in a relationship or whether you should move towards getting away from this person and finding someone else. All relationships have good periods and bad periods. Unless you are a victim of abuse, there is nothing wrong with arguing or fighting. Its how you handle disagreements that is important. Do you respect your partner? Do they respect you? Do you find that they say hurtful things in a fight just to get under your skin or do they respect you enough to fight fairly? Do you say the same hurtful things? The ultimate conclusion that applied to my relationship came to be as follows: Am I with someone that is going to be there for me through the good times and bad…or am I “chasing the relationship’s potential?” What I’m getting at is that you shouldn’t make excuses for your relationship not feeling like a healthy relationship based upon the obstacles in your life. So, what if you are going through financial stress and it spills over into your relationship, causing fights and negative energy? Again..fights happen in nearly every healthy relationship. The problem is that if you get your financial situation squared away, there is a great likelihood that some other stress causing factor will then affect the relationship. What if to resolve your money problems, you take on a second job? Now you may well have to deal with disagreements and tension over time issues…and therefore you may find yourself unhappy again. What you need to ask yourself is, am I truly happy…or am I waiting for true happiness to come after the stressful things that are taking a toll on the relationship are gone? Most likely, you will never end up truly happy, as there will always be stressful factors in your life. Maybe the issue is that you need to find a relationship in which you and your partner work as a team and make the best of ALL times…both good AND BAD. If your relationship is not enjoyable even in the worst of times…then maybe you should consider the fact that you and your partner may just not be a good fit for each other. These may well be hard words to hear…but you need to take a good, hard look at your life and your goals and how this relationship fits with them…and be willing to move on if it doesn’t. Sometimes to get this sort of perspective, you really need to take a step back from the relationship to see things for what they are. Again, all of this thought stems from a trip back through memory lane triggered by a rock song and a long enough break from a relationship to get a good, honest look at everything I had been dealing with. You can learn a lot from a rock song.