Breaking Up to End a Complicated Relationship
Janis has extensive experience as a licensed professional counselor in assisting clients recover from the pain of unhealthy relationships.
Breaking Up a Relationship Involves Intense Back and Forth

The intensity of a relationship can ignite several reunions following break-ups, creating a roller coaster ride of back and forth mixed emotions.
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Relationships and Poems are Complicated in the Forms They Take
Relationships, as some types of poems, are often misunderstood. Both can bring us to the highest heights of joy and to the lowest lows of grief.
Relationships can become as confusing and as unclear as a piece of poetry, written with good intention, but in the end, leaves us wondering, "What was that all about?"
The poem below, "Back To Square One," is an example of a poetry verse form called the Villanelle. This piece was inspired by a couple who kept repeating (as some poems do) the same lines over and over, returning to couples therapy to mend or, shall we say, "edit" their broken relationship.
They didn't realize how they were literally going around in circles with no resolution in sight (as poems can sometimes do). Their attempts were futile and the relationship eventually ended.
Examine the parallels between an unstable relationship that goes 'round and 'round and the shape of the Villanelle form in the poem.
The Ups and Downs of a Passionate Relationship

Passion, coupled with unresolved issues, creates intense ups and downs in a volatile relationship. It sometimes resembles a roller coaster ride.
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"Back To Square One"
'Round and 'round we cannot stop
Each hurting heart returns
The roller coaster makes us drop
We keep repeating the same old hop
Continuing to yearn
'Round and 'round we cannot stop
The same mistakes from the top
Nothing more to earn
Then, the roller coaster makes us drop
Let's take a break before we pop
Or we'll crash and burn
'Round and 'round we cannot stop
Our efforts will begin to flop
The more we push and churn
As we ride, the roller coaster makes us drop
On our heads we need a bop
Maybe then we'll learn
'Round and 'round we cannot stop
The roller coaster makes us drop
A Relationship Stuck at an Impasse

Relationships can go up and down and back and forth with no resolution for a time before the couple realizes it's time to end it.
Photo by nattu via flickr CC BY 2.0
Unresolved Needs Lead to Poetic Drama in Relationships
The Relationship and the Villanelle Poetry Form
Relationships are Villanelles in the flesh, illustrated by the ups and downs, the back and forth, the confusion, the repetition and the volatility.
Full of passion, intensity, and spark, relationships reflect the essence of the Villanelle, especially when the couple is in transition, crisis, or at crossroads.
Origins of the Villanelle
The Villanelle is a complicated form of poetry, said to have derived from an Italian rustic song (a villanella).
It is thought to have its origins in the word "villano," an Italian word for peasant. The peasant would sing a "round song" with refrains and repetitions, as he worked in the harvest field.
The poetry verse form was coined in France with the work of French poet Jean Passerat.
What makes a Villanelle?
- Nineteen lines
- Rhyme scheme "aba"
- Two rhymes are repeated according to refrains
- Six stanzas
- Five stanzas have three lines each; one stanza, the last, has four lines
- The first line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the second and fourth stanzas
- The third line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the third and fifth stanzas
- Those two refrain lines follow each other to become the second-to-last and last lines of the poem
[Complicated and confusing, just like a relationship]
The Break Up of a Relationship
© 2013 Janis Leslie Evans