Its been suggested to me by someone who clearly is not aware of my atheism that adopting an imaginary friend could help me find my purpose in life after a relationship breakup. It annoys and perplexes me although I realise everyone has a right to their own opinion.
However my opinion is this:
My husband hasnt left me - I've never had a husband and I certainly hope I never have that misfortune or get ill enough to suffer such poor judgement as restricting myself to the bed of one person for the rest of my life when I personally am certainly not willing to keep such a promise. We just decided there was nothing new to learn about each other and we both should move onto pastures new. I certainly do not believe in prolonged monogamy for myself whilst I admire those who do (albatrosses and the like) and I am looking forward to new sexual adventures and emotional relationships with new men and women very much.
I do of course retain a strength of feeling for my ex partner and shall always do so. I think thats much more civilisised that the acrimonious divorce situation that frequently arises from marriage. In marriage it would seen there is a 40% risk that you will begin with a lover and mariage mate and end with an enemy who'd like to kill you and make the rest of your life miserable. I prefer to start with a lover and end with a friend.
I dont believe imaginary friends are really a good mental strategy to dealing with relationship break ups either. In fact I would caution against such regressive advocacy of emotional dependency on fictional characters. I am a student social scientist and an atheist and believe that wasting time trying to find out what an imaginary being might or might not want is a terrible and fruitless throwing away of your life. I threw 28 years on that through my own stupidity and that of my poor misguided parents and am so happy now that I escaped the mental imprisonment of fantasising about other lives which will never happen instead of living the one I have.
I don't mean to insult anyone, who does like to indulge in this escape route from real life, but I regard it as effective and purposeful as spending evenings playing computer games - it can be a harmless pasttime as long as it does not become obsession. I certainly wouldn't advocate turning to Elder Scrolls Oblivion or Second Life or Gears of War as entire strategies for overcoming a relationship breakdown anymore than I would Christianity or Islam.
I am sure anyone who suggests that I follow Jesus does not mean to insult me by suggesting that I owing to a relationship ending am now mentally incapacitated to the extent I would consider reverting to a primitive regressive fantasy world either.
As a dear friend would now say: BRING IT.
