Is there any way for Cyril and Ace to save this toxic relationship?

As I watched the embarrassing spectacle of Cyril Ramaphosa and Ace Magashule firing each other, I was struck by the similarity to certain shambolic romantic relationships – notably my own!

I think I sympathise with Ace, because no one likes to be dumped. I, too, prefer to do the dumping when it comes to such things.

If you cast your mind back to your undoubtedly illustrious years on the dating scene, I’m sure even you have fallen prey to this syndrome. “Breaking up with me? You can’t break up with me, ‘cos I’m breaking up with you!”

Okay, maybe your break-ups are not quite as childish as that, but mine certainly are. I’m not proud of it, but ja…

I remember once getting dumped, then wooing my partner back, only to then break up with her as soon as we were together again. By way of revenge, she immediately won me back and then ghosted me completely.

This left me floating in limbo and unable to do any further breaking up or reuniting. It’s impossible to end or rekindle a relationship when your texts are being blue-ticked. For all I know, I may still technically be dating a mysterious economist from Cape Town, although I doubt it.

One wonders whether Ace and Cyril could try that approach, because things really are getting a bit toxic between them. After all, some relationships really can benefit when you just cool it for a bit and give each other space.

There is also the “open-minded” approach, where you allow each other to see other people to test the waters before contemplating the eternal choice of either breaking up, or getting married on a beach in the Eastern Cape.

In our political scenario, perhaps Ace should be allowed to join the EFF for a few weeks, just to get a taste for opposition politics. Perhaps he could don a red overall and beret, be seen at a press conference spilling tea.
Or maybe he could have a cameo in a DA ad as a zombie flag waver on a city-bowl rooftop.

If my romantic experiments in this space are any indication, the experience will leave him chastened and regretful. The dating pool is shallow and of dubious quality, much like our party-political options.

After a few weeks, Ace may realise that he belongs back in the warm bosom of his main love interest. He may return, suddenly willing to accept onerous terms. In his case, that means sitting out a paid suspension while his corruption trial wends its way through the courts.

This is the political equivalent of hanging up more washing and watching less rugby until your partner’s mood improves. He may even have to commit to counselling and watching the whole six seasons of Glee together, though I hope for his sake it doesn’t come to that.

We sometimes take long-term relationships for granted. We start taking liberties, doing things that are disrespectful to our partners. When called out for them, our first response can be indignant outrage. But this is just our pride speaking. No one likes to be scolded – particularly for a good reason.

Once we have acted out our childish hubris, come home drunk or caused a scene in the parking lot outside a restaurant, we usually wake up in the cold light of day on the couch at our sister’s house and realise it was our fault.

It becomes time to type up a remorseful text and to set up a rather chilly meeting at a neutral venue. Not your place of residence – Luthuli House, as it were – but maybe at that coffee shop in Birdhaven there near the Wanderers.

Perhaps we agree to “give it another chance” and we serve out a period of penance before the cycle begins again. If we’re grown up about it, we may accept that, actually, we’re not really compatible and the whole thing is actually a bit toxic.

We bid each other farewell and we begin negotiating the allocation of property. Like the Tupperwares, the Johnny Clegg T-shirt we both like and our constituency of friends and supporters, who must now decide which one of us they were really friends with in the first place…

Hagen Engler.