Dear Jennifer,
My husband broke up with me a few days ago. We were together 14 years and I thought we would be together forever. He is in love with someone else and wants to marry her. Today he sent me a long email. He said that he never loved me and told me all the reasons she makes him happy in ways I never did. I flip between rage that makes me want to destroy something and grief that is so intense that I can’t get out of bed. My best friend says he never deserved me and I need to find someone who does. That just makes everything worse. I don’t know how to move forward. Please help.
— Stuck
Dear Stuck,
Let me begin with compassion and validation. This sounds very painful. We all have been there, fellow traveler. Although the specifics of our stories differ, we all know the pain of feeling like our hearts were pulled from our chests, broken into tiny parts, and scattered like pieces of a discarded jigsaw puzzle. It is no fun to be surrounded by those pieces and wonder how they will be put together again. Right now, the pain most likely feels raw, beyond verbal description, and without an endpoint in sight. I am not surprised that your friend’s well-intentioned comments missed the mark. It is too early for gratitude. It is time for grief and survival mode planning, dear one. Unfortunately, my words also will not reunite your scattered heart pieces, but my hope is that they may give you some concrete steps to follow and a framework that may help. Moving forward usually is a long-term project.
On the bulletin board in their breakfast room, my grandparents had a cartoon from the newspaper. As I remember it, a tearful child was being held by his mother and lamenting via a perfectly drawn thought bubble:
I had to come home. I needed somebody to be on my side.
I recently was reminded of that cartoon during a therapy session while a teary-hearted client discussed the warfare strategies their loved one is choosing to begin the process of what foreshadows a painful ending of a long-term relationship.
Ideally, we would not need militaristic attacks and counterattacks to say good-bye and move forward to the next stage of our life journey. We instead would have loving and respectful conversations about the incompatibility of our personal needs and life goals, and then we would transition to a deep friendship that would reflect harmony and gratitude for our shared experience. Together, we would move on with teary eyes, loving hearts, and gentle hands.
Unfortunately, pain often gets in the way of that kind and gentle approach to ending a relationship. We instead find ourselves plotting actions and reactions that feel incongruent with the good, loving humans we know ourselves to be. We watch somewhat helplessly as our pain takes the steering wheel and drives us to undesirable places.
How do we retain control of our life’s steering wheel when we are simultaneously struggling with emotional pain and attempting to deflect well-targeted arrows?
We take a deep breath, acknowledge the vulnerable feelings churning inside us, and then we grab a notebook and do self-reflective soul-searching. Here are some big questions and ideas to consider exploring.
- When this challenging time is over, I want to be able to say: “I held onto my ______.” What word completes the blank for you? Integrity? Moral compass? Self-respect? Good manners? The word or phrase that completes the blank then becomes what anchors us when we feel pulled off-center. Yes, when we feel hurt, it is understandably tempting to sacrifice our ______ and unleash our pain. Validate that very human desire, dear Stuck, then take a deep breath, exhale it slowly, and choose action that allows you to hold onto whatever fills in your blank.
- When this challenging time is over, I want to be able to say: “I played fairly.” What guidelines might help you define your standards for fair play? In deciding your guidelines, consider the following common struggles in severing a relationship.
- Handling what was shared during past moments of vulnerability when your partner sought comfort from you. What line(s) will you not cross?
- What will be communicated with people who are important to both of you? What do you need to do or avoid sharing so that people are not compelled to choose sides?
- What will be communicated with people who are more important to your partner than to you? How will you respond when or if these people seek contact with you?
- How will you respond when you feel compelled to justify yourself and your choices? Do you need to justify yourself?
- What strategies will protect you from impulsive communication that is not well-thought out and likely to cause later regret?
- What lines will you not cross because they would exploit an area of vulnerability for your soon-to-be-ex partner?
- What lines will you not cross because they would violate self-respect and dignity?
- What does self-compassion look like right now? Self-respect?
- How will you know when you have crossed from self-assertion into aggression or passive-aggression? How will you pull yourself back to respectful self-assertion?
- You are an imperfect human being who is going through a painful process. You will make mistakes. When and how will you accept responsibility for any pain you caused? What will self-forgiveness look like?
- Your judgment about what constitutes “fair” may be compromised by your current pain and experiences. Reach out to someone you trust. Ask that person to review your responses and provide feedback and suggestions.
- Where will you turn to alleviate the pain? There are many forms of medicine and therapy that are not limited to taking pills or attending counseling sessions. Music, art, nature, journaling, exercise, meditation, yoga, reading, mindfully attending to daily life activities, classes on self-compassion or resilience promotion that will connect you with like-minded souls…all of these (and many others) have health-restoring benefits. What will bring comfort right now when you need it the most?
- When you are hurting or feeling vulnerable, what activities should be avoided, minimized, or scheduled with tight parameters to avoid increasing emotional distress and/or causing future struggles? Alcohol/other substances, sex, social media guidelines…what will be your relationship with these activities during this difficult time? Texting/emailing/talking to partner…what new communication guidelines might be helpful to consider while you navigate this change in your relationship? Being alone can become challenging when we are accustomed to sharing a space…when loneliness strikes, what could be helpful options to consider?
- As the little boy said in the cartoon, we all need people to be on our side. Who will be those people for you during this challenging time? When our well-intentioned loved ones attempt to comfort us in a way that increases our pain, how will we communicate that and ask for what we need? How can we find comfort when we don’t know how to ask for what we need?
A Survival Guide
After we complete this soul-searching, we hold in our hands a survival guide that will shepherd us through this painful process and allow us to hold onto our integrity. During times when we feel lost, provoked, and/or uncertain how to proceed, taking a pause to consult our survival guide may help us make responses that keep us connected to our ______, which in turns may make it easier for us to forgive our missteps, sigh our way into the life lessons we are learning, and feel our emotional burdens lessen slightly. Not disappear, but lessen slightly.
And, beautiful Stuck, let me bring us full circle and end with compassion for the life space you find yourself in right now. The creation of a hard times survival guide is not an easy (or quick) process, nor is the soul-searching that brings it into fruition. Remind yourself, during those moments when uncertainty rises and you wonder if you will survive this painful time, that your track record for surviving hard times is 100%. Those are good odds, dear one. Very good odds indeed.
And, finally, remember that you always have someone to be on your side: You.
Ubuntu, fellow traveler.
— Jennifer
