Moving Forward While Grieving

Seeing loss as space for something better to grow

Photo by Ann on Unsplash

That bench is either empty or just waiting there for the start of something new. It all depends on how you look at it…or so I’m telling myself. Over and over again.

At the risk of sounding melodramatic as no one is dying and no great tragedy has occurred, I think the end of some romantic relationships can provoke deep grief. One study shows that the intensity of grief is strongly linked to the closeness of the relationship itself. Perhaps for this reason, I did not particularly grieve the end of my marriage despite having complex feelings about it that would emerge at other times.

But I have grieved the loss of my most recent relationship on multiple levels – as the loss of hopes, of dreams, of emotional connection. Of very close friendship. Of companionship. Of conversation. Of feeling like I had someone on my team in life, on my side. Of my own home and lifestyle and daily access to my child. All of that, I grieve. After all, “seemingly unbearable emotions are a normal, hardwired response to romantic grief.”

Throughout, I have been reaching for the emotional resources that I developed in therapy and over years of listening to various therapy-oriented podcasts. And I repeat to myself, over and over, “that which is meant for me will find me.” “That which is good will find me.” “The next relationship will be better – I’ll know what to look for.” “Don’t stop taking risks for love.” “Take the good from the relationship with you as you move forward.”

But oh, it’s hard. Heartbreak is brutal. To take my mind off of my broken heart, to remind anyone else struggling with this all-too-familiar experience, I’m choosing to focus on how a period of loss can then become one that births something new.

Here is some advice I solicited from Google on turning your breakup into a new beginning:

• Give yourself time to grieve (I’m there. Am I ever there!)

• Don’t ignore your feelings

• Lean on your support system

• Learn from your mistakes

• Focus on your future

• Be patient

• Don’t rush into something too quickly

• Focus on the positive

Right now, I can only handle two or three of these at a time. Clearly, I’m giving myself time to grieve and I am not ignoring my feelings at all (I couldn’t if I tried). I’m definitely leaning on my support system. As I arrange to move out over the next three weeks, I think I’ll focus on just one thing, one thing, to move past this:

Focus on the positive. Focus on the positive. Focus on the positive. Pull a Beyonce and turn those lemons into lemonade. Focus on the positive.

What are the positives that I got out of my relationship?

There were many positives within the relationship, and that is where they will stay. For instance, I got a great deal of companionship in the relationship. I don’t have that now, so I’ll focus more on what I will actually take forward with me from the relationship.

I gained insight into what I need and want. I am naturally prone to anxiety. When it comes to intimate relationships, I am prone to deep, deep anxiety. I know where this anxiety originated (my family of origin) and why. But what I now know is that I cannot withstand chronic emotional instability. My body cannot withstand it. It puts me in fight or flight mode, in survival mode, in a half dissociated place. It makes me lose large amounts of weight. It makes me sleepless. It impacts my health.

Now, I know how much I need stability. I’ve always needed it. And I know that the person who is going to give me emotional stability is myself. I can give myself emotional stability partly by giving myself financial stability. And I can enjoy the process of doing so without falling into a depression over not being where I expected to be at this stage in life. I can enjoy the in-between stage as one that is just as rewarding, just as exciting, and just as valid as the destination.

This, too, was a positive that I got from sharing my daily life with someone who is a lot more hectic than me. I learned that you can roll with the punches and not let them consume you. Just pick up whatever the thing is that needs your attention, deal with it, put it down, and move on. My partner was so good at that and he taught me I could relax just a little bit. Not everything is so existential.

I gained insight into relationships. My true dream partner is a man who loves me more than alcohol or drugs. So far, that’s been a tall ask. My latest partner really tried to be that person and he did his best. I’ll always find the sheer magnitude of his effort to simply be better heartwarming. But the nature of addiction is such that we are not always in control of what we do. We think we are, but our addictions control us to an extent. Over the long-term, they shape our minds. They can make us paranoid, for instance, or oddly lacking in empathy. And our ability to wrest back that control lies in our willingness to embrace the fact that we have a problem and we need help. The crux of the matter is not the problem itself, but what one is willing to do about it.

I used to be deeply afraid of my partner’s issues with substance abuse as they reminded me too much of those of my own parents. But the truth is there’s a difference between someone who is in active treatment for addiction and someone who is in deep denial about it. You can work with the former. And after my experience with doing so, I learned that I would, in fact, be willing to help a partner through substance addiction – something I never thought I would do as my parents’ substance abuse was so destructive to my family. But I could. Now I know I’m stronger than I thought I was.

What are the positives in my life now?

This one is tough. I showed my apartment for the first time yesterday, welcoming a group of three who looked at me with eyes filled with…wanting. Envy. As I walked them through each room and pointed out the best features of the unit, including the location, I could see that this was what they’d been looking for. I could tell they were excited, but determined to remain outwardly calm. It dawned on me that to some extent, what they wanted was my life.

I was struck, instantly, by an almost paralyzing grief. It’s true: I’d had a great life in this space. I was able to live downtown so my days weren’t spent commuting. I worked from home in a comfortable little apartment filled with sunshine; after a trip to Denmark, I called it my hygge home. I’d taken so many trips to IKEA and wherever else to get picture frames and rugs and all of the details that would make my place as comfortable as possible to live and work. It was a new home, a new safe space, for my son.

“Very aesthetic,” my would-be tenants commented as they surveyed my living room. “I like your style. Are you selling the furniture, too?”

I only just bought this furniture a year ago. I’d collected it here and there, often off Facebook Marketplace. A plant for that corner of the room. A monitor on the wall to play ambience videos in that dark recess. Brass hooks. Wall clocks. Jute rugs. The right chairs. Those lamps I loved. That bookshelf I picked out just for that spot.

I’d been so excited then as I matched the perfect item with the perfect spot. Everything was just how I wanted it. My place felt perfectly cozy, soft, and serene. There were textures layered on texture, but it all felt balanced. I’d lived here alone at first and enjoyed having the space to myself – privacy after so many years of none. But now, I was dismantling those same items and advertising them so they might become somebody else’s perfect item for the perfect spot in their perfect home for their perfect life.

As the sunlight streamed through my windows, bringing some much-needed warmth to the living room in the still-cold climate of early spring, I sensed that maybe, just maybe, I couldn’t do this. It would be too hard. Something inside me might break if I went further down this path. Maybe it would break and never heal right ever again.

“You’re doing the right thing,” my ex-husband had said when I explained to him the major source of conflict in my relationship and how much anxiety it had created in me. I know, I thought when he said it. I know. So that was what I reached for as I began to dismantle my home and bid goodbye to my hopes and dreams. You’re doing the right thing. It feels wrong – it feels awful – but you’re doing the right thing.

As my relationship came to a close in a fashion not unlike a train slamming into a mountainside before careening off its tracks, cars smashing here and there while flinging the bodies of screaming passengers from their windows, I began to read my journal looking for the positive – for all the times I’d felt nothing but peace and love within the context of my relationship. I remember falling in love. I wrote about it often. I remember feeling that love with such intensity.

But in the latest volume of my journal, which I started around a year ago, there was much less mention of love. Instead, I saw entry after entry of emotional distress over my partner’s behaviour. Why had he done this or that? How could he tell me he’d never drink again and then turn around and…drink again? Spectacularly? In a way that hollowed out trust, in a way that made me second guess who he was, in a way that led to ever more conflicts? I saw myself trying so hard to understand what the problem was here. I knew he loved me. I knew I loved him. So why did we keep returning to this place of hurt?

Over and over again, I wrote about my emotional pain, frustration, and anxiety. I tried to understand. I became more forgiving as I learned about addiction. Yet still, it’s difficult to weather the force of the chaos caused by someone else’s substance abuse. Those forces battered me, plaguing me with intrusive thoughts about the next time he might drink. The more time passed, the higher my anxiety rose. I found it so hard to trust my own judgment as it had proven wrong, time and time again.

It’s difficult to look back and recognize the extent of my emotional suffering. I’d reached out to no one. I’d simply borne it alone, trying to find my own path forward. Hoping that this was just a phase after which he’d figure things out and return to being the amazing person I knew he was when sober.

So now, as I find myself suffering again, I am determined to think of the positive: you know you’re doing the right thing. Deep down, this is what you wanted but were too afraid to entertain. You wanted an end to your suffering and it’s coming. That end is in sight for the first time, because you’ll process this relationship and move forward to a healthier one.

Here is how loss creates space for something new:

A breakup is an opportunity for growth. It’s an opportunity to face fears head on, conquer them, and emerge stronger, more stable, and more secure.

Feeling loss is what allows us to heal from it. So feeling ultimately leads to healing and recovery – recovery of a sense of self not bogged down in relationship conflicts and efforts to just make everything all right even as it seems to be going all wrong.

“It’s important to realize that great relationships seldom fail,” recounts a psychology professor who studies romantic relationships and identity. “Breakups create space in your life to find the truly great relationship you deserve.”

And there it is. Without the loss of a relationship that was taking up so much mental, emotional, and physical space, there can be no room for something better to grow.