|
Disclaimer - The articles and columns on this website are not meant as substitutes for one-on-one
psychotherapy with a licensed professional. If you feel you have issues that need to be addressed professionally, please
consult a licensed psychotherapist in your area. This article/column may have first appeared in the Del Mar Times.
Ask Dr. Ceren: Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
With holidays approaching it is an especially difficult time to terminate a relationship-especially one that has been long term.
Reminders of joyful times gone by shared with a spouse or significant other from whom you are about to part is saddening.
Dwelling on those good times is not helpful when you bid farewell. It is better to focus on planning for the future and to examine your opportunities for growth.
As painful as it is, view the break-up as a fresh opportunity to permit intense self examination. To assess your strengths. To learn who you are and how you have functioned. To discover new goals.
Yes, you will miss the companionship, but you will be our own best companion. You may be alone, but you aren’t lonely. You have yourself. And who are you?
Every relationship teaches you something about yourself. Your choices define you. Why had you chosen this particular person? What is his appeal? On the surface you may still feel a strong physical attraction-perhaps at the time of breaking up, even a stronger attraction. That is natural. We always want more what we are about to lose or have already lost
Had this person presented an assurance of social acceptance? Were the economic advantages she represented, a welcomed improvement in your circumstances?
These reasons may be what appeared to motivate us toward our choice. However our decisions may have been governed by unconscious motivations-- products of which we are unaware. Once we understand our true motivations, we are in a better position to make clearer choices.
Our early relationships with parents or siblings may often play out in our mate selection. We tend to choose partners who may remind us of important figures in our growing up years. We expect our mate to behave towards us in the way we are accustomed, but this may well be an unreal expectation and we are disappointed.
We may unconsciously choose a partner who reminds us of a significant figure with whom we have had difficulties. We hope that this time, we’ll get it right. We’ll make the disapproving father or cold mother (as played by the mate) treat us just the way we would have liked our real parent to have treated us. Again, we are in for probable disappointment.
When the relationship sours, it may be hard to let go because we may feel we are losing part of ourselves, so intricately woven into our very being is our significant other. This may signify a failure to completely delineate ourselves. We have grown accustomed to being Steve’s wife, Ellen’s husband, the doctor’s wife, the lawyer’s husband. Do we know who we really are and what we stand for?
Personal growth may necessitate learning what went wrong in the relationship. What were the qualities that attracted you to this person in the first place?
Learning your role in the cause of the breakup is important. Was it a poor choice on your part, or an inability to establish a workable style of communication, or something deeper?
Introspection is not a luxury, but a privilege. We spend too much time in the details of life instead of getting to know ourselves better. What better time to do so, then now?
|