Separation – resolution is postponed
Separation and divorce have become everyday events. A recent study stated that since 1970 the divorce rate has risen by about one third. These days more or less every other marriage will end in divorce. The most frequent reasons are unfaithfulness, alcohol and violence, changes after the birth of the first child, arguments about money and people developing in different directions. Time and again I have talked about this to the people who come to me for therapy. Sometimes their stories are sad and resigned, sometimes bitter and cynical, sometimes incredibly dramatic. I have learned from all of them that whatever the reasons, and however painful and unforgivable they may be, separation is rarely is the solution. Separation is only shelving the real problem.
When men come to me I often compare a separation with a change of court in a tennis match. If a forehand always ends up in the net, the player won’t solve the problem by changing the opponent or the court. The game won’t get better on a new tennis court, with a new net or a new opponent, if a person is still using the same old overpowered forehand. In tennis there is only one solution for a long-standing problem shot: you have to retrain your responses, your tactics or your approach to the ball. But when the ball ends in the net all too often in our relationships, we try to change courts and find a new partner. We might find relief and new experiences when we do, but our game doesn’t get any better. And eventually it all just leads to frustration and emptiness.
We hardly ever leave a relationship because we don’t care about our partner. Mostly we leave – particularly when it isn’t the first time – because we have given up. Because we don’t know how to get the ball across the net any more. Because we don’t know how to find a solution to something that we find unbearable. Often we have gone through the same painful sequence of events again and again, without the slightest hope of a change or resolution. It has drained the relationship and turned it into a battlefield. Finally, we feel that keeping our distance is the only way of avoiding getting hurt or choked any more.
Separation seems like salvation. At last we can breathe freely again. At last there is calm. The vicious circle has been broken. The pain diminishes. Separation is like being shipwrecked and then washed ashore on an island in the middle of the ocean. At last we have firm ground beneath our feet. But then, after a few moments of rest, when our wounds have closed and we have regained our strength, we look around – and if we are honest, we have to admit that we are stuck on an island. Sometimes there are two of us stranded there – us and the secret lover who was the apparent reason for the separation. Sometimes we are rescued very quickly by a new love we meet on the island. But whenever we want to return to the mainland – to our children, our families, our old friends and our everyday life – the ocean of old patterns and habits stretches out in front of us, and we have to cross it.
Separation is not the answer to our problems. Eventually we will have to return to the point where our relationship got stuck so that we can look at it consciously and transform our part in it. If separation seems the only escape route, then at least we should make use of it on our way to personal growth and healing. If we look closely at it we might recognize its two major opportunities.
The first one is that taking such an abrupt step may force us into doing things that we either didn’t dare do before or didn’t give ourselves permission to do. If we do this consciously, we can grow and develop completely new skills and qualities.
Separation can also offer us space and time for recovery. By withdrawing and just being by ourselves for a while, without another person, we can heal our wounds, and our hearts can find peace again. Once we have regained our strength, all our old tasks and opportunities for development will still be there, waiting for us to tackle them on our way towards growth.
Maybe we left because our partner crossed our boundaries far too often. In this case separation re-establishes them. Sometimes divorce lawyers have to show us what rights and opportunities we have and explain that we have to fight for them. But at some point we will find that those rules only give us a reprieve. In the end we have to do the work ourselves. We have to learn to look after ourselves properly, to set boundaries and not say ‘yes’ when we mean ‘no’. Otherwise it is only a question of time before we are confronted with the real issue – that the problem was not down to our former partner but the fact that we were not able to set boundaries.
No matter why we left – whether it was because our boundaries were ignored, we didn’t get enough attention and support, we were lied to or cheated on, controlled or judged – for a while the separation ensures that we get what was lacking. Maybe it seemed to come out of the blue, maybe it was a threat that was finally carried out or maybe it came as a blessed relief. On closer inspection, separation always comes into our life to help us when we are not able to expand our own qualities and skills under our own steam. It occurs when we have lost the belief in finding a solution as a couple. It occurs when we have lost hope and don’t feel able to rekindle our relationship. If we have arrived at such a dead end, where our pain seems unbearable and the paralysis insurmountable, then we have to work for a conscious and passionate separation – a separation from the heart.
A separation from the heart means that we consciously make use of the distance between us in order to become stronger and learn to accept our partner from this safe vantage-point. It might sound paradoxical, but we can only let go of resentment and grow when we make peace with our ex-partner. They have shown us our painful spots. They may have deepened our wounds, but they did not cause them. In many cases a separation, as I have said before, gives us the discipline to take the steps that we should have taken within the relationship but didn’t. Separated mother hens automatically become confident women. Separated guest-fathers and visitor-husbands are, left to their own devices, challenged every weekend to be more responsible and empathic fathers. This way we are forced to honestly look at our limitations and to grow, even though we can only acknowledge this in hindsight. During this process of disentanglement, we find independence and also mutual respect – and we can practise getting our forehand reliably across the net.
Maybe you are contemplating a separation right now. Maybe you have separated already. Maybe you are in the process of entering a new relationship. This chapter is written with a single message that comes straight from my heart: like all the other aspects of a relationship, a separation, too, is ultimately only about one thing – learning how to love. It is the greatest challenge to our love, Afterwards, we won’t need more from our ex-partner than they are able to give. We will be able to forgive them only to the degree that we have understood their behaviour. And we will only be truly free to form a new relationship if we have made peace with them and opened our heart again to them. Furthermore, it is only if we can let go of our ex-partners in true love that our children can find peace and stability and grow with adequate inner anchoring to their own male or female wholeness. (More about the impact of a separation on the development of children can be found in Chapter 14, ‘Children of love’.)
‘Love your ex-partner in order to let go of them…’ Hardly ever has a sentence of mine met with such dismissal and protest as this one. Maybe you, too, are vigorously shaking your head. But there is only one way to find inner freedom as well as make an external break. The first step is to accept it. If you really want to be free of the old relationship, then you need to be at peace with it. And there is only one way to find real peace. In the end you won’t have any other choice but to totally accept your old partner.
By this I don’t mean to make you feel pushed back into the old relationship at any price. This is not about staying with your ex-partner. It is not about staying together at all costs.
Gloria came to me because she did not want a divorce. Her husband had left her for another woman. But Gloria categorically refused to accept the fact, let alone consent to a divorce. Her husband’s battle against her became fiercer, the weapons more brutal. Every time Gloria’s refusal to divorce was mentioned, she came back to the same point: the divorce of her parents. ‘I always wanted to be a good example for my children,’ she said. ‘Part of a model couple that stayed together.’
During the course of our sessions, Gloria realized that her husband had actually been ‘forced’ to leave. It became clear that long before his affair their marriage had become a cliché that she had constructed for herself and it was a far cry from a vibrant partnership.
Gloria had never entered into an honest relationship – she had only shored her marriage up against a divorce. That is like saying: ‘Don’t think of a pink elephant now!’ If you weren’t thinking of a pink elephant before, you will be now. Likewise, if you need to stay together at all costs, then you will never be able to simply enjoy being together for the joy of it. Every attempt to stay together for an external reason – be it duty, responsibilities, children or friends – will paralyze your relationship. Love can never unfold under such pressure; you will never feel drawn towards your partner but will always feel unconsciously rejected. And your partner won’t be able to develop a natural relationship with you either, because consciously or unconsciously they will feel used and pressurized. If, as in Gloria’s case, the relationship has no inner strength and connection, there is no point in keeping it alive artificially. In such an empty shell of routine and duty you will dry out emotionally and at some point probably be confronted with exactly what you have been seeking to avoid – a separation.
This chapter is not about duty, role models, promises and staying together at all costs. It is about loving – even when we aren’t with our partner any longer. ‘And we are only truly free to form a new relationship if we have made peace with them and opened our heart again to them.’ Maybe you are thinking now, ‘Why should I love this person who has made my life so difficult?’ I am not saying that you have to find your former partner wonderful. Loving someone doesn’t mean being in love. It doesn’t mean having to stay together. It doesn’t mean adapting. It doesn’t mean smiling when you want to cry. Love is the opposite of dependency. Love is free – it doesn’t need anybody, it only wants to love. And loving means accepting what is.
In the context of a separation or divorce, acceptance means recognizing that the bad behaviour of your former lover had nothing to do with you. They weren’t doing it just to hurt you or to deliberately deceive you. They might not have been able to satisfy your ideals and your needs. Maybe they had qualities that you didn’t like or understand. They might have behaved in ways that you didn’t appreciate and that you neither accepted nor respected. They might not always have responded to you as you would have liked them to. But the pain inside you doesn’t stem from anything your former partner did. It arises because you couldn’t accept it. Things became more and more intolerable because you resented and rejected the way your partner was. Now you have separated. But as long as you nag and scold, judge and despise, as long as you don’t make peace with your former partner, you remain chained to them and their behaviour. You still want something from them – changes, corrections, attention. You still don’t have enough.
‘He was always at work!’ This is the main reason women give for a separation. This complaint always sounds a touch condescending. In one case, Helen contemptuously called her very successful businessman husband and his partners ‘big boys’ or ‘emotional cripples’. She said they were after money at all costs, they didn’t have any real friends, they had no time for their families and their private lives, and they thought only of their career. Helen was searching for a more spiritual life, she was empathic and warm and had given up a promising career to look after the children. One day her husband had, apparently out of the blue, packed his suitcases and moved in with a considerably younger colleague, seemingly without any consideration for his wife and children. Even though he was very wealthy, he had not been willing to contribute voluntarily to their financial upkeep. Since then Helen had not only felt more righteous in every respect, but also in the right.
After the separation the only communication between Helen and her husband had been via solicitors. Helen had refused to communicate directly. She had also refused to allow her husband to come to their former home. By the time she came to see me, they weren’t even speaking on the phone any more. The children were being handed over in a public space, a car park.
The more Helen’s husband was distancing himself from the family and the less attention he was giving them, the more Helen was refusing to have contact. And the more she did this, the more stumbling blocks her husband put in place.
Helen said frequently that they had nothing more to talk about. She spoke of her former husband with cool contempt and described his behaviour with a superior smile. But when we went way back into her past, she was suddenly overwhelmed with guilt. Her heart had not been free when the relationship with her husband had begun. When she met him she had been deeply but unhappily attached to another man, and her husband had practically ripped her from his arms. During our talks Helen realized how long after the wedding she had been attached to the former partner and how little she had been available to her husband.
When talking about the future, Helen became very anxious and quiet. She had repeated visions of financial hardship and had to acknowledge that regarding the divorce, she was mostly interested in money. The moment she was forced out of the safe home where she had once been protected by her husband, she would fight for money in the same way that he had done all those years, along with all the other men in the business world that she despised so much. She also had to admit that behind her hard and silent front she was afraid of her husband and of further pain. Like him, she didn’t show her feelings. She followed the strategy suggested by the divorce lawyers and also studied the law regarding her fight for justice and compensation – just as her husband had always done.
Eventually Helen recognized what countless women keep firmly repressed: she longed for status, power and money, but didn’t believe that she was entitled to it. In that sense she felt just as worthless as all the men who, day in, day out, sacrificed their feelings and their private life for power and money. Whenever Helen condemned her husband, she was really condemning herself.
Another woman I talked to during her divorce mentioned God. She was racked with guilt and afraid that God would condemn her for her increasingly bitter behaviour towards her husband during an increasingly bitter divorce. At one point I said, ‘The greatest gift God has given you is your husband. Never before have you had such an opportunity to recognize yourself and learn to love yourself in spite of all your shortcomings. Never before have you had such a good chance to take a close look at your fears. Never before have you had so many opportunities to grow, to forgive another person and to let go.’
Since then I have told many people who are separating that their former lover, though currently the target of all their resentment, bitterness and anger, is the greatest gift they have ever had on their way to personal growth. They were heaven-sent – only not for the person to indulge in romantic love ‘happily ever after’ but for them to practise acceptance, true love and self-appreciation.
People often say they had to separate because of their partner’s character and behaviour. We tend to say that we can only love someone when they are exactly the way we imagine they should be. We have probably been looking at ourselves in exactly the same way for a long, long time, whether consciously or not. And we dissociate ourselves from what doesn’t come up to scratch.
Time and again we force ourselves to get things right for others, to conform and to adapt so that we are accepted and loved. When we project all this onto our partner and ask them to do or not to do or to be or not to be all sorts of things so that we can love them, that isn’t love. It is more like control and dependency on certain behaviour. Most of all, this stance wordlessly implies that we need something, that we are lacking something in order to feel happy, safe and free. And it implies that only our partner can provide it.
This longing for a saviour, for someone who gives us what we need, is really a remnant from our childhood, when we were weaker and more helpless. Back then, when dealing with adults, we were painfully aware of our inferiority and powerlessness. We also experienced our behaviour being rejected and condemned. Physically we are adults now, but we still try to be nice and friendly to keep bad things at bay. We still look around for some kind of external power to heal our old wounds. We still carry our old fears of breaking down in the face of the loveless behaviour, the irresponsibility and the weakness of others. That is why we demand that they behave in a certain way – so that our old scars don’t reopen. If they don’t meet those demands, if they are incapable of soothing that recurrent pain, we unconsciously feel like powerless children again and are convinced that there is only one escape route. We have to leave that partner, we have to separate, we have to divorce them in order to regain our power.
Most people capable of a vibrant and lasting attachment have learned to behave independently of whether they feel loveable or not. They have learned to disconnect the behaviour patterns of others and their own need for attention from love. Love doesn’t turn up because we are always nice and friendly. And it doesn’t blossom when others bend over backwards to please us either.
If you really do need something to make you happy, it is self-discipline and the desire for development, growth and openness. If you really do need something to feel fulfilled, it is courage and consistency so that the unhappiness, the loneliness and the suffering which accompany this inner growth process can be endured. That is love. Love that allows you to realize your full potential. Love that develops compassion for the limitations of others. This love heals and sets you free – free from all the unhealed wounds of your earlier life, your dependency, your resentment, your bitterness and your eternal search for attention. The only true goal of love is spiritual growth. Separation offers a great opportunity to develop it.
‘Until death do us part.’ In these times of change, when society is constantly suggesting new needs and when nature is becoming increasingly volatile, this sentence might seem threatening. A lifelong attachment to just one person? We can hardly imagine it. And yet it is something we are all looking for. Our innermost being is searching for stable, enduring, deepening intimacy. At the same time it seeks the freedom to grow and fully unfold. That is a paradox. The acceptance of our own individuality is the only foundation on which a relationship can grow. The acceptance of a deep continuing attachment, especially when we want to get rid of it, makes us free for a loving separation. Therefore, separate from the heart – learn to love your former partner so you can truly let go of them.