Being Left

When someone leaves you, it can feel as though they have made a decision about your entire future.

You didn’t choose the change. You may want the relationship to continue. You may feel devastated, angry, and powerless.

But their choice does not mean something is wrong with you. It does not remove your worth or give them control over who you become next.

Episode 377 began with a listener’s email. Her husband had left after many years, and she wanted help moving forward. I shared five steps for processing the pain and creating a future from this new circumstance.

First, grieve and cry

Anger can be the first reaction when you feel out of control. You may want to lash out, blame, or force reality to change.

Notice the thoughts creating that response. Underneath, there may be grief and sadness that need room.

There is a clean process of grieving a relationship. Don’t rush it. You can carry grief with you and allow it for as long as you need.

Be careful not to turn the loss into an accusation against yourself. Relationships end. Circumstances change. That doesn’t make you a wrong person.

Even if you did something wrong, the action is different from your worthiness as a human being.

I call the extra pain of attacking yourself dirty pain. It is different from feeling the sadness of what ended. Separate the two so you can process the actual grief.

Second, get support that gives you space

I recommend working with a coach or therapist. You need somewhere to express what is happening in your mind and hear your thoughts aloud.

When a significant relationship ends, it can occupy your attention constantly. You may want to talk about it with everyone you know.

Friends can become tired or offer advice that doesn’t help you understand your own thinking. You need someone who can hold space and help you notice thoughts that aren’t serving you.

That includes thoughts attacking the other person and thoughts attacking you.

Buffering may be tempting: alcohol, overeating, immediately dating many people, or escaping into television. Notice the urge to avoid the experience.

Allowing the pain gives you a chance to use it to become stronger and love yourself more, rather than create more consequences through escape.

Third, take your identity back

I call this an identity power grab.

In a long relationship, you may define yourself in relation to another person. You share history, friends, children, routines, and decisions.

You may have accommodated wants you no longer recognize as accommodations.

Now you can reevaluate. Would you choose this house, city, work, or circle of friends again? What do you actually want?

If the unwanted change is losing a job, do you want to remain in the same kind of work? Is there another possibility you want to explore?

You don’t need to change everything. You get to redecide.

Small choices can return a sense of agency. What flowers do you want? What food do you want? What do you no longer want to keep doing?

Your power comes through making decisions about the life that is yours.

Fourth, write the manual and let it go

Write everything you wish the other person would do.

Would they stay? Speak differently? Spend more time with the children? Recognize something they haven’t recognized? Write the operating manual you would give them if you could control their behavior.

Then work on releasing it.

You can ask for what you want. You don’t have control over another adult’s decisions.

Their choice can be a circumstance in your Model. You are responsible for the thoughts, feelings, actions, and results you create in response.

The more your attention goes toward making them different, the more helpless you can feel. You are trying to use control to avoid grief and loss.

They will make their choices. You can bring your energy back to managing your mind and processing emotion.

This can be especially important when you share children and need to continue a parenting relationship after the romantic one ends.

Fifth, plan your future

After making room for grief, support, identity, and releasing the manual, start giving your future a direction.

Write goals for the next 30, 60, or 90 days. Choose something that commands attention, requires effort, and feels true to what you want.

Write the result, the timeframe, and why you want it. Put it on your calendar.

You may have energy that used to go into the relationship. Where do you want it to go now?

What did you once want to do and set aside? What is available that doesn’t require this person choosing you?

Spend time in the vision of your future. Let it help define the action you take instead of making the past your only reference.

Thoughts create feelings, which drive actions and results. A future vision can create purpose and give you something to move toward.

Complete what ended

There will be hard days. You may have processed grief and still feel another wave. That is part of the experience, not proof that you can’t continue.

You can also work on completing the relationship. In my divorce, completing the marriage helped us move into our parenting friendship.

You don’t have to do that work with the other person. You can create completion for yourself.

Keep separating what you control from what you don’t. Be willing to release the parts that aren’t yours.

Ask what you want now, what you can create, and who you want to be.

This is a process that includes pain. You can go through it without letting someone leaving become a negative definition of you. You can rely on yourself, receive support, and step into another version of your life.