Losing a close friend can feel like losing part of yourself, but healing begins with acceptance. Photo / 123RF
Losing a close friend can feel like losing part of yourself, but healing begins with acceptance. Photo / 123RF
“I had a falling out with a decades-old friend, whom I considered family, and now she won’t talk to me. I don’t know what life is without her in it. What do I do now?”
A: I have been asked variations on this question by numerous people, as they struggledto figure out how to carry on after the end of a relationship. Whether it’s a romantic partner, friend or family member, when important people are no longer part of our lives, it can feel as though our centre of gravity has been shifted, leaving us aimless and adrift.
When the other is choosing to exclude us from their lives, the grief we experience can be profound, as this carries the painful message that their life is better without us. When a relationship ends, we lose the other person and how we think of ourselves can be affected, especially if we have come to define ourselves within the context of the relationship.
Accepting its end may mean accepting a version of ourselves we are not ready or willing to embrace. The sense of specialness or belonging we might have felt – connected to being part of a particular relationship – is now under threat.
There are some helpful ways to move forward when important people in our lives leave us.
Just because something has ended does not mean it didn’t have value while it lasted. If we think of mentors, teachers and friends from earlier in life, we carry their importance with us even though the period of time that included them is now over.
When someone leaves us, our immediate way of dealing with it may be to minimise their importance, relieving us of any grief by thinking they never mattered anyway. This is very understandable (and may even feel necessary to survive the situation in the short term), as it is easier (and less hurtful) to think that an ended relationship only had bad parts to it, so there is nothing to miss about it.
However, this is possibly not the case, since the connection lasted as long as it did for a reason, and both parties probably offered many positive things to one another. Everyone has good and bad aspects. As painful as it may be to recognise this, ignoring the good may mean dismissing the importance and impact of significant memories and experiences connected with the person.
Accept the separateness of others
Every relationship, even at its best, has its limitations. Despite how connected we might feel with another person, we all have to navigate much of life as individuals.
When we overly define ourselves within the context of a relationship, it can be hard to figure out where we end and the other person begins. As a result, when we need to deal with the loss of the other person, it can be profoundly disorienting.
One of the hardest things to accept in life is that people have minds of their own, and that these minds often do not operate according to our expectations. Every decision, no matter how odd it might seem to us, occurs because it makes sense to the person choosing it. If people end contact with us, it is because this is the decision they feel is best for their own lives.
We are not defined by other people’s inclusion or exclusion of us – though it is difficult to remember this when facing rejection.
We often define ourselves through our closest relationships, even unconsciously. Photo / 123RF
Remember that what has ended is the idea of a relationship
There is possibly a part of us that wishes that time could stand still and relationships remain ideal. However, reality tells a different story, and the passage of time is undeniable.
In the context of grief, we might tend to exaggerate and selectively remember the good aspects of relationships, as well as blame ourselves for the fact they ended, wondering what we might have done differently if only we had known better. This can lead to guilt and a push to repair the damage at all costs.
Yet, trying to reclaim what once was may not be advisable or even possible, as the amount of control we have over the situation can be limited. It may take one person for a relationship to end, but it takes two for it to work. If the other party is unwilling to sustain contact, at some point it becomes important to acknowledge the reality facing us, letting go of expectations to recreate the past.
As hard as it is, try to cultivate a sense of gratitude that the relationship existed at all during the time it did, while recognising that it could never have lasted forever (since nothing does). This can help reframe our thinking around the situation and find meaning in the life we still have ahead.
So often, to keep relationships afloat, we tend to give up important aspects of ourselves (such as expressing certain opinions or engaging in activities we like) to stay on the other person’s good side. When this dynamic ends, there is the opportunity to rediscover what is important to our genuine selves, reconnecting with things that bring us joy and giving us the chance to foster new relationships with like-minded people.
Just because one person doesn’t see value in who we are, that value is still there, and others may very well feel that having us around is a privilege and an enriching experience for them.
This is a reminder that our individual worth survives beyond the end of any relationship.
Christopher W.T. Miller, MD, is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst practising at the University of Maryland Medical Centre and an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He is the author of The Object Relations Lens: A Psychodynamic Framework for the Beginning Therapist.
