A few months back, I filed for a joint divorce after fifteen years with my partner that included a three-year marriage. It was a long time coming as the “real” relationship was gone way before the formalities hit the final nail on the coffin.
I initiated the papers and the breakup. I say that with no special pride or qualms. But only to stress that even when we know a relationship is not good for us and do something about it, it’s still not easy to move on.
The pain of a supposed failure, the societal shame, and the complete destruction of my married ecosystem was confusing and, at times, exhausting. So much so that I began to wonder if I made the right decision after all.
As my world turned upside down, I turned to structure, despite having despised schedules and rules in the past. I started a daily gratitude list to jot down things that were going well in my life every morning.
I also started exploring the power of lists and was blown away by how much lists contributed to my healing. I used a lists app for this as there is an app for everything nowadays. Having these lists on my phone made it easy to refer to them anytime I felt low.
1. Why did I/they leave?
Domestic violence survivors have trouble walking out on relationships because all they can remember are the good times. There was no domestic violence in my marriage, but I experienced a similar exaggeration of the good times after I left.
Facebook memories and other triggers taunted me sometimes. When I saw other happy couples, especially friends, I struggled with how empty my life was with no one to share it with. Whom do I confide my deepest fears and smallest of joys in?
But it’s important to understand why the relationship did not work in the first place. Why did you (or they) walk out? What became impossible to endure? What sucked joy and safety out of you? Remembering reasons for the breakup can often help us focus on what was lacking in the relationship.
2. How did they make my life worse?
Tied to the first list, but not quite the same, it’s important to meditate on how your ex negatively contributed or took away from your life. While the first list focuses on them, this list brings it back to you. How did the relationship affect you adversely?
On my list, I include things like how my partner brought out my insecurity at its worst and how he never trusted that I could do a chore to his perfect standards. His needs always came first, and I succumbed to them well with years of training from my childhood. It was also quite a struggle to get him to understand my point of view.
3. How is life better now?
This is a list of how your life is better after your breakup. Of course, not everything was rosy in your relationship, and I bet not everything is rosy now either. But there are definitely certain things, little and big, that would have gotten better after a nonworkable relationship.
When I was married, my ex-husband was constantly on the phone with friends and family every weekend. I’m an introvert whose idea of a refreshing weekend is curling up with a book on my lounge chair. I actually actively despise my phone and don’t answer it regularly.
After my marriage ended, I felt more worth as a person. I feel like I can respect myself and truly love myself, despite any misgivings I may have about my “weaknesses” and past decisions.
4. What am I missing?
Yes, you miss the love or the belief that you had love. You miss the care that was sometimes present in your relationship. You miss feeling like you were coupled up and “normal” in some ways.
But you also miss a lot of logistical things that can be solved with ease. For example, I missed our hikes and traveling the most. Having been with him for 15 years, he was my best friend in most ways. Still, when I get good news, the first person I think of sharing it with is him.
In addition to listing what I was missing, I also looked for other ways to fulfill what I was missing. For instance, my alternate for travel is to find other single people to travel with or go solo.
Whenever I implemented a solution to fulfill one of my needs, I checked off the item with a satisfying grin.
5. Who am I and what do I want?
After breakups, we tend to question our choices and lose our self-trust. Do we even know what we want anymore? Why did we lose ourselves in our partner? How did we not foresee our relationship coming to this? Why were we attracted to people who didn’t bring out the best in us?
So many questions and doubts. Too many, actually.
After my breakup, I had to relearn who I was because I had not been my most authentic self in the past. If I were, I would have walked away from my relationship sooner. But how exactly does one get to know themselves?
I started by listing simple things and graduated into deeper self-knowledge. Like how I loved the sound of birds, how I hated people with entitlement because they reminded me of my mother, and how managing my energy was critical to a positive mood. I also listed my disconnect from most of my friends and how I may be holding my pee as a minor self-harm tactic.
I came back to this list regularly and added what I was learning about my life through experiences, triggers, and books. I can confidently say that I know myself more intimately now.
6. What makes me wonderful?
The final list I created was a list of things that make me a wonderful human being. You see, when we’re in relationships that suck our energy away, we become numb not only to who we are but also to why we’re nice people.
When I walked away from my marriage, I felt guilty because many mutual friends indirectly told me I was making a mistake. Compared to the average man, my ex was a nice, responsible guy who knew how to cook and clean and did so willingly. But, what they didn’t understand was that niceness and care weren’t enough for a marriage to last. So, I lost touch with what made me nice.
Honoring myself this way regardless of my “weaknesses” helped me reconnect with my optimism, deep sensitivity, and work-in-progress wisdom. In other words, I healed by kindly accepting my failure to abide by my marriage vows. By knowing that I did my best given the circumstances, no matter what anyone else said.
Parting thoughts
Breakups are damn hard. There is nothing good about them in the moment. But what we have to constantly remind ourselves is that our futures will be brighter because of these current difficulties.
If we manage to crawl through this dark tunnel post-breakup, we will surely arrive at brighter days, with our hearts plump with joy.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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Photo credit: Markus Winkler on Unsplash