Avoiding the Grief of Tough Decisions Can Shield Us From Real Joy

When feeling stuck feels worse than grief

I had dinner with a good friend this week who is struggling with the decision about whether to have children. She is 38 and partnered with a loving man. But neither of them have ever felt the drive to have children.

She feels pressure this year to make the decision once and for all.

My friend feels confident that her life would continue to be fulfilling without children. But she is still torn because of the looming possibility of regret.

What if, 30 years from now, she suddenly regrets this decision because she does not have adult children to care for her? What if she regrets not having experienced this ultimate human experience?

She and her partner have a beautiful life together, but ambivalence has led them to hold back on plans. They haven’t moved in together because they aren’t sure if they need to find a home fit for a child. She’s even stalled on making some long-term travel plans because she still isn’t sure if she will need to go through the rigamarole of IVF this year.

It felt nice to talk through someone else’s sense of stuckness for a change, instead of focusing on my own.

Because if you’ve read anything else I’ve published here, you would know that I, too have been in a perpetual state of stuckness for over two years.

I’ve been so vain to assume that my version of stuckness is unique. I’ve sometimes assumed that no other form of indecision could trump the pain I feel about the possibility of divorce and blowing up my family in order to pursue my own happiness.

But I couldn’t help but relate to my friend’s indecision, and to her fear of future regret. She is also facing the grief of making a life decision with uncertain outcomes.

Talking with her helped me recognize what I’ve slowly come to learn about life and grief over these difficult years.

There is grief in every single decision we make, big or small.

When we decide not to have children or realize it’s not possible, we grieve the life we could have had as a parent.

When we decide to have children, we grieve for the life we could have had without them.

When we take a new job in a new city, we grieve the comfort of our old lives in a job or city that felt familiar and safe.

When we decide to turn down that job, we grieve the adventures we could have had or the future it could have led to.

And yes, when we choose to end a marriage, we grieve for everything that was and could have been in the life we built with our partners.

But when we choose not to end a marriage and stick it out, to endure the lack of love or the limits to what could be, we also grieve all of the other possible plot lines for our love lives.

My couples therapist, the one we’ve seen virtually for over two years, has told me that I have a tendency to avoid grief. It seems to me such a normal human tendency. Of course I avoid grief! Grief is a terrible feeling.

But no, she’s told me. It’s not just that I don’t like the feeling of grief. I push it away so hard that I never allow myself to feel it in the first place. And by doing it, I feel something that is possibly even worse than grief.

I keep myself in this middle space where I never have to grieve decisions because I don’t make them. I keep myself numb.

I get stuck in the details so much that I can’t see the other side. I see only the immediate next steps, the ones where I have to tell my children about this decision and painfully pack up the objects that have lived in this home for 10 years.

I can’t quite see past those moments to imagine a happy future as a divorced mom long enough to know that it could be true for me one day.

And by holding myself in this space of indecision, I’ve inadvertently avoided happiness too. Just as my friend has put off planning things that could bring her joy, I have also stopped planning for the medium and long-term future.

I’ve stopped thinking about improving our home or planning family vacations or spending money when I may need to save it. I’ve turned off my sexuality completely.

When I try to picture myself in two years, it’s all just static. I have no image of myself, either joyful or distraught. And it’s not the exciting kind of unknown future, the kind I had in my 20’s where anything was possible. My future feels like numbness. It feels void.

My advice to my friend came so naturally. Yes, of course she should make this decision this year!

Make the decision, dear friend! Feel that grief when it comes, and continue living your one life to its fullest.

But it’s always so much more difficult to take our own advice. I’ve given myself timelines for my own decision. And yet the grief still stares me in the face and scares the shit out of me.

But I have learned that turning myself numb in order to avoid pain is a fruitless plan. Grief does feel terrible.

But grief can also lead to things more beautiful than we can even imagine.

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