When your breakup is complicated
Hitting a wall in a rocky breakup? This is how to handle yourself when separating is sticky.
by: E.B. Johnson
Have you and your partner ended your relationship? Has the ending made things go from bad to worse? Not all breakups are straightforward. When we spend a long time building a life with someone else, things get intertwined. From children to finances, some breakups are more complicated than others. If you’re going through a tricky relationship collapse — take heart. You can get through things with patience, self-respect, and a clear vision of your new future.
The elements of a complicated breakup.
Are you in the middle of a complicated breakup? Whether or not you want to admit it, things will not move as quickly or as slowly as you want them to. When you share investments, have a family together, or are undergoing financial instability — it can make separating that much more difficult.
Sharing investments
While sharing investments as a couple can bring you both to the heights of success, things can change when our relationships take a tumble. If you share properties, businesses, or other financial investments together, then that adds an extra layer of emotion, stress, and legal nuance that can completely change the way we relate to each other throughout a breakup.
Intertwined families
Outside of any family you’ve created, do you and your partner have families that are very closely intertwined? Maybe they were close family friends before you and your partner got together. Perhaps they always planned on your romance. That makes things tricky when we realize we no longer want to stay together. When in-laws become family friends, it can add an extra layer of pressure that’s hard to confront in the wake of a breakdown.
Looking after the kids
Children are, perhaps, the most common reason that our breakups become a lot more complicated. Although you love your children, they make breakups more complicated — that’s just a fact. You and your partner have to make plans for their emotional, financial, and material support. You also have to consider how you want their lives to look in the wake of your new lives apart.
Bonded in trauma
Did you and your partner bond in a moment of trauma or extreme vulnerability? While they can be the right person at the right time, these relationships can also bring about deeply flawed and toxic attachments that make separation tough when it’s time. Even though we love the person who came into our lives at a painful time, they’re not always the person who we need once we come out of that pain and stand on the other side.
Financial instability
Are you and your partner dealing with a high level of financial instability? When you’re financially unstable as a couple, it can make a breakup a lot more nasty. Partners can lash out, looking to use money to get even. Likewise, if you’ve allowed your partner to control all the finances in your relationship, it makes it even more difficult for you to walk away on your own terms.
How to handle a complicated relationship breakdown.
Are you struggling to adjust to your new normal? Are you being crushed by pressure and the devastation of separating your life emotionally (and legally) from someone you were so invested in? It’s important to stay focused on yourself, your needs, and your path forward. Root yourself in a strong support system, and invest in real healing. Let the process unfold and always seek to follow a path of respect, low resistance, and mutual wins.
1. Don’t leave yourself out
Complicated breakups are overwhelming. Whether you’re dealing with the practical and financial stressors, or you’re just confronting the emotional fallout of your split, it’s easy to lose sight of yourself. This is one of the biggest mistakes we can make, however. In order to get ourselves back on a path to happiness, we have to make sure we’re taking care of ourselves and seeing to our needs.
Don’t leave yourself out. In the chaos of it all, you can chase your tail. You’re busy making sure the kids are okay, or making sure you’re still able to earn while you sign off on paperwork and court dates. In and amongst all of that, you need to make sure that you’re not left behind.
Process your feelings. Get some space on your own and make sure you’re seeing to your own feelings. How are you? What do you want? You need to check in with yourself and make sure you’re getting the care your physical and emotional needs demand. Don’t lose sight of healing yourself in the midst of all this. It can’t just be about signing on the dotted lines and getting past the next hurdle. Nurture yourself in order to find the strength to make it through this journey.
2. Build a support network
Now more than ever, you need to surround yourself with people who want to see you thrive. This kind of split is going to leave you drained (in more ways than one). You need to look for friends, loved ones, and helpers who can help you overcome that. These are the family and friends that want the best for us; the people who see the best in us. Do you have friends who want to see you thrive as badly as they want it for themselves? This is the moment to call them to you.
Surround yourself with trustworthy people who can support you emotionally. These are the friends and family who can help you with the kids and with things like delivering paperwork, viewing properties, etc. It’s not all about the emotional work. Find people who can help you operate within some space from your former partner.
Even if your relationship has collapsed, you can still get things back on track for yourself. You can still be surrounded by love, compassion, and understanding on every side. Just because a romantic partner has left you does not mean you’re alone. It doesn’t mean you’re unworthy, or that you somehow have to carry a silent burden and a silent shame. Negate all these erroneous beliefs by covering your life in love. You will get through this by holding on to the people who care.
3. Invest in real healing
Having a support system made up of our trusted friends and loved ones is special, but it’s not the only thing we need. More often than not, we also need the help of a mental health or relationships expert, who can help us more effectively navigate the tricky nuances of a complicated split. It’s not a copout. These are trained professionals who have helped others get off the exact path that you’re on. Never underestimate how powerful that help can be.
Invest in some real healing (aka therapy). You need someone who knows how to handle the array of emotional difficulties you’re about to experience. You need someone who can take your hand compassionately and lead you down the path they’ve already gone down before.
Not only are you dealing with the grief of losing your relationship, you’re also dealing with the additional stress and pressure of finances, family, and everything else that’s falling apart. While the support of our loved ones is helpful, they don’t always understand the depth of our emotional pain and our emotional needs. If you’re lucky enough to have the time and finances for it, find a professional you can trust who can help you through this process. There’s one for every budget and every situation.
4. Let the process unfold
Are you finding yourself fighting your breakup? Are you making things worse by storming around or aggravating your former partner? Maybe you’re stoking the flames and making things nastier than they need to be? All of this comes from a place of control. We want to control how our breakup happens and how our partner reacts, but we can’t. That’s a recipe for disaster. Instead, we have to allow things to play out the way they need to.
Don’t force things, let them unfold naturally. If you try to force your partner’s hand, or change their behavior toward you, you’re only going to make things world. Let things stand as they are. Watch them as if you were removed and observing from a detached third-party place.
You have enough to focus on in this moment without wasting your energy on changing someone who doesn’t want to be in your life anymore. This separation can’t be any more controlled than your relationship could be. Just let it be. Allow nature to take its course and focus on what you can control: your finances, your emotions, your choices, and your happiness. Everything else will be determined in time. Look to what’s yours and leave the rest where it lies.
5. Seek the triple path
There’s a triple path you have to seek if you want to make it through a complicated breakup or divorce. You will be confronted with a lot of challenges and a lot of decisions throughout the process. Each time you can, empower yourself when you use the triple path. This is a means of looking for solutions that provide the most peace in the bigger picture. It’s seeking an elevated way to move forward even as we face difficulty.
As you move forward, embrace every challenge and conflict by applying the triple path. Look for the solutions that offer the least resistance, the most self-respect, and the greatest mutual wins for both you and your partner.
This means you don’t settle for less than you deserve, just because it might make them nicer through the process. It means standing up for your children and yourself, while also seeking to remove your ego and any inflammatory factors that might make your separation harder. Don’t try to aggravate them or “get revenge”. Don’t allow yourself to be pushed around or further harmed through the process. Get to a point where you can both win and see the bigger picture.
Putting it all together…
Not all breakups are straight forward. You can’t just cry it out and move on when there are children, businesses, and properties involved. The collapse of these partnerships are complicated. You can get through it, though, when you accept where you’re at and commit to moving forward in a sensible and focused way.
Don’t leave yourself out as the chaos of your breakup unfolds. Between the kids and the courts and the filings, make sure you’re taking time to take care of yourself emotionally and physically. Build a support network around you, and don’t be afraid to invest in real, professional help too. The path you’re on is a rough one, and it comes with a lot of trials. Allow people to lift you up and help you out. Let them cushion the bumpy road you’re on. Don’t force the process. You remove pressure from your situation when you allow things to unfold naturally. It will all work out. Hold your faith and trust the three-fold path. As you look toward the future, seek always the path of least resistance, the most self-respect, and the best compromises for everyone involved.
- Belu, C., Lee, B., & O’Sullivan, L. (2016). It Hurts to Let You Go: Characteristics of Romantic Relationships, Breakups and the Aftermath Among Emerging Adults. Journal of Relationships Research, 7, E11. doi:10.1017/jrr.2016.11
