Everyone who gets married or who decides to co-habit probably does so in the hope that it will be “for life”.\u00a0 Separation or divorce is something that happens only to other people.\u00a0 However, our partner may decide to break up and all of a sudden we are affected too.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong>At first we are as though paralysed, we cannot understand what is happening.\u00a0 We do not want to accept that this is the end of our relationship.\u00a0 This is a perfectly normal reaction.\u00a0 We deny or ignore this final separation, we swing between despair and hope in a happy outcome and we think that the separation will be temporary and that we will be able to persuade our partner to return.<\/p>\n Separation is particularly hard when it is totally unexpected.\u00a0 We didn’t see, or didn’t want to see, the warning signs in our partner.\u00a0 But even if we had a presentiment, at the beginning we are completely overwhelmed.\u00a0 The vague threat hanging over us has become reality and we refuse to accept it.<\/p>\n If the separation is final, the partner’s absence leaves a great void and gradually we come to understand that it is over.\u00a0 It is only when we realise that the separation has indeed happened that pain and anger erupt.\u00a0 We go through a period of sadness characterised by sudden mood swings and disorientation.<\/p>\n We are desperate and overwhelmed.\u00a0 Our emotions are chaotic.\u00a0 We cannot imagine ever being happy again. Positive memories return and exacerbate the pain.\u00a0 We are submerged by a wide variety of emotions: sadness, rage, fear, irritability, or even physical pain such as a kind of paralysis so intense that even the simplest tasks appear impossible.\u00a0 We are faced with an inner emptiness, a sense of having been totally abandoned and rejected.\u00a0 We are tormented by feelings of loneliness and anxiety.\u00a0 We have lost the support of our partner and are afraid we will be unable to face life alone.\u00a0 We have lost all our self-confidence.\u00a0 We fear the nights and weekends.\u00a0 Our loneliness becomes almost unbearable.\u00a0 Above all, if the relationship was a very long one, we are no longer used to living as a single person.\u00a0 Changes relating to finances, to housing and to the children’s upbringing and the administrative side of divorce appear to us to be insurmountable obstacles.\u00a0 All these demands on us take our breath away.<\/p>\n The sense of failure returns again and again.\u00a0 We torment ourselves with doubts, self-accusation and feelings of guilt.\u00a0 Why did he\/she leave?\u00a0 What did I do wrong?\u00a0 Was I not good enough for him\/her? I should have made more of an effort in the relationship. To that is added anxiety about no longer being attractive enough to find a new partner one day.<\/p>\n But we also feel rage and hatred.\u00a0 In our mind we insult our partner, address lengthy reproaches to them, or develop ideas of revenge. However, this rage often turns into pain.\u00a0 We are constantly torn between all these feelings or the need to see our ex-partner again.\u00a0 We perhaps try to win them back because we want to keep open the possibility of going back to normal, we want to give our relationship a chance.\u00a0 When these attempts fail, we may well lose our self-esteem.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>It is extremely important to understand that all these reactions – pain, rage, fear, self-hatred – are completely normal and are natural reactions to the loss of a loved one.\u00a0 They are part of the process of grieving which enables us to come to terms with the separation.\u00a0 It is important to be able to grieve properly, even if we don’t really want to accept or show it and we wish to continue functioning “normally”.\u00a0 Often a separation cuts us off completely from our present way of life.\u00a0 It is not just that we have lost the person who has left, we also need to get over the loss of a life plan, the vision of a shared future and a shared life experience.\u00a0 So it is not surprising if we lose our balance for a while.<\/p>\n People who are grieving are in a kind of state of emergency, whose duration varies from one person and from one situation to another.\u00a0 So we should not put ourselves under pressure.\u00a0 Even if it is not easy, we should allow ourselves to take as much time as we need to work through this process.\u00a0 It is important to give space to these contradictory feelings, to accept and not repress them.\u00a0 We will succeed best in this if during this phase we take optimum care of ourselves.<\/p>\n It is important not to become isolated during this phase. Stay in touch with good friends and choose carefully the people you talk to.\u00a0 People to whom you can show your pain and impotence are very precious but so are those with whom you can laugh and relax, depending on what you need.\u00a0 Maybe you know someone who has experienced a similar situation.\u00a0 It is important to have someone to support you while you grieve, without making any demands.\u00a0 There is often considerable pressure to return to normality. “Forget him\/her, he’s\/she’s not worth it”, “look at it positively”, “you’ll find someone else”.\u00a0 This advice is well-intentioned but helps no-one.\u00a0 In the end, we just need someone to listen.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>If we are patient and kind with ourselves and if we try not to rail against our fate, after some time we are able to take the first steps towards a new future.\u00a0 We find the courage to reorganise our life.<\/p>\n If we have grieved deeply, it is possible to achieve inner reconciliation and then we can allow ourselves to assign to the past its true value.\u00a0 Reconciliation of this kind can be extremely therapeutic.\u00a0 We can store up the experiences we have had with another person, especially the positive memories, like treasure.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Everyone who gets married or who decides to co-habit probably does so in the hope that it will be “for life”.\u00a0 Separation or divorce is something that happens only to other people.\u00a0 However, our partner may decide to break up and all of a sudden we are affected too. First reaction: state of shock \u00a0At…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":15219,"parent":16019,"menu_order":12,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-16107","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/454545.lu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/454545.lu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/454545.lu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/454545.lu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/454545.lu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/454545.lu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16107\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/454545.lu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/454545.lu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/454545.lu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Emotional chaos<\/h2>\n
Allowing space for sadness …<\/h2>\n
… in order to let go<\/h2>\n