Paul Simon famously sang that there were ”50 ways to leave your lover,” but as most of us know, leaving behind the emotional attachment can be just as challenging as leaving the relationship.
Attachment to former partners can linger for years and years. And there is often more tied up in our holding on than just unresolved feelings for the partner we left behind. If there is still a “charge” associated with the loss, some part of our self has gotten left behind.
One Healthy Grieving client recently used the process to let go of her first love, from whom she had parted more than 15 years prior. She said that she had not been aware that she was still carrying so much pain about this person — which has turned out to be a common theme with clients grieving past relationships.
Working with the Healthy Grieving process, she found feelings of shame, regret and deep sadness. At a deeper level, she also discovered that in the loss of the relationship she also “lost the freedom to express my creativity straight from my heart like I did when I was with him.”
By grieving and letting go, she was able to reclaim the freedom of creative expression that she lost when their relationship ended, reporting that, “An unexpected gift is that now I feel far more free to express myself and my creativity in ways that I was afraid to before.” Since she used the Healthy Grieving process to let go of her past relationship, she says, “I hardly ever think of my first love anymore, and when I do, what is left is a tender appreciation for him and the beautiful, goofy, fun times we had together, but there isn’t any pain.”
Another client worked on letting go of an ex-husband. They had divorced in 2000, and she insisted that she didn’t have any feelings for him, that she was “completely done with him.” But her resistance to looking at the relationship was a good indication that there might be something there that hadn’t let go.
In her own words she describes that, “It was very interesting where the Healthy Grieving process took me in relation to my first husband. I was quite surprised by what came up and by the words that were coming out of my mouth.”
The Healthy Grieving process took her to a place where she had to admit to herself, “I married him because I thought it would be better than being single. I had to own that I entered into this union with someone I didn’t fully want to be with. I thought that I loved him enough. That was the actual statement I made – loved him enough. I had to see and own that I really did that to someone — used him in that way. I married the guy, not because I fully loved him and fully wanted to be with him. I entered into the marriage to save myself.”
“This is not something I am proud of” she went on to say,” but the Healthy Grieving process helped me go there, gave me permission to look at this, and in going there, in being willing to see this seedy side of myself and own* it, I was able to let it go.”
“It turns out, that this was hanging over me in a way I wasn’t really aware of. I thought I was completely done with him, with the relationship. I’m happily remarried. He’s remarried. I wish him well, etc. – but I had to go through the process to get that part of me back, to own that I did this to someone, tell myself the truth about it, and then be free to let it go. No matter what we are telling ourselves about our past relationships, unless we allow ourselves to go into that place, to explore the darker places, then it’s still with us, we haven’t really moved on.”
This client reports a number of meaningful results from the grieving work she did:
- “In relation to my ex I can now be open–hearted when I think of him, whereas before I was hiding, hiding a part of myself. I thought that everything was fine — we were friends on Facebook, I was happy for him — but obviously, there was still some unconscious stuff there and I am very grateful to have found it. I have now been able to let go of this person who I had been energetically holding, whether I was aware of it or not.”
- “The level of intimacy and friendship with my current husband is deeper and clearer. Letting go of what was still tied up with my first marriage freed me to be 100% present with my present husband, who I did marry for the right reasons, who I married for love and because I want to spend my life with him. We’re laughing more, enjoying each other more.”
- “Once I re-owned that part of me that I had disowned, I could be all there with my husband and in relation to my ex, but most important in myself. I was able to re-integrate a part of myself that I can now be with and accept unconditionally. One of the goals I’ve had in my life is to feel complete; when I’m on my deathbed I want to know I did everything I could to be fully me. Every time I do the Healthy Grieving process and come through the other side, I feel more complete and whole. “
If you have a past relationship you think you’re “done with,” consider giving yourself the gift of looking deeper. You never know what you might be lurking there and what letting go can free you from and open you to.
*See next week’s blog on “owning.”