Sofia* had been thrilled when Julian, her boyfriend of three years, suggested they live together and then get married. But nothing had gone right from the minute she moved into his apartment. He had not cleared out any space for her things, so for weeks they fought over where she was going to put her clothes and books. When he finally agreed that she could bring her dresser from her former home, they argued further about where to put it so that it wouldn’t disrupt the flow of the room.
Sofia loved to cook, but Julian criticized her for not cleaning up quickly enough, although he did not offer to help. He did not like her to leave her makeup in the bathroom or her clothes in his closet. In short, Sofia felt as though she was an unwanted guest rather than his romantic partner.
After six months, Sofia gave up. She told Julian that it was clear he had not made space for her in his home and suggested that they look for a new place that would be theirs together, not his or hers. He refused. He loved his apartment, he told her, and he was not moving out or changing it to accommodate her.
Sofia had not seen this side of Julian in the three years prior to moving in with him. Sadly, after much thought, she told him that she thought they could not live together. She did not want to break up, she said, but he told her he thought they should end the relationship. Although a part of her knew he was right, Sofia still experienced his response as a rejection.
A breakup, even one that you want, is hard in many ways.
It’s the end of a romantic relationshipof course, but in many cases it’s also the end of a friendshipof dreams and fantasies about the future, and a blow to your self-esteem.
Separating belongings, accounts, petsand friends can be an emotional and a practical nightmare, made even worse when children are involved.
A breakup can disrupt your identity—your sense of who you are.
A time of transition
The end of a relationship is a time of transition—that is, a period in which you move from one part of your life to another. According to William Bridges, author of the ever-popular book Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes, transitions are disorienting by definition. But they are also an opportunity for reorienting, for finding new aspects of yourself and opening up new ways of being.
Change is one of the key reasons people go into psychotherapy. Wanted or unwanted, imagined or real, past, present, or future, change disrupts, and disruptions are often uncomfortable, even painful.
Bridges tells us that transitions are the time between changes, and that they are much harder than the changes themselves. In my work, I have seen many examples that confirm Bridges’ hypothesis. The disorientation and confusion that are the hallmarks of transition also carry with them feelings of lonelinesssadness, loss, and anger that are hard to manage.
Transition can feel disorienting, like a loss of a sense of self or identity.
Sofia put that loss of identity beautifully. “I don’t know who I am anymore,” she said. “I had an image of myself, and it included Julian and my life with him.” She found a new apartment relatively easily, but she had difficulty decorating it.
“I keep thinking about what Julian would like,” she said. “Even though I’m free to do anything I want with it, I don’t feel that I can. I’m having trouble finding myself.”
Even after the change has happened, you may still feel disoriented.
Sofia’s description of this disorientation captures another factor I have seen frequently. The limbo, or period of confusion, is often extended for a time into the change itself. A new job, a new home, or a change in status from single to married, childless to parent, a shift from healthy to disabled, from young to old, can all usher in a period of self-doubt and confusion.
The excellent news is that if you can settle into the feelings of bewilderment for a little while, you will gradually emerge, like a butterfly from a cocoon, with new abilities and a new sense of who you are in the world. But settling into the muddle can be difficult, especially when you feel that you must prove yourself at a new job or with a new baby or in a new relationship.
Five tips
Here are five suggestions that will help you tolerate, if not embrace, your confusion while you are fulfilling your new role.
- Keep in mind that transitions are not permanent. They are transitory. You will not be in this limbo forever.
- Remember: you have brought your strengths with you into this new situation. In fact, in many cases, even when the change is not one you sought, your strengths are probably part of why you are in therapy. And they are with you in the transition period as well.
- Talk to yourself about those strengths. In times of transition, we often lose track of our abilities, but we still possess them. One way to access them is to ask yourself how you accessed them in the past. For instance, I often ask overwhelmed parents of newborns about any moment in childhood when they spontaneously reached out to offer comfort or care to another person, child or adult. They are often surprised by the question and even more surprised when I point out to them that those moments in the past are the groundwork for comforting or caring for their baby. As one new dad put it, “You’re saying that I already have the basic skills. Now I just have to learn how to apply them to a baby.”
- Look for forgotten memories of strength. Those unremembered memories are part of what the psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas calls “the unthought known.” They make up a silent background of self-knowledge that remains with us even in times of confusion and self-doubt. They will help you as you “muddle through” times of change in your life.
- Know that these strengths will also be there after the transition period, whether those changes are in work, relationships, or location, or are within yourself. You will be different, but you will still be yourself, with a major difference. You will be more aware of your inner strengths.
Sofia, for example, decided to embrace the sense of confusion and disorientation by taking a trip she would never have dared to take before. “I went on a yoga retreat to Costa Rica,” she told me.
“That might sound tame to you, but I’ve never gone away with a group of people I don’t know, to stay in a place I’ve never been.” It was, she said, both disruptive and incredibly soothing. “I didn’t like everything about it, and there were a couple of people in our group I’d be happy never to see again. But I felt calmed and comforted some of the time. Best yet, I got in touch with old parts of myself that had been missing in my relationship with Julian. And I found new aspects of myself as well.”
She ended the retreat “reoriented,” with an even stronger sense of her own strength and her capacity to connect to others. In other words, she felt grounded, settled, and ready for her new life.
*Names and identifying info changed for protection of privacy.
