Articles

by Amy Greenleaf Brassert MSW RSW and Judy Grout MSW RSW

Relationships have a lifetime, and not all of them are meant to last until the end of time — even those that resulted in marriage. Endings can be seen as a sign that a cycle has been completed. All relationships offer each of us something of value and importance, no matter how painful the ending. The tricky part is allowing ourselves the possibility to see this gift.

 

When a relationship ends we are in a grieving process; we experience loss and many different emotions including confusion, shock, vulnerability, fear and loneliness. We may have thoughts like: “Who am I?”, “What am I doing?”, “Am I lovable?”, “Will I ever meet someone?” We also experience a sudden shift or loss of context, history and the once familiar choreography of our lives. We lose a sense of who we are, and as a result our self-worth can be shaken.

 

The world as we knew it has been broken apart and it can seem overwhelming for a period of time. This is a normal and natural part of the process and will not last forever. As we journey through grieving and healing, there is eventually room for a renewed hope — a belief that we can do the next relationship differently and whole-heartedly, once we are ready. 

 

It’s Not a Race Against Time

 

It is tempting to rush through or skip over the grief process. To be successful as you move into your future, it is vital that you take the time you need to go through the whole process of ending the relationship in a directed and thoughtful way, without avoiding any part of it. When you really dive in and gain this self-awareness, you can go on to establish more satisfying future relationships. 

 

Please don’t view the relationship as a personal failure. Instead, you might ask yourself, “What did I learn about myself and what do I want to do differently next time?”

 

Emotional Stages

 

Denial

 

The emotional process that takes place when a relationship ends usually begins with denial. There are many versions of this, and it all depends on each person as well as the relationship. An example might be, “This is just a trial separation — he will come to his senses and eventually realize his mistake.” Denial is a protection from the intensity of the feelings already present and those yet to come. While it’s normal and important, getting stuck in denial can slow or halt the healing process.

 

Panic

 

A sense of panic often shows up as the denial gives way, and this is true no matter who ended the relationship. There is a palpable fear, with thoughts of, “Will I ever love or will I ever be loved again?” You may also experience panic and fear about the end of a companionship, a way of life, a social context, a history of being and a “blueprint for the future”.  It is scary to let go of all that we have built and defined ourselves through.

 

Bargaining

 

The feelings of panic can sometimes activate a stage of bargaining, where you may attempt to rescue or salvage the relationship. Maybe you can “put the genie back in the bottle”.  But be careful, because a reconciliation initiated by panic is often an uneasy truce that results (sometimes years later) in an ending that has only been delayed.

 

Sorrow

 

The end of a relationship may trigger a deep sorrow, as you become aware of a profound, gigantic loss. You may feel an internal conflict at this time: a feeling of being immobilized by grief, almost non-stop crying, combined with a fear that you shouldn’t cry because the tears make you seem weak and afraid.

 

But this is an appropriate time to cry, in sorrow. The more you cry, the more your sorrow will subside. You might even fear that if you start crying, you may never stop — but you will. Your tears are essential. Healing occurs through your tears. Welcome them. Respect them. Give them space. Give them time. Honour your tears!

 

Clarity

 

Eventually you reach a place of clarity where reality sets in and you know it is really over. This is a moment of recognition; it is now possible to explain the ending to yourself, to see the reasons it ended, and the meaning this holds. Now the healing can begin.

 

Blame

 

As you face the reality though, you may have a tendency to blame yourself: “It’s all my fault”. You list your “crimes and failures” which leads to feeling guilty and beating yourself up. This kind of willingness to take on blame is an extension of the bargaining process. While it is desirable to develop an awareness of our own mistakes, it is equally critical not to get stuck in self-blame.

 

Describing the ending as a personal failure is dangerous, because it can be an assault on your self-esteem. Feeling guilty about your behaviour and limitations is normal, but it is important to identify real guilt or regret, take responsibility for your choices that impacted the relationship and then move forward.

 

The other side of this coin is blaming your partner, with thoughts of “It’s all his fault.” We do this because it allows us to spread the guilt around!

 

In order to deal with hurt feelings and an incredible sense of loss, you might go through a stage of wildly inappropriate blaming. This is OK and perfectly natural, but it can be easy to get stuck here and feel victimized by your ex, and you might find yourself wallowing in self-pity. 

 

The challenge is to accept that both you and your ex contributed to the end of the relationship. This affords you the opportunity to look at your own repetitive psychological patterns, which we all play out in our love relationships.

 

For example, maybe to keep your emotional distance out of fear of being hurt, you chose a partner who was emotionally restricted. Being aware of this allows you to gain insight into the type of partner you have selected in the past, and how you may want to choose differently in the future. 

 

And finally, you now know the kind and quality of relationship you would like to have — and you can go out and claim it!

 

A relationship is an unfolding process, not a destination. It is a vital entity with its own energy that ebbs and flows. Relationships are made up of high intensity times such as new exciting love or conflict and discord, and times of lower intensity such as contentment and strength of friendship. All of these aspects are an expected part of the mix no matter how hard we try to manage or control the relationship. Another way of understanding this is to consider the relationship as a “third entity” — there’s you, there’s him and there’s the relationship. As a third entity, the relationship has its own unique “flavour”.

Getting Respect from Children

Respect is one of the characteristics most parents say they want to nurture in their children, whether it’s self-respect or acting respectfully to others.

And they’ve noticed they can’t demand respect from their children, they have to earn it.

The Easiest Route

The easiest route is for you to first show it to them. The starting point, in other words, is YOU. While there’s no guarantee you’ll get respect back, it’s certainly true that you won’t get respect if you don’t show respect. As the adults in the relationship, it’s up to us to take the first step to “up the ante”.

Spend a day observing how you relate to your family, colleagues and strangers and ask yourself what example you set for your children that day. Your children will learn the most about respecting others from what they observe of you. Self-respect is modeled when you don’t let people take advantage of you: when you calmly and assertively stand up for yourself and your rights.

Common Pitfall

A common pitfall for parents is over-doing for children. Parents are creatures of habit. If we make lunches every evening, we make lunches every evening. By the time children are five years old, they are capable of doing all the tasks required to prepare and assemble their lunches.

It’s faster and easier if you do it yourself, right? It may be faster because you’ve had more practice, and it may be easier at first. But think of the time it will free up for you to do other things which your kids can’t do! Most importantly, it’s not in your child’s best interests in the long run.

The greatest harm you can do to your child’s growing sense of self-esteem is to do regularly for them what they have shown they have the skills to do, or the competence to learn for themselves.

How to Get Child’s Cooperation

To solicit your child’s cooperation to take on more of the lunch duties, have a casual conversation when it’s not lunch-making time, and when you both are feeling calm.

The discussion together might look like any of these options:
what your child is willing to take over immediately (“We’ve agreed that you’ll do your drink and fruit this week and I’ll make a 1/2 sandwich, find a serving from the dairy food group, and you will pack one treat from your treat bag.”)
what the schedule for lunch prep this week will look like at your house (“We’ve agreed that you’ll prepare your lunch bag on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights this week, and I’ll do Wednesday and Thursday. Then, we can switch next week.”)
what needs to go into your child’s lunch bag to make it a healthy meal, and with enough food to last him or her the day at school, but not to spoil their appetite for supper.

The follow-up conversation with your child is what needs to go on the grocery list.

A benefit many parents report from training their children to pack a healthy lunch and involving them in its preparation is that their children eat more of what they bring to school and throw out less food. Why? Because they’ve had a voice in what goes into their lunch, and they have pride in their personal accomplishment in helping to assemble it.

Parents Acting Respectfully to Children

Parents unintentionally step on the toes of their child’s right to equal dignity and respect. The easiest way to tell this has happened is to look at your impact on the child and their resulting behaviour. When a child argues or bickers with you, contradicts, has a temper tantrum to win control, lies, acts spitefully, provocative or bull-headed, yells, continues a forbidden act, they are using active means to show you they feel disrespected, or that you are not accepting their judgment. Children also use passive means when they feel disrespected, like being forgetful, daydreaming or idling to avoid a task, dawdling, loitering, acting lazy or apathetic.

If you “roll back the tape” and look at what you said, did or at the tone of voice you used immediately prior to these reactions from your child, you’ll put your finger quickly on the trigger. You can bet your bottom dollar that any of these actions from a parent will elicit a disrespectful response from the child: yell, threaten, name-call, or spank.

Good replacements for parents to any of these are listening to your child speaking without interrupting and while maintaining eye contact; speaking calmly and civilly; looking for alternatives to physical punishment; modeling good manners like “please” and “thank you”; practicing good table manners.

Parents Getting Respect

A good clue your rights have been trampled is when you feel provoked, challenged, threatened, defeated, resentful or angry.

Parents often need to get respect for their own rights by not giving in to their children’s demands in the moment, and not becoming a servant to their child’s every desire or whim. A parent feeling resentful, or feeling that their child acts as though they’re entitled, is a parent whose Action Agenda can include practicing more self-respect.

People who like to please others and think the best way to get there is to do things that please them also experience more energy exhaustion, rejection and hassles. The answer is to practice more self-respect.

Lois is a mom who works hard for her family. She spends her day taking care of her preschool children, the home and taking the children to programs they can participate in together. At the end of a day Lois is exhausted. She dreams of taking out her scrap-booking materials again, but feels she has no time. When she being honest with herself she’ll admit that it doesn’t feel right that she enjoys so many activities for her children, but doesn’t do things for herself.

Anything that pretend-Lois can do to express herself or take care of her own needs will be tremendous first steps in self-respect. The first step will be to give herself permission to do things for herself.

The analogy of the safety instructions given in an airplane before lift-off might help this parent. What do the instructions say parents are to do in the event that the oxygen masks fall from the over-head compartment? They are to put their own oxygen mask on first, and then assist their children or other travelling companions who may need assistance. The message? You can help others only when you’re getting the vital oxygen you need.

Parents whose priority is to please other often find themselves thinking:
I only count when I keep everything smooth and on an even keel.
I only count when everyone likes me.
I only count when everyone approves of what I do.
I only count when I put others first.
Instead of feeling sad or rejected, parents can achieve “no hassles” cooperation with their children. Parent coaching clients find that they are able to connect with a broader state of internal resourcefulness where win-win solutions are achieved.

 

Mutual respect in action looks like your respect of own rights and respect for other’s judgment.

By Joy Morassutti

Joy Morassutti is a Certified Parenting Educator and an Adler Trained Professional Coach who loves to help parents rediscover their joy in parenting. See www.joysofparenting.com to learn more.

 

Find a calm time to present and discuss the problem. In setting the time for the meeting you can let your teen/child know the headline for what you would like to discuss and that you want to problem solve together.  In other word’s you want your teen/child to know that this isn’t going to be another battle/power struggle

Describe the problem in a neutral way.  Lay out the situation without judgment, triggering words, and emotions. (preparing ahead of time as parents, even writing down what you want to say to kick things off and so you stay on track is very helpful).  *If your child/teen has shown some positive efforts around this problem already make note of this as well.

Put yourself in the child’s/teens shoes.  E.g. “I can imagine that you might feel ….  I understand why this is important to you, This must be tough for you”.

Share your feelings (10 words or less is ideal, less is more in this case).

Brainstorm solutions together.  Invite your teen/child to offer any and all of their solutions. During the brainstorm there is NO critiquing of any possible solutions, all are considered plausible for now.  (This may require practicing the art of biting your tongue.)

Agree on 1 solution.  This requires reviewing the list of possible solutions and ruling out the ones that are not acceptable for issues such as safety

etc.  Agree on a trial period that is specified, e.g. two weeks or a month.        At the end of the trial period set up a review meeting. If needed it can be adjusted or changed to an alternate solution, again done with everyone’s participation and agreement. 

If no changes are needed then this is an opportunity to celebrate the success!  In giving positive feedback to your teen/child make sure it is sincere and specific, this makes it more meaningful and genuine.  It can also include how you are feeling in relation to the success.

1. A strong liking/attraction to each other often from the moment they met; many said they were best friends
2. A deep level of commitment to being a couple as well as separate individuals
3. An ability to resolve conflict
4. Shared values dreams and lifestyle
5. Showing appreciation, respect, care, and consideration for each other
6. Taking pleasure and delight in each other’s company
7. A capacity to pull together in hard times
8. Strong connections to community and a commitment to being of service to others.
9. A good sense of humour and an ability to laugh at and reflect on themselves.
10. Supporting each other to be their best self.

From: If the Buddha Dated. Charlotte Kasl

Happy couples expect each other to do their best.

If a couple is to be happy, it is essential that the partners see each other, and see themselves as equals – regardless of how the world may see them.

When they argue happy couples follow the rules (they make their own rules).

Happy couples care more about the health of their relationships than about winning arguments.

When an argument is not worth having happy couples force themselves to walk away.

Happy couples do not let it all hang out. Managing your feelings of anger and frustration and choosing carefully when and how you share these feelings is important.

When they cannot agree on how to solve a conflict, happy couples manage to agree, at least in part, on what the problem is.

When it is impossible to agree, it is important to try to understand.

When compromise is not possible, happy couples make sure that each partner at least has a say in how many things will turn out.

When an argument is resolved in terms of what is best for us, rather than what is best for me, both partners come out happy.

Happily married people believe in being able to admit at least to themselves that they could be wrong.