Endings

Endings, though difficult, are an essential part of life. Whether it's a breakup, divorce, or the loss of a loved one, endings can be traumatic. In the podcast we talk about how society often downplays the significance of endings, offering clichés like "plenty more fish in the sea," which fails to acknowledge the pain and complexity of separation.

Research shows that the pain of a breakup can trigger physical responses similar to those of physical injury. Heartbreak is real and can have a profound impact on our well-being. What can we do to support ourselves during these times?

We also talk about conscious uncoupling, as popularized by Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin - what is it and how do you go about it?

Recommended resources:

Book: The Wisdom of a Broken Heart - Susan Piver

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast for more discussions on intimacy and relationships.

If you're ready to take the next step in deepening your connection, Nicola's course Reigniting Intimacy can be found here at www.realrelating.com/reignitingintimacy

If you'd like to contact us - suggestions for topics, guests, brickbats or bouquets - find us at www.realrelating.com/podcast.

Transcript

Welcome to intimacy matters. I'm Nicola Foster. I'm a sex and relationship therapist and a self confessed intimacy geek. I work with couples around the challenges of keeping passion alive, and how to deepen intimacy. And I'm Jason Porthouse. Nicholas partner. I'm also fascinated by what makes fulfilling, nourishing and sexually alive relationships. So whether you're in one or you want one, join us as we talk all things intimacy, and find out how to create healthier, happier, sexier relationships. So welcome back, dear listener, and we are on the letter E in our trawl through the alphabet of relating. And we were trying to think about a subject for this, won't we? Quite sort of long and hard. And various things came up, but they're probably going to be shows that we want to do guest interviews for. But the one thing that we kept coming back to was endings, which is an interesting thing to have in a podcast about relationships. But is all too often really not thought about that much, isn't it? It's always been, I suppose an area I'm deeply interested in? Because I guess I've had a few. And, and one that was quite traumatic. Yeah, I had a very significant traumatic ending, which, you know, Carl Jung talks about the wounded healer. There's no doubt that I'm a relationship therapist, because of the trauma that occurred when I had such a traumatic relationship ending, and I guess I needed to make sense of it. Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, obviously, I know, because we've talked about it at length, but you didn't feel like you had the help that you could have had at the time. I mean, sometimes now in my clinic, I work with people around relationship endings. And I say to them, I don't believe that society actually. Honours relationship ending very well. I think it's often belittled. I mean, the mind of times, you get told things like, cheer up love. plenty more fish. Fish in the sea. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, it doesn't feel like that when, you know, as I say, to clients, when we're talking about this, you know, I now know about attachment, I didn't know about attachment when I was going through my own very traumatic relationship ending, and attachment. Now, when a baby attaches to a mother, the mother is the whole life source or, and also, the baby attaches to both parents and the parents are the source of safety and soccer and life, essentially life. And in adulthood, we have the same sort of thing that happens we attach to a primary partner, and they and so if we are, you know, if that connection is severed, suddenly, it's akin to the trauma of a baby losing a parent. Yeah. And yeah, I suppose it's, you know, relationships and for all sorts of reasons, don't they? And I always love that phrase, a reason a season or a lifetime, you know, when it talks about kind of differing, differing sort of types of relationship and why people are in your lives for certain amounts of time. And, you know, and I guess that, I think is one of those topics, that's still a bit taboo, isn't it to be sort of talked about in a way that there's some sort of idea or notion still of failure, if a relationship doesn't work. And so, like you say, that sort of, slightly kind of like not quite knowing how to talk about it, brushing it under the carpet, a little bit of humour, just kind of like, you know, and not really acknowledging the the kind of pain or the depths of feeling that could be there or that the loss. Yeah, they've done some MRI scans now. Well, brain brain scans now on people who've been through or going through relationship endings. They show the pain receptors lighting it up in the same sorts of ways as if we break a limb. Or we feel that pain, yeah. And heartbreak. And you know that that kind of real punch in the gut feeling that a lot of people get there is, you know, I've been reading the Gabor Mati book around the myth of normal, and he sort of talking about the idea of trauma and that and, yeah, that it's, it's basically painful to have that happen, especially if it's unwanted on one, one side or another. Yeah, unexpected and unexpected, which could be, you know, as in your case, somebody leaving abruptly or somebody dying. Yeah, and they're very similar. And I often talk about how I was very well. One way that I was well met in it was that my GP at the site time said, what you're going through is worse than bereavement. Because I didn't have closure. I didn't know what was going on. My GP was, you know, really understood. And I guess my GP was, you know, had been around the block a few times understood the world and could see that this was a particular form of pain. So thankfully, yeah, my GP did not belittle it. But my, you know, many people do people do belittle these things. Yeah. And I think one of the things that's really important to understand in this, this whole idea of breakups and endings of relationships and trying to do them well, it's just how I mean, all of us are familiar with the kind of emotional toll that it takes on people, but there's an actual physical toll as well, you know, this, this is sort of now really been proven, without a shadow of a doubt in scientific terms that our emotional state and our physical being are so intertwined. That a breakup, a rupture in a relationship, specially a sudden rupture in a relationship can be devastating physiologically, as well as psychologically. It's so true. I mean, I think, yeah, people give themselves sometimes a hard time because they're going through a breakup. But when you really look at what's going on in the brain, and what's going on in the body, you know, our stress response is highly activated, we aren't getting the same level of dopamine, we aren't getting the same level of oxytocin, you know, these hormones that happiness hormones and love hormones. And we, I mean, I think that, you know, they actually show pain, you know, on an MRI pain in the brain. And I think the, there's a really interesting thing, I was reading about the, the effects on the limbic system, and they're saying that relationship rupture is a severe bodily strain. Prolonged separation affects more than feelings. A number of somatic parameters go haywire and despair, because separation arranges the body, losing relationships can cause physical illness. So yeah, that sense of it sort of really giving us a shock. Throughout the body is very real, I think. Era, I wish that people were able to give themselves more loving kindness at these times, you know, get massages, yet. I mean, I went through a breakup and I got some cranial sacral therapy. And I knew I needed some form of touch actually, to help me through it was very fortunate that I was able to find a therapist to combine talking therapy and cranial sacral that really worked for me at the time. Well, this comes into this point around. I suppose it's the flip side, isn't it of rupture in relationship, that relationship also gives us something vital? Even I mean, I'm not just talking about intimate partner relationships. I'm talking about all relationships. In terms of like, co regulation, yeah, if they're done well, you know, if we, if we bring conscious awareness to actually wanting to time regulate each other, I mean, maybe you don't if you're lucky. It might be happening naturally, without any conscious awareness and attention. Maybe you just naturally are in the rhythm of giving each other lots of tight regulation. And, you know, we'll do another podcast, I'm sure on CO regulation, there's also a, I've got a YouTube video about it that we can put in the show notes, but we can show our tone of voice, through our volume of our voice through iContact through touch, we can really make a difference to someone else's nervous system. And yet, of course, you know, if you're not in a relationship 100% This is just as relevant, we need to be doing these kinds of activities, with our friends with our massage therapists, with with the with the dog, I mean, the science shows absolutely, that we get similar co regulation, soothing from an animal, as we do from a human. So there's lots of different ways to, to calm on other systems, but in relationship, it's so important to attend to that, that we're actually doing, you know, more good than harm. Yeah, because of course, the opposite is true in relationship. If you're if we're using raised tones, cold tones, not making eye contact being on the phone all the time, then we are disrupting Yeah, regulation. Yeah. And I guess for me that that kind of plays into this idea of if you're going to have an ending if you're going to have a rupture, doing it well, as well as you can, given the circumstances and given what might be going on for you is both good for you. And for the partner who you're separating from, it's never going to be easy, but it's going to be better to try and do it well. And be conscious of the process on a myriad of different levels. Yeah, I mean, if, if we could wave a magic wand and change something in society, wouldn't that be a wonderful thing to change that we that all endings, however big or small, were handled more kindly. I think there is a real issue. Since online dating has been around of people getting ghosted over and over again, or having horrible date situations, people like not showing up or leaving during dates. And each time that kind of careless behaviour happens. It's another heart closing, that just can often ultimately just mean that people closed down to the idea of relationship and love. Because they've been basically so, so badly treated. I mean, I just my heart's breaking thinking about it. One of the reasons I think that makes me a good couples therapist is I've I've had a few breakups. I've had a few relationships, and I was single and dating for for a long time best part of a decade on and off. And I know how brutal that experiences firsthand, got the battle scars. Yeah. It it's interesting, there's a little piece from David White, you love and I love Oh, hell was like to include some poetry and this is poetry. This is in writing about heartbreak and this idea of heartbreak. I'm just going to read you what he says here. He says, heartbreak is unpreventable, the natural outcome of caring for people and things over which we have no control. Heartbreak begins the moment we are asked to let go but cannot. In other words, it colours in inhabits and magnifies each and every day. Heartbreak is not a visitation but a path that human beings follow through even the most average life. Heartbreak is an indication of our sincerity, in a love relationship in our life's work in trying to learn a musical instrument in the attempt to shape a better and more generous self. Heartbreak is the beautifully helpless side of love and affection, and is an essence and emblem of care. Heartbreak has its own way of inheriting time and its own beautiful trying patients in coming and going. And he goes on to talk about it as being a part of the maturation process actually and not something which is kind of to be avoided and to be kind of, because we see it as such a negative thing you know, in kind of conventional, romantic well, and he's saying heartbreak is how we mature, yet we use the word heartbreak as if it only occurs when things have gone wrong. And unrequited love a shattered dream. But heartbreak may be the very essence of being Human of being on the journey from here to there, and of coming to care deeply for what we find along the way. There is almost no path a human being can follow that does not lead to heartbreak. Which I think is a really interesting idea, that sense that it's a part of our growth, it's a part of our necessary kind of evolution of the human spirit, if you want to call it very moving. Yeah. I'm thinking about those Japanese balls, you know, where they can see Tsukiyama where it's broken and remade, did with gold with gold and the scars are visible? Yeah. And made more beautiful. As a result. Yeah, that's certainly been my own experience. I feel, you know, all these heartbreaks I've been through, I wouldn't. I wouldn't wish them on myself. And yet, they have made me stronger. And give me insight and wisdom. So why do you think we're a bit? Generally, I'm making a massive generalisation here, but we tend to be a bit crap at doing endings. Why is that? I mean, I wasn't sort of the you know, this whole thing of ghosting, that happens now, there wasn't there wasn't a name for it, certainly back then. But it didn't happen in the same way. Because I, you know, you and I are of an age where we weren't attached to all mobile devices in our teenage years, this thing of ghosting, where people just disappear. All of a sudden, it's very, very common. And the reason why people are bad at endings is that many of us are just not good at being with difficult feelings. And so we use distraction, to avoid feeling them. And one of the or to be with difficult conversations, you know, to actually know if you're going to have a difficult conversation with somebody, I disappoint them because you do not want to spend more time with them. Yeah, potentially, they're going to have a reaction that may express their sadness. And for many people, that the idea of sitting with somebody in, in the in that level of discomfort, like witnessing that, is, they can't be with their own difficult feeling, which would be some sort of guilt or also sadness. And so let's just move on and not feel. Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? I mean, I think that there is, I suppose as as our connection with one another has become so much more ephemeral. In many respects, you know, that just social media of all the different sort of ways, all the different conduits that you have communicating that aren't really face to face eye to eye, that that kind of behaviour becomes that much more possible to do. And I'm wondering if we've lost the art of being with difficult emotions, that actually, it's just so much easier just to sort of go nope, don't want to go there at all. And as a result of that, we, you know, that's why there's this sort of rise in kind of really not considering the impact that you're having on the other person. Yeah, and there's a lot written about how, because so much dating now is on dating apps. And because there are lots and lots of people on dating apps, you can just sort of move on, and there's a there's an endless sort of supply of new options. Whereas, you know, a couple of decades ago, that wouldn't have been the case. Yeah. And I guess with that, as well, that, you know, when you and I were sort of in that dating Millia, then, as youngsters, you would date in a smaller circle of people. And if you were a, you know, if you were a bastard, the word would get around pretty quickly. Yeah, yeah, word of mouth. Whereas the anonymized nature of a lot of dating nowadays, it's kind of, again, it makes it easier, doesn't it? So yeah, I mean, I'm interested in how we can do it better. It was a bit of a buzzword a few years ago. This idea of conscious uncoupling wasn't it? It was. I think it's Dylan is actually well, I suppose it still is. But the one that really kind of set the set that sort of tone for is called pouch. Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin. You know, when they kind of went through their split up, and it was all this big thing, and there was a lot of slightly kind of, like, mocking coverage of it at the time, I seem to remember where it was kind of like, oh, it's sort of typical kind of Hollywood behaviour or, you know, that kind of only for celebs would do something that pretentious and, but actually, I think there's a real value. I think it's really filtered down. I've been, yeah, I've been asked to do conscious uncoupling work. And I'm, yeah, I'm thinking of adding it into my professional kind of offerings. i I see great value doing conscious uncoupling. I mean, not least of which I'm guessing if it's a sort of a marriage that is dissolving, literal value in not going through sort of Loggerhead divorce. I think it's wonderful if we can aim to not eat not just have like, not acrimonious endings, with exes, but even aim for, for really good ones. I've been, I've been super impressed how you and your ex have handled your, you know, your your friendship post being together. And we all went out to dinner recently, and it was fabulous. Yeah, yeah, it's made life an awful lot easier. And that wasn't, you know, I don't want to belittle the difficulty of our separation, because it was, you know, it had his moments and there needed to be a lot of healing. But I think both of us have seen that as a really kind of valid goal to kind of work towards and, you know, please somebody that was in my life for a very long time, and I would have hated it, if we'd have ended up in a kind of never to be seen or spoken of, again, kind of situation. And I think I can speak for her when she would probably feel the same way. And sometimes, you know, you might need time, and that might be different amounts of different people. It's gonna be different in every situation, but it can be worked towards as a goal. Yeah, I'm an IT cost, there are just so many different situations. In a lot of people escaped from relationships where there is a form of abuse, that clearly you don't really want to know, we're not talking about those really, are we We're more here talking about the kind of, you know, relationships that just come to an end. And, you know, have run their course. Yeah, I guess. And that actually recognising that and acknowledging that and having some form. And I guess this is what the conscious uncoupling does, it gives structure to something which has, up until now really been unstructured. I mean, the classic is in a marriage dissolving, and the only structure has been, okay, I'm gonna get my lawyer, you're gonna get your lawyer, the two are going to rip chunks out of each other for you know, however long it takes. And then once it's all over, and the paperwork signed and delivered, then, you know, you pick up from wherever you are, and start off. Again, and I think that's quite rare these days, a lot of lot of marriages. It's a fairly amicable sort of ending that is reached, and mediation. So I think that part people are quite good at doing the practicals. But what is less attended to is the emotions. And you know, one of the things I quite like about the conscious uncoupling book, but Katherine Woodward Thomas book, you know, there's a lot of emphasis on generosity. And I think that's a really important part of, you know, there's two things that I think really helped. One is to look at our own part, in a breakup, like taking personal responsibility for what we did that contributed to the relationship not working out. And then there's cultivating an attitude of generosity and gratitude, you know, we, you know, we started this series, talking about appreciation, but being able to be grateful for all of the ways in which our partner helped us to grow, to develop, how we, the time we spent together, the things they did for us. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? We like you say we started with the priests creation and how important appreciation is for a healthy relationship. And that doesn't have to stop. At the end of the relationship, the person that you were with doesn't suddenly become an ogre, because you're not together anymore. And I like this unpack a bit more. For me, there's this sort of taking responsibility for your own stuff. Because I think, again, it takes two people to make a relationship, it takes two people to end a relationship, well, I can, you know, maybe speak for my own process. I mean, the ending that happened for me, that was very traumatic and sudden, it would be very easy for me to not see any part of my own in it, because it was, it did seem on surface level, as such a kind of persecuted victim, clear situation. But over the years, I have unpacked my part. And my part was to not press for more honesty, when I wasn't getting it, you know, for more communication. And, ultimately, now I was pressing for communication, and wasn't it, my requests were falling on, on stony ground, I could have also left the relationship, if it really wasn't, if I really wasn't getting my needs for communication met. But also, just seeing I mean, this is where, you know, it's very interesting to think about the whole role of therapy. And I mentioned attachment earlier, you know, understanding our own attachment styles, and how our attachment preferences and strategies have played out for us. That that came along in childhood can be really interesting. So I can see that I throw myself into that relationship with a lot of optimism and that kind of fairy tale idea of the princess and the slipper, and organ and live happily ever after. without really doing the work of, of having difficult conversations. I mean, when you and I first got together, I was determined for us to try to have difficult conversations we struggled, we still do sometimes not because we're not willing to talk about difficult things, but because actually, there's a lot of good things that go on. But we do try to have difficult conversations. Because I think that's a really important way of not living in a kind of illusion or fantasy of romance. Yes, I think this sort of, like, feeds into why there's such a blind spot around endings is that it's, it is so antithetical to this fairy tale, we find the one that we're going to be happy and this one person is going to give us everything that we need, and they're not, they're not gonna have any flaws, or they you know, and it's, it's whilst I can sort of see the uglier of the Romans behind that, it's, it's terribly unrealistic. And one of the things I really liked when you and I got together was we had this discussion about starting with the end in mind. And I know that people kind of like quite often go what, you know, what are you talking about? And but I think there's something really interesting about the idea of a thought experiment or a discussion about how you would like a relationship to end before you even get into fully interrelationship. Yeah, like you say it was, it was really interesting. How can you describe it thought experiment was a really interesting thought experiment that we did where we, we talked about ending fairly early on, like within the first year, yeah. And how, yeah, how we would want it to work. Yeah. What would an ideal separation look like? What would what would you need and what would I need and what would we want to do to show up as our best selves in that time? I think the reason I was able to or wanted to talk about endings at the beginning of our relationship was that a philosophy you know, I've come to believe a philosophy really when it comes to relating and this came from, you know, I studied a lot with relationship teacher Jan day. And I remember Jan saying wants very early on in my journey. She said the thing thing about this work, which is the the work of intimacy, that we have to be willing to have a heartbroken over and over again. And it was like, I mean, I couldn't, I almost couldn't believe what I'd heard, I think because I'd had my heart broken so badly. I was, was almost in shock. Like, really, you're really asking that, that, that we would be willing for this to happen over and over again, you can't be serious. But the more I studied, the more I've come to believe this philosophy. And I actually also say the same thing to my clients now. Which is that if we're, if we're willing to risk being vulnerable, and to trust and to open our hearts and to reveal ourselves and to talk deeply and ask for what we want, and all the things that I'm you know, we talk about on this podcast, and I share on social media, and then somebody leaves for whatever reason, they may die, they may have an illness that changes their part, they may fall in love with someone else they may join, join a Buddhist monastery Oh knows what the different reasons why somebody's life path, their autonomy, takes them in a different direction. And that's going to hurt if you've come to trust them and love them and rely on them. It's kind of a lot. And, you know, one of my, my other mantras these days is it will be hard and we can do hard things. Yeah. You know what, I think that's one of the reasons why I'm talking about endings on a podcast, I do believe that we can heal from endings faster than I did. I mean, it took me years to hear from that end, and because I didn't have good support around me. But now I know that there's so much healing we can do on our own, there's so many great resources and teachers and practices, we can take that longing and love and, and we can actually transmute it, you wait, you know, that level of longing and love, we can share it out into the world as a meditation practice. I mean, I love the tonglen meditation practice in the Buddhist practice, where you breathe in suffering and breathe out healing, we, we can try, I do believe we can transmute pain, and not let it sort of fester and get stuck and horrible, and it's breath work. I mean, that's an another amazing modality. I did breath work this morning, with the amazing Steph magenta. And I, I love that practice, because I can feel the kind of stagnant energy in me release. Yeah, and it is that sort of, I suppose. It's that idea that relationship is just part of life's flow. And that in order to be open to it, and to really be open to life, we have to be prepared for pain as well as pleasure, because they're two sides of the same coin. If you try and isolate or insulate yourself from ever feeling it, you're never really going to be fully in relationship with somebody, you're going to be kind of skating across the surface. I remember you speaking about this image of like the river of life, and we were first together. And And yeah, if we, if we try to cling on to everything being permanent, then it is maybe just can become quite stagnant. Yeah. Yeah. And also, I think, for many people, they have a very, very sort of, like, set list of attributes that they want their partner to have. And one of the things I really love about some of the people that you've been working with, I'm thinking of Martha Kauppi now, and she talks about how do you want to turn How do you want to show a relationship? How do you want to be in relationship? So as opposed to, you know, we can't really control how our partners are we you know, it's that's not within our remit to control them. But we can work on and model how we want to be. Yeah, I mean, that loops back really, I think to, to this core subject of endings were How do you want to show up in your ending? You know, if I could replay the clock, I wouldn't show up in my ending. I think I showed up in the ending, as well as I could at the time, given what you Yeah, it was, it was a significant trauma my partner went missing. You know, it was a significantly traumatic time. And yeah, I did get stuck in that position of victim for longer than I would like to have done. And we can choose where we are on the Drama Triangle, we must do an episode on the drama, drama, we will do it. Because it is fascinating. We can we can choose. And I know how do you want to show up in your ending, investing in healing, investing in remembering your essential goodness, being generous and remembering what your partner the gifts they gave you? Or, you know, with bitterness and regret and trying to turn the clock back? So what are some good resources for people if there's, I'm putting you on the spot? Oh, I'm really glad you asked actually. Because there is a book, there was one particular book that I think I didn't have it when it happened to me, but I recommend it all the time. Now, there is a beautiful book called The Wisdom of a broken heart. And I think that's a fabulous resource. Yeah. It draws on spiritual teachings, and it draws on meditation, but it really, it looks at anger, and it looks brief. And it Yeah, it's a great companion. Yeah, because I think that those things like anger and grief, because that can often arise, I think in endings, and it can often be anger towards oneself. So all the things that you didn't do, or if, if you allowed, boundaries to be overwritten, or you kind of stayed longer than you should have, or if you kind of put up with stuff that you wouldn't normally have put up with or, you know, a myriad different things. But there can be as much anger directed to the self, I think as can be to the to the other. Yeah. 100%. And I think I'll close the podcast with the words of another amazing teacher of Auntie I've studied with and had sessions with. And I remember her saying on one of the trainings I did with her, if you could, if you would have really liked that. Yeah, there's lots of things that we could have. We could have done differently. Yeah. And if we'd have known how we would have done yeah, yeah, hindsight is always 2020 20. So, so self compassion is really big. Yeah. And you you mentioned resources. Like there's some great books on self self compassion, Elizabeth knirps books about self compassionate Great. Yeah. Well, I hope this rambling kind of discussion around endings has been fruitful to someone listening. I think it's quite thought provoking. So yeah. And we'll see you next time. Bye. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you want to contact us with comments or suggestions for topics you'd like us to cover, there are links in the notes below. And if you're ready to take the next step to rediscovering the passion in your relationship, why not check out my online course called reigniting intimacy is packed full of information and practical exercises that you can do at home. I put everything together in a step by step programme, and it's designed to take you both into deeper connection. You can find out more real relating.com 

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