Mourning and Grieving

Don't Call That Man!
by Rhonda Findling

(Page 3 of 3)

When a relationship has ended, or you see your man distancing or pulling away from you, it's a loss, even if it's a temporary loss. Whenever there is a loss, you have to feel the pain of the loss.

I hate telling this to my patients, because I hate telling people they have to feel pain in order to get better and move on. Unfortunately, it's true. The only way to get better is to free yourself, not be imprisoned by your love, and feel all of your feelings.

The process of going through a loss is called mourning. It is a complicated process that includes many feelings — grief, longing and yearning, hopelessness, anger, apathy, sadness, and despair.

Grief is a painful, even agonizing, feeling, but a necessary one to acknowledge the pain of loss. Denying the existence of the pain may lead you to call him compulsively, unable to move on and love someone else. When you grieve, you may be grieving for the loss of your ex's company, making love with him, his touch and comfort, the fantasy of a future together, children you might have had together, the pleasure and happiness you experienced together.

There may be times when you will feel consumed by the grief, afraid you will never get over your pain, but only by experiencing these feelings fully can you move beyond the pain and sadness. You have to embrace it. If you give a feeling full expression, the feeling diminishes and brings about transformation. The feeling WILL subside. It will NOT go on forever.

Remember, grief has its own rhythms. You cannot decide “Okay, I'm going to grieve now.” You have to feel grief when it arises.

When mourning the loss of a man you were in love with you will go through four stages. You may not pass through each stage in order, and sometimes the phases overlap. The following stages are based on the five stages of death and dying delineated in Dr. Elizabeth Kubler Ross's famous 1969 book “On Death and Dying”.

Denial is the first phase. You do not want to face the reality that he's gone, that he rejected you, or that he's done something awful to provoke you to break up with him. You are in emotional shock. You may even feel numb.

It's important during the stage of denial to try and cope with reality. If you pretend everything is still the same and pursue a man you just broke up with, you may end up feeling even more hurt and humiliated. This is a good time to turn to your support system for help in facing the truth and reality of the situation.

Anger is the second stage. You are facing reality now and feeling enraged at him for betraying you, hurting you, abandoning you. Unresolved anger at others who have hurt you in the past (parents, ex-boyfriends) may remerge now.

However, it's important to work through your anger without contacting your ex. Don't use your anger as an excuse to confront your ex, tell him off, or even worse become violent. Acting out your anger with your ex won't help the situation. In fact it might make it worse. Most people don't respond well to aggressive confrontation, so you probably won't get the response that you're looking for. You may feel better momentarily but his response to your anger could result in your feeling more hurt, abandoned, or angry. Instead share your feelings of anger with members of your support system. You can also work through your anger by working out, sports, writing, or other creative activities.

The third stage is depression and despair. This is the most difficult stage The excitement and drama of the breakup is over and you're left with the emptiness of the loss. Any past abandonments you may have struggled with , which you might have also experienced in the anger stage could come up for you now which could contribute to you feelings of sadness and depression. This can be a painful time for you but it is necessary for you to go through this stage in order to move on to a new relationship. If you stay in denial you will remain haunted by your past. However if you're feeling so depressed that you are having difficulties functioning (you stop working, eating, sleeping) you might be clinically depressed and it may be necessary for you to consult a medical doctor or psychiatrist.

Again, it is important that you Don't Call That Man! during this stage. This is a difficult and vulnerable time for you and you cannot take the risk of his acting distant or rejecting because it could cause you to feel even more abandoned leading to further depression and despair. This is an especially important time to call on your support system for emotional nurturing. Try and be self comforting while you bite the bullet and struggle through the pain. Although this stage may feel overwhelming remember that time heals all wounds and your feelings of sadness and despair will come to an end. You will eventually move to the next stage of acceptance.

Acceptance is the final stage. You begin to pull your life back together again. You're not so preoccupied with your ex anymore. You start thinking about new men and you want to start dating. This can be a tricky time though because you may want to call him just to show him you're over him. But don't give in and call because you may not get the response you want and then you'll feel let down and disappointed. Or worse your old feelings for him may resurface and then you're in a setback and you'll have to start mourning him all over again!!!

Another important part of the mourning and grieving process is feeling ALL your feelings, including the good ones. Don't be ashamed of having loving, romantic feelings towards your ex even though the relationship is over or he has really hurt you. This is only natural. There were qualities about him that you loved or enjoyed, or you would never have gotten involved or fallen in love with him.

You must also yearn and long for your ex. Don't be ashamed. These are just feelings — you are not acting them out, you are feeling them.

Gratitude is another feeling you may need to express. You may be holding on to the relationship because you feel grateful about something he did for you. Susan was grateful to her boyfriend for helping to financially support her through Law School. Nancy was grateful to her boyfriend for being emotionally supportive when she went through a painful divorce. Both of them needed to express these feelings in the group because they kept focusing on how wonderful their respective ex's were, although the relationships were over.

You may even experience feelings of envy toward your ex. He may have some quality you admire and wish you had. Mary admired her boyfriend Paul's ability to socialize easily with people. She often watched him at parties as he engaged and connected with others with such ease. Now she could no longer count on him for this.

You will undoubtedly feel anger and rage at your ex for abandoning you, treating you unfairly, betraying, rejecting, or abusing you. Working through these feelings and not allowing them to take over is paramount to getting over him.

The key to this process is NOT to call him even when you are feeling such powerful feelings. You must use this time to emotionally distance and disconnect from him. If you call him to express and share your feelings, and he doesn't appreciate what you are going through, rejects or emotionally dismisses you, you will feel a hundred times worse. This will contaminate the healing process and the hard work you have done to mourn and let go of him.

Instead, share these feeling with someone else — a therapist, supportive friend, or support group. Make sure it's someone you feel safe with. Having a witness to this experience of love, pain, sadness, and yearning makes the process of letting go more meaningful. However, there may be times when there will be no one available to share these powerful feelings with — you will have to feel them by yourself. When it hits in the middle of night, you can't call people and wake them at four in morning (unless you have incredibly understanding friends!). Instead, you can cry by yourself. You can develop the skills of soothing and nurturing yourself, which will be discussed in chapter 3.

Mary and Tim had been engaged for six months when Tim told Mary he didn't know if he could marry her. Mary was devastated. They had dated for more then a year before getting engaged. Tim had moved to New York from Greece to study for a master's degree in engineering. A year after he came here, he met Mary in a nightclub. After the first date, they began spending most of their free time together. When Tim's family found out about their engagement, they became angry because they wanted him to marry a Greek woman. They threatened to disown Tim if he went through with the marriage. Tim decided he could not give up his family and told Mary he could not go through with the wedding.

Mary was enraged at Tim for his inability to stand up to his family and his betrayal of their love and future together. Although she was able to function at her job as a credit investigator, Mary was becoming severely depressed. She decided to seek therapy. When she came to see me, we discussed her symptoms of depression as well as her inability to let go completely of Tim.

On occasion, Tim still called Mary, though he had not changed his decision about marriage. This was making Mary even more confused. In therapy, she decided she wanted to make a complete break from Tim.

Mary spent the first few therapy sessions getting in touch with her grief and crying. She also spoke about all the things she missed about Tim; his calling her twice a day when they were dating, their sexual relationship, even the ordinary routine of going to the movies to together. She especially mourned the loss of the future they would have shared together. She cried over the wedding they had planned. They had even picked out their children's names. This was the most painful part for her.

She then expressed her rage at Tim for rejecting and abandoning her. She acknowledged her gradual insight into why he did this, including his attachment to his family and his inability to emotionally separate from them.

During this time, Tim impulsively called her one time. Because she was feeling emotionally stronger, she told him not to call anymore. She said it only confused her since they had no future together. After asserting herself, she felt less like a victim — her depression lifted. She was able to talk about the good times they had together, how he had financially helped when she went back to graduate school. She was able to get in touch with her feelings of gratitude towards him. She remembers how loving and affectionate he could be with her.

Despite the good feelings Mary was having about Tim, she was able to contain these feelings within the therapy. She did not call him to share these positive loving feelings, because she knew it would cause further confusion.

When Mary started to date again, she sometimes compared other men to Tim. This would cause her to have strong longings and yearnings again because she was afraid she would never meet someone she felt as comfortable with as Tim. As she continued to work through her grief, her feelings about Tim began to diminish — in a year she could think about him without pain or remorse. She now saw the whole thing as a learning experience. She felt emotionally free enough to become seriously involved with another man. She was not afraid of risking another relationship, because she knew she was capable of loving and, if necessary, working through loss again.

What can you do to facilitate the process of mourning?

• To relieve anger, you can do physical exercise. Running, tennis, working out, wrestling, kick-boxing, martial arts classes are great! Any activity where you can physically release your anger, discharge tension from your body.
• Express your feelings through creativity; write prose, poetry, lyrics to songs. Paint, sing, dance
• Verbalize your feelings. Keep talking to people in your support system about your feelings.
• Write a letter of good-bye to your relationship. Write this letter as if your ex could hear the letter being read. Say everything that needs to be said. Let your feelings come as you write. Cry while writing the letter. But DON'T SEND IT. It can be a powerful experience to read this letter to a trusted friend, someone who can bear witness to your feelings.You might want to save the letter to look at later on after time has passed, or tear it up.as a symbol of ending your connection with him.

The act of ritual can also facilitate healing and movement through the mourning process.

Donna was upset because she was legally separated from Mark and having a particularly hard time emotionally letting go of the relationship. On the evening of her birthday, she was afraid she didn't have the will power to not call Mark, so she decided to go out with her friends Linda and Susan. The three friends commemorated the end of Donna's relationship with Mark by driving past the restaurant where the couple used to go every Friday. As the women sat in the parking lot. Donna related her past experiences with Mark.

Later, the three women drove to the beach where Donna took off the ring Mark had given her and threw it into the ocean. She cried afterwards, Linda and Susan were supportive and compassionate, sharing their own stories of loss. Finally, they went to a fancy pastry restaurant to celebrate Donna's birthday, the end of her relationship with Mark, and her new-found freedom. They feasted on rich pastries and coffee, sharing stories about past relationships and adventures with men, laughing and crying until the café closed.

When Donna came to see me in her next therapy session, she said she felt much better and was able to accept the ending of the relationship.

You can plan rituals with friends or do them by yourself. It is just another way for you to express the change and transformation in your life.

The most important element in all forms of mourning is sharing your story with others. Whether you are telling your therapist, your best friend, or your mother, when you tell your story you no longer feel alone or isolated. You feel understood, connected. Often the more you talk about what happened to you, the more distance you put between yourself and the pain.

With the presence of a compassionate and caring person, you can share and communicate joy and sorrow, healing any trauma or wound.

WRITING EXERCISES

• Have you been experiencing feelings of sadness or despair? Write about these feelings here.
• Have you been feeling anger and rage at your ex? What did your ex do to cause you to feel angry? Write about it here.
• What kind of things do you think you can do to express feelings of anger or grief in a healthy, constructive way?
• Do you have someone you can share your feelings with when you are feeling particularly sad or angry? Describe that person here.
• If you are overwhelmed in the middle of the night with feelings of grief or anger, what can you do for yourself to calm down?
• What imaginative way can you think of to commemorate the ending of your relationship in a ceremony? Write it here, no matter how outlandish you might think it is.

About the Author

www.rhondafindling.com
Rhonda Findling, M.A.,C.R.C. is the author of "Don't Call That Man! A Survival Guide To Letting Go" (Hyperion), "The Commitment Cure" (Adams Media) and "The Dating Cure" (Adams Media) and her debut novel "Portrait of My Desire". She is a dating coach and psychotherapist. She has been in private practice in New York for the past 20 years and consults (by telephone) with clients all over the world.