Learn to Leave

Executive Director of PhillyGayCalendar

What fag doesn’t love to quote Madonna? From our beloved Madge come these words circa 1998: “There’s no greater power than the power of goodbye. Learn to say goodbye.” (Insert audience applause here.) When the relationship is stale, on its last lung, and begging for hospice, how do you end it? I once asked a friend how he ends his relationships. He said, “I end like a cat in a washing machine, clawing my way out of the spin cycle.” Do you know how to say goodbye? When the time comes, are you able to leave? Are you able to leave with as little drama as possible?

In my last relationship, leaving proved to be my shortcoming. I couldn’t do it. I was paralyzed. I was trapped in my own Brokeback Mountain. I lived Jack’s words spoken to Ennis, “I wish I knew how to quit you.” Now years later after the end, what do I know about quitting a relationship? I know leaving is a necessary skill that we all must learn – oh and one more thing, it’s not as easy as Madonna makes it sound.

So why couldn’t I leave? Well, I discovered a not-so-helpful but strong belief dictating my behavior. Like all of us, I inherited a few family rules about love, life, and (who knew?) about leaving. I grew up watching my determined mother live out this very rule with my alcoholic father, who despite her struggle and occasional desire to leave the marriage stayed no matter what. Hence my rule: stay no matter what!

We all come from family systems complete with rules about relationships and our roles in them. We often are mindless puppets when it comes to these powerful family strings. Many of our behaviors are habitual; we respond without thinking.

I became aware of my family rule after facing the end of my relationship. Maybe for you, uncovering family rules will come in different contexts. Regardless of how or when your unique rules are illuminated, they will in the meantime influence how you commit, trust, love and yes, leave.

I’ve recently learned that my family rule stay no matter what is actually quite common. There seems to be a die-hard group of us who strive to fix, adjust and salvage relationships at any cost, even if the price is our own well-being. We’ll do anything but leave. Why is that?

I can only answer that question from my experience, however I think the answer has something to do with losing one’s sense of self. Let me explain. By the end of my relationship, I was pretty run down. In my attempt to make the relationship more, I depleted my energy and made myself less. I created an imbalance by focusing on the relationship and ignoring myself. The result was feeling I had lost my sense of self.

Now I love this concept of losing one’s self. I find it fascinating, yet hard to explain. Even if we don’t have language to describe it, many of us definitely feel it. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it has to do with foregoing boundaries, needs, values, and beliefs to the point that you feel out of touch with your own sense of being. It’s akin to extreme disempowerment and feeling lost. Someone feeling like this might say, “I feel like a shell of the person I used to be.”

Let me summarize how leaving a relationship and losing one’s self are connected. It’s difficult to leave a relationship when you’ve lost your sense of self. Why? There’s no empowered self present to take action and leave. The truth is that it takes courage, fortitude, and strong self-esteem to axe the relationship. Leaving is like cutting – it’s severe, absolute, and direct. (Insert machete sound here.)

If you are stuck in a relationship like I was, here are some tips on leaving. The first tip is about honesty. You need to be honest with the reality of the relationship. He or she will not change, you will not change, and the relationship will not improve. You’ve been down the “what if…” road before. Wake up and accept that it’s over. The second tip is about managing fears. Don’t let fear hijack your follow-through. You might fear being lonely after the end; or you might fear never finding someone to love again. These fears (although normal) do not merit staying stuck in a bad relationship.

I have heard many people say “I’d rather be in a bad relationship than no relationship at all.” These same people often fail to admit just how lonely they already feel. Still further, another reason we struggle to leave our partners is simply because endings are painful. We try to avoid the grief because we assume it will be unbearable. After all, endings are called heart-breaking for a reason – ouch!

The final thought I will share for leaving a relationship is about perspective. Remember you are not only saying goodbye to a relationship; you are also saying hello to a new chapter of your life. All endings are followed by new beginnings. Well at least that’s what I learned from Madonna’s song Nothing Really Matters. She offers us her pearls of wisdom with these lyrics; “Nothing takes the past away like the future. Nothing makes the darkness go like the light.”

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