A Conscious Uncoupling - Can a Break up be Beautiful?

Photograph of a recent Yogi Tea of mine

We have just moved into the new season; autumn is a time when we can learn to let go and prepare for what's to come. Just as the trees shed their leaves, we can learn to release what no longer serves us and make room for new growth.

Sometimes, we don’t know what it is that we need to let go of. I did know. Scott, my (now ex-) partner and I have known in our hearts, and for some time, that we’ve needed to let go of our romantic relationship.

Just last week, it was fourteen years since we first met, so it has been a major decision for us both, but it feels like our time together has reached its natural conclusion.

I remember Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin getting some stick for having a 'conscious uncoupling'. I didn't really know what that was until now.

When I saw Scott for the first time after the break up, he voiced feelings of failure; initially, I had felt the same. Yet, the more I thought about it, the more I realised what a success our time together had been. We have had so much fun, I have never laughed so much, and we lived harmoniously together for the best part of the last thirteen years. We have travelled the world with each other and have had some wonderful experiences. Why, merely because it had to finish, did we feel we had failed?

Seasons change…

Right up until the end we still got on so well, and still do! He’s my favourite human being and I love him so much, and he me. So why are we not together? Seasons change… We have changed. We have been living quite different lives for some time and are no longer aligned in what we want from our future. In the last year of the relationship, this began to become more and more apparent, creating unrest and even unhappiness at times.

“what will it be like in five years… what will it be like in ten?”

I have asked myself the question many times in the last year: “what will it be like in five years… what will it be like in ten?” I have changed immeasurably since we first got together, at first we grew together, then began to grow apart. I have changed so much, mainly because of the practice of yoga and meditation. I have become more aware and more conscious, and hope that I will continue to evolve as I enter into this new phase of my life; I feel ready for a deeper sense of self-inquiry; a journeying within, to who I really am. This journey, I always knew, would create an even greater divide between us, and that’s okay. Nothing is forever, the only thing permanent is impermanence.

“The Only Constant in Life Is Change.” - Heraclitus

A similar quote is attributed to Gautama Buddha. You can read more about impermanence in an article I wrote - ‘The Nature of Impermanence’ HERE

The final year was quite tumultuous. Getting on as well as we do, while both instinctively feeling at a conclusion, was terribly confusing. I am now unable to deny, that it had already somewhat moved toward friendship, no longer a romance. We really had to let go of that dynamic to continue to love.

Many people stay together for the wrong reasons, which I have been guilty of in the past. So often developing into egoism, blame and resentment. It was very tempting for us to do the same; as already mentioned we get on great, we both love our house, our dog, and significant parts of our lives together. Fortunately, we do not have children, and I know this is the most common reason couples stay in an unhappy pairing. He is now temporarily at his mum’s and I am struggling a little financially to manage all of the household bills on my own. But I trust that it will all work out in the end for both of us, and for the better. We both just had to take that step together into the unknown.

...if you want your life to change you need to be brave and make it happen

I think we had both been quite stagnant for a while, in need of a great change. But if you want your life to change you need to be brave and make it happen. If we stay in the same safe place we will simply get more of the same. That’s what had happened to us. We had plateaued.

With all of this in mind, and contrary to how we initially felt, it would have been a failure to have stayed together. This has all happened at precisely the right time for us both. We have had several near misses throughout 2023, we have both known that it wasn’t really working, and I guess about 75-80% of the time we were doing our own thing, because we now want different things. We were on the cusp of becoming resentful.

No one has done anything wrong, no one is to blame for anything, and there is no bad feeling between us. A yoga friend of mine went through something similar recently and told me “I feel like I have done most of the grieving already”. I feel like that, too, all of the very near misses, heartache and confusion of this year; has helped ease the separation, allowing us room to still be in touch, and so soon. A successful uncoupling.

The final years of a failing coupling can spiral into something venomous and toxic. My friend’s mum recounted a story of a couple arguing over lightbulbs, neither wanted the other to have anything. Some even using children to hurt or control each other. How do we get to that point? By staying too long? When I spoke to another acquaintance about it she said she hated her ex-partner so much she never wanted to see him again. Of course, so often there can be irrevocable differences and behaviour which feels too difficult to forgive.

Having spent fourteen, mostly, really great years with Scott, I am just so delighted we got out when we did, before the bitter tongues started to wag. Those fourteen years are not lost. In other relationships I have had, the bad times eventually devoured the memories of the good times; no longer able to cherish all of those wonderful moments that you shared as they are eclipsed by everything that was difficult and painful.

I have cried on his shoulder and we have talked of our love for each other, but also of our agreement that this is the true end.

The conclusion of this magical pairing has been an incredibly moving and beautiful experience for me, and for Scott. To be done in such a loving way, has been totally new experience for me. I have cried on his shoulder and we have talked of our love for each other, but also of our agreement that this is the true end. The door is closing on our romantic attachment, but a new door is now opening to friendship.

So, I guess it has been a ‘conscious uncoupling’. While it’s only been three weeks since we made the split, the way in which we have done it has made it so much easier. We have not polarized. Instead, we have come together in a new way. That we have pledged to remain friends has taken away some of the burden of grief.

Words and poems often give me power. This time, it was the courage to embrace the change I was searching for. Autumn is the season of change and letting go. I read these words by John O’Donoghue in my Autumn Equinox Workshop last Sunday:

“To change is one of the great dreams of every heart – to change the limitations, the sameness, the banality, or the pain. So often we look back on patterns of behaviour, the kind of decisions we make repeatedly and that have failed to serve us well, and we aim for a new and more successful path or way of living. But change is difficult for us. So often we opt to continue the old pattern, rather than risking the danger of difference…”

It is easier to stay, to not face the pain of the disruption change ensues. I am also going through ‘the change’, just to complicate matters, or maybe that has clarified matters for me? I have felt for some time that I am on the cusp of a major threshold in my life. These words have resonated so much with me during these last few weeks:

“…At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it? A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold a great complexity of emotions comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossing were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognise and acknowledge the key thresholds; to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross.”

John O’Donohue is a poet, priest philosopher and author, these words are excerpts from a larger piece which you can read more of HERE

I actually read the above words in the class I gave the morning that we broke up, I felt that it was coming that very day. I also knew it had to happen, and John O’Donohue’s words gave me immense strength to be brave.

We have continued to text, call and see each other; out of necessity at first and then through choice. Being our fourteen-year anniversary exactly two weeks after our split, we went out for tea together. It was really quite special to reflect on the relationship during that meal, and we still had a laugh! I sobbed afterwards in sadness, and I have had a cry most days. Yet there has been no doubt for either of us that this is right direction to head in. We thanked each other for those wonderful years together, some of the happiest years of my life.

It has all been a unique, new and insightful experience for both of us. It should be evident from these words that I have learnt much about myself these last few weeks, and may it continue. I am truly learning to allow overwhelming feelings in, to know that emotion won’t break me.

In the past I would have reached for wine, and sometimes even another man, anything to numb the mourning. These last few weeks have gone from highs to lows and back again, exposing some very raw feelings, a whole complexity of emotions flooding through me; I have invited them all in. I can remember a time in my life when I felt nothing at all, I rejected all of my emotions because they felt too painful. It was all festering on the inside, I was depressed and very unhealthy at that time.

It has been a deep insight to watch and feel these emotions. This is definitely a result from all of the yoga and meditation practice I have done for so many years. It has taught me to be a witness to the reality of the moment when that is most challenging of all.

HERE is a poem by Rumi that encapsulates this sense of allowing things in. I have shared it in several classes these last few weeks. In simple terms, it is mindfulness. Allowing the moment to BE the moment. Not running away from it (wine, men!) and allowing it to wash over you. This is how we release emotion from the body, otherwise it can linger and change into something else – physical, emotional or mental – if left unresolved.

I have also learnt that kindness and compassion can be a companion to all that we do, in dealing with others and with ourselves. I was fortunate that my counterpart was also compassionate. It can be a far greater challenge when there is an imbalance in approach.

And when the counterpart is challenging? The great sage Patanjali says, in Yoga Sutra Chapter 1 Verse 33:

“By cultivating friendship, compassion, gladness, and indifference toward those who are comfortable, those suffering, the virtuous, and the non-virtuous, the mind is purified and made pleasant.”

It is proven that compassion can be cultivated as a result of meditation. Have I perhaps become more compassionate because of my practice?

“Research shows that meditation has a positive impact on our mental health and happiness, including an individual's sense of compassion for others.”

So, we won’t be arguing over lightbulbs here. I am buying him out of our house and we intend to share the items we have collected from our years as a couple. Yes, I am letting go of things that I love, but I also love Scott, so why wouldn’t I want him to have some of the things we have bought together? This just brings me back yet again to it being precisely the right time, that we have had the discernment to let go, now, before resentment began to take hold. It has enabled us to do all of it with love.

So many times I have stayed in relationships for too long, I have feared the unknown, feared being alone. I have not much family; my mum, dad and sister have all passed away. Yet I do not feel alone, my friends, and the family I have left, have rallied around me and looked out for me, not forgetting Scott himself. I am so grateful for all of that love and for this beautiful breakup.

Be compassionate; first to yourself, this will help you to then pass that compassion on to others. Love begets love, we receive what we give.

Photograph taken 4 weeks ago - 26 August 2023