Break up

I had a phone call the other day from a friend that I have known practically all my life, and it made me very sad. Her partner of almost two decades had left her. What made me particularly sad, was a sense that this was a break up (like many break ups, I believe) under false pretences. By this I mean, that there was an undercurrent of deep issues that remained un-acknowledged and unprocessed while more superficial issues were given centre stage and blamed for the break up.

Let me explain…

I imagine that it goes something like this:

I want a career

Okay

I want a loving partner

No problem

I want a nice house

Fine

I want a kid…no wait, make that 2 kids

Alright

I want financial security

You’ve got it

I want…I don’t know what I want. Now I’m bored. No, hang on…someone over there thinks I’m interesting and makes me feel good again – now I want her (or him).

Now, I know that there are marriages where the parties have grown so far apart emotionally and psychologically that it may be impossible to stay together. In such cases divorce may be the best solution. However, I also believe that in a significant number of cases it is not so much lack of love that leads to break up but rather a lack of excitement, a sense of being overwhelmed by mundane tasks and by being bored.

We don’t like being bored. As the American psychiatrist Yalom writes: “And what is the most terrible thing about boredom? Why do we rush to dispel it? Because it is a distraction-free state which soon enough reveals underlying unpalatable truths about existence – our insignificance, our meaningless existence, our inexorable progression toward deterioration and death.”

Thus, some break ups are due to our resistance to acknowledge and work through difficult existential issues. In other words, getting a new partner becomes a form of avoidance.

The problem is obviously that it doesn’t work in the long run, and sooner or later the old issues – you know, the small matters of meaning, ageing and death – come back. That may be why divorce rates go up for subsequent marriages – we keep believing that it will all be solved with the next partner. But of course no one can provide excitement for us all the time, love us perfectly, give us a sense of meaning or prevent us from getting older.

Those issues we have to sort out ourselves.

One of the ways that therapy can be helpful, is to help us explore, in a open and honest manner, our motivation for a break up so at least we’ll know that we’re breaking up for the right reasons. Otherwise chances are that we’ll keep making the same mistakes with different partners.