Five Steps to Living Apart, but Still Happily
Let's all break up in a civilised way. The whole process of separations and divorces is painful enough for everyone, let alone when we let the unconscious workings of our frightened psyche take over. Like a lifeline to a drowning person, the author throws us a rope—let's grab it and step ashore as people who will have beautiful memories of the relationship that has ended.
We enter relationships with expectations of love, happiness, and the hope that we have found the one, but statistics say otherwise: most of us will not have one lifelong partner. Many have already experienced, or are yet to experience, the trauma of a painful breakup. But does it really have to be so painful? And what should you do when the fairy tale ends?
Even when we try to break up in a civilised, friendly way, very few manage to overcome the brain's biological programming, which perceives the severing of a relationship as a life-threatening event and sends us into battle.
Katherine Woodward Thomas is a marriage and family therapist and, as she says herself, she believes in love, marriage, and long-term relationships. Yet she herself went through a divorce, which she and her husband handled with consideration and respect. Drawing from her own and her clients' experiences, she subsequently developed a five-step method for breaking up—conscious uncoupling—which allows those involved to get through it in good health, without psychological scars, feelings of hatred, and anger. Instead, they are able to continue to see themselves and their partner as someone who deserves respect and love.
The systematic process offered by the author in this book can serve as a detailed guide to help you bring out not the worst, but the best in yourself during this stressful and challenging stage of life.
