How to navigate a post-holiday break-up

Clinical and counselling psychologist Elisabeth Shaw shares her professional tips with Body + Soul on how to figure out if it’s time to split, and if so how to do it right.

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The holiday season brings with it great expectations of connection, family frivolity and special time with loved ones. Many might hope it to be a time to invest in relationships that have been a bit neglected. This is not only a result of the last few months of the year getting particularly busy, but currently due to the long effects of the Covid pandemic which has seen people separated.

The end of the year, though, is also a very common time for couples to separate. All that expectation can bring the reality of your situation into stark view. That’s why for some, family holidays bring a level of dread and a desire to run away. Some will crack under the weight of expectation and announce a separation before the holiday break, others will do so shortly after.

Is it really the end?

Given the level of stress and disappointment over the last couple of years, many people have a strong desire to make dramatic changes in their lives. Some are embarking on a sea change, early retirement or changing jobs or careers.

For others, it’s a relationship change. Such decisions could be the culmination of longstanding problems, brought forward into a firm plan as the experience of the pandemic has changed us – for better or worse.

What is important is to not make hasty decisions and to take time to consider the right course of action. Is distress telling you that you need to work on your situation, or is it telling you to leave? When we’re stressed, we can often confuse the two.

Think to yourself: If this is a good decision that I want to make peace with, and not look back on with regret, what do I need to do to be sure my action is the right one? For example, should you speak to your boss first, go to couples counselling, or rent a cabin on the beach for a while before selling up? Taking not-so-drastic action first can help you settle your panic and buy you some time to be confident and less reactive in your decision.

What to do when it’s not your choice

Of course, you may find yourself the bearer of someone else’s decision. Perhaps your partner wants out of the relationship when you still want to work on it. Such unilateral decisions can leave you reeling, wounded and adrift – and there is no specific road map to follow. It will take time to uncover a course of action that will suit your circumstances and finding neutral support can be very important.

Emotions are running high in the community at present, and when separations occur many friends and family members have a temptation to take sides. If someone takes your side, it feels supportive to start with but can create more problems and pressures as well.

Where to turn for help

When facing a difficult decision, it can be hard to know who to turn to for help. Here are some tips to help you through:

1. Build in support for yourself first

When making life-changing decisions, who can be your wise guide? Who can give you honest, objective feedback and be a good, neutral listener? Consider finding good, expert support to add into the mix.

2. See the wood for the trees

Everyone is heartily sick of all the disappointments over the last couple of years, and it may be true enough that your situation was particularly lacklustre. Perhaps your partner was unsympathetic, you fought more, or intimacy lessened when proximity increased? But how can you tell the difference between the need to change habits in the relationship, and when it has genuinely run its course?

Give yourself time to work this through together. As a start, actively correcting some problematic pandemic behaviours (such as not keeping fit and mentally well, missing your friends, or never having date nights) might breathe fresh air into your current assessment of life.

3. Manage your time and expectations

Even if you feel compelled to rush into action, ask yourself: Is this true or necessary? Is slowing down and doing some more homework useful?

4. Bring others on your journey

If you are unsettled and worried, especially about your relationship, then raising the issues and working them through together will be better in the long run. Thinking you can work it out alone can mean you lose other perspectives that your partner or others might bring to the table that could help calm your own anxieties.

Later, if you do need to act, it can also mean that others are less caught by surprise. They’ll have more background knowledge of the change, feel more prepared, and you’ll likely have less pushback.

When is it the end of a relationship?

Whether this is of your choosing, or the choice is made for you, there is a lot to miss and grieve. You might also have some anger and resentment at how things have played out. If you have children, you might have to present a respectful explanation and a united front, when you possibly feel anything but.

Critically, children need to feel free to have a relationship with both parents, unencumbered by the emotions of the other parent. They have arrived because of this union, and so their journey forward in the world needs to be based on a good base connection with you both. They should have an awareness that you loved each other once, that you wanted them, and that they are not part of the problems.

That is a lot to manage if you are distressed, and it can be hard to protect the children from overhearing negative communication. You may think they are out of earshot, but when separation is new, kids are nearly always hyper-alert and listening out for any indication about how things are going.

Over the next few weeks and months you may be thrown together, and yet might also feel quite cast adrift. It’s important to develop a plan to cope. For some, feeling like they can keep researching and planning can provide anchor points and stepping stones to how the future might unfold.

If you can’t get an appointment for professional support, you can access immediate phone-based services, such as Lifeline – which can provide a good hearing to nut out some things on your mind.

If you are trying to work on your relationship rather than consider separation straight away, organisations such as Relationships Australia NSW have self-guided online courses such as Couple Connect to provide refreshers about working better as a team.

Also on offer is Kids in Focus, a course for people who are separating and needing to think through how to make child-focused decisions, and Divvito, an app which provides a safe forum for separated couples to communicate away from little eyes and ears. The app also encourages respectful language, and a keeps a record of all plans and communications in case it is needed in the future.

These are just some examples of products and services available to help in tough, unfamiliar times. The main thing to know is that you are not alone, even if it feels like you are. Help is out there.

Elisabeth Shaw is CEO of Relationships Australia NSW and a clinical and counselling psychologist specialising in couple and family work.

This article was first published on Body + Soul and is reproduced here with permission

Originally published as This is how to navigate a post-holiday break-up