Question: My partner wants to break up. What should I do?
Answer: Keep working on stopping your abusiveness
This is a question I hear regularly, both from readers who write in, and in conversation.
”Andrea, I’ve been working on my abusiveness, and I’m feeling much clearer about what’s going on for me. I’m learning new emotional management skills and I’m having some really good days that make me hopeful, but I’m still having some abusive days.
I had one of the bad days today and my partner wants to leave. They say they really mean it and I don’t know what to do.”
Good for you for slowing down enough to ask for help - creating a pause after getting hard news is always good.
First, I want to acknowledge you for slowing things down and taking a moment to ask this question. Often, when an important person in our lives says they want to leave, it can remind us of other bad experiences and create stress that leads to an angry, abusive outburst. Obviously that’s a bad thing, but it would be especially awful to be abusive to your partner as they share they want to leave! By pausing, even for a moment, you’re practicing healthier emotions and you can be proud of that.
Next, here are some thoughts about what may be going on for you right now:
It’s natural to have BIG feelings in response to a BIG change, but that doesn’t mean blowing up is okay.
After hearing that your partner wants to break up, you may have a very strong desire to control the situation. This is because, well, things feel waay out of control! That can be frightening and when we’re afraid, we naturally want to control things. However, one of the most important things to remember right now is this: your feelings are yours, and it's not possible to force anyone into doing anything, especially by exploding. It’s not possible to force anyone to do anything ever really, but exploding with your feelings is not going to help in this scenario. In fact, it’s almost definitely going to make it worse.
You may want something different from your partner, and you may want that
very badly. Your feelings about what you want can be very intense. In response to your partner saying they want to break up, it’s actually totally reasonable to have those intense feelings, including fear, desperation, anger and underneath that, grief.
HOWEVER, those feelings are for you to own, for you to take responsibility for, and for you to process. And this is where the learning is.
What should you do with those feelings? Practice feeling them while being there for your partner.
You and your partner may well split up, it’s true. There may still be something the two of you can explore in your relationship but right now your partner has clearly said what they want. And you must find a way to respect that. They want what they want, and that’s legitimate, and reasonable.
Now, you may not have a lot of experience respecting other people when what they want conflicts with what you want, so this is new to you. That’s actually good because figuring out how to handle this situation will help you in future when it happens again.
What you can do for your partner in this case is fairly straightforward, but take it a step at a time:
listen calmly
try to understand what’s going on for them
give them space to safely say what’s up for them
These things are so important in a relationship, and have probably been at least somewhat missing in your relationship as a whole. At this breaking point, it’s more important than ever to try to give your partner these things. It may not make a difference to their desire to leave, but YOU will know you tried your best to be a good partner in a very difficult time.
Also, if you find it hard to give them those things, it’s okay to ask to stop. It’s better that you stop rather than get upset. “I wish I could listen better but I just can’t right now” is okay to say. Then turn to your tools and coping skills to refill your tank, and maybe find some fresh capacity to listen again later.
To be able to listen to your partner well, you’ll need to figure out how to give yourself what you need too.
For yourself, a good place to start would be to work on what you know you want, and what you have a choice about. For example, you know you want to change your behaviour. That doesn’t change because your partner wants to leave, right? Well, that’s something you can hang onto and focus on. Lean into the new habits and skills you’re developing. Practice feeling your feelings in safe ways through journalling, being part of an abusiveness recovery group, connecting with your therapist or coach.
Do more of your healthy, high-intensity activity like aerobics, loud music, big expressive art, or some heavier-duty yard work. Make sure you’re sleeping, hydrating and double up on whatever self-care you can muster.
Relationship or no relationship, your commitment to stop being abusive remains, so keep going with that.
The fact is, no matter what else happens in your life, it doesn't matter if there is a wildfire threatening your backyard, you get a separation or divorce, there is a pandemic or political upheaval, the constant is that you want your anger and abusiveness to stop.
You have the ability to make progress on THAT each and every day, and when the chaos of other things subsides, you will be better. So focus on that.
As far as your relationship itself, I can’t tell you whether to try and keep it together, let it come to an end, or what will in fact happen, but I can say this:
You can stop being abusive whether you’re in a relationship or not. And whether you’re in a relationship or not, your emotional and mental health needs to be a priority. Everything else good in life stems from there, and a ton of things can go badly in life because mental health isn’t present.
To learn more practical steps about how to stop being abusive, I hope you’ll read some of the other articles on this blog, find just a few small actions that are new to you, and do them.
If you have a specific question, you can write me, and if it’s something that other readers of this blog could also benefit from, I’ll write a reply in a future post.
Having been where you are, I know this is really painful. But I also know you can get through it, in fact, you can get through it well.
I’m so sorry you’re going through such a hard time in your relationship and the pain of potentially breaking up. Please remember I’m rooting for you and believe in a healthy relationship for you. It is possible to have healthy love in your life, even after you’ve been abused, or you’ve been abusive.
Each and every day you’re successful at not being abusive is worth working for, I promise.
P.S. Please keep sending me your comments, and questions about how we can stop hurting the people we love. I appreciate knowing what you’re working on, and it helps me a lot to create content that’s useful to you.
My boyfriend is in the process of moving due to my abusiveness he has endured from me for months. I am finally taking the steps to change but I don't want him to completely break up with me. I am trying to give him space as he has requested. I am taking steps to better myself, not just for him, but myself foremost. I am feeling so sad and want him to not give up on me. I am actually doing things differently and have already been doing different things in the three days he has decided to move out. I am afraid the space will create more distance between us. I hope he can see I am taking steps to change I am so afraid he is going to give up on me.