Episode 115 - The Decision to Break Up
Deciding whether to end a relationship is a daunting task. In this episode, I share 5 unconventional processes that guided me through this challenging journey towards separation. Forget about traditional lists of pros and cons that often fall short. Instead, let's dive deeper into innovative approaches that offer clarity and empowerment, even amidst fear. Tune in for fresh perspectives on navigating relationship dilemmas and embracing the path that aligns with your truth.
Topics
It's important to fulfill some needs and desires outside of a relationship to avoid putting too much pressure on it.
Loving someone unconditionally means accepting them and not trying to change them, even if it means leaving them.
Ignoring the truth can lead to physical sickness or depression, and coping mechanisms should not be used to drown out inner knowing.
Accepting someone else completely allows for complete self-acceptance.
It's important to get to know oneself, the language of intuition, and the language of the ego to make better decisions.
Links
Join The Courage to Start New, my 8-week journey to step into your next chapter.
Book a free discovery call with Marie, to explore how you can work together to reach your goals.
Resources
Book: Coming Apart - by Daphne Rose Kingma
Transcript
[AUTO-GENERATED]
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:00:04]:
Hey, welcome to the self growth nerds podcast. I'm your host, Marie, a courage coach, creative soul, and adventure seeker since, through hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in 2019, I'm on a mission to help you embrace your most confident self so you can achieve your dreams, too. If you're eager for deep conversations, big questions, and meaningful connections, join me on the quest to discovering how we can create a more magical and memorable life. Hello, Nerds. How are you? I'm okay. If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen that March was a pretty big month for me because I decided to leave my seven year relationship. This was the most painful decision I've ever made, even though I am the one who made the decision to leave, because I love this person deeply, and it was a good relationship with a good person. There were so many reasons to stay, so many more reasons to stay than there was reasons to go.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:01:17]:
To be honest, I desperately wanted to want to stay, but there was this intuitive whisper that kept coming back to me again and again and again. No matter how much I tried to shut it down, it would just get louder and louder every time, pulling me in a different direction. And eventually I just couldn't deny the fact that it was damaging my mental and physical health to suppress my truth in this way. So I had to surrender. And if you have listened to the episode, I think it was like, five or six episodes back about mental health, I now have a better understanding of what was going on for me back then with what I know now. So I decided to finally surrender. And not only did I burn down my business model, I burned down my coaching program that I had been doing for two years, but I also burned down my relationship and our plans for the future. It was as if my inner knowing just took over, grabbed the wheel and was like, we're driving away from everything.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:02:33]:
That's no longer true enough for you? Okay? It literally felt like another part of me took over. So there was the part of me, like, that's reasonable, that wants to make safe decisions. And then another part, more intuitive part, came into the picture, pushed me aside, and then took the wheel and was like, trust me, this is going to be awful for a while, but you've got to trust me. Okay? So I don't know what's next. That's what makes this hard. I've made this big decision, like, a true bomb into my life, the life that I knew. And now I'm faced with a lot of empty space, both literally and figuratively. I mean, it's my first time living alone, so I stayed here, and my ex moved out.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:03:31]:
So my apartment is pretty empty and my calendar as well. I have lots of friends, but when you live with someone else, you've also got their friends and their family. And now all the time that we would spend with them is gone. So lots of time with me. But I trust that the universe, or whatever you want to call it, wanted me to make this space in my life in preparation for what's next. I have no idea what that is and when it's going to come around, but I know that there is a good reason, there was a good reason to make that decision and make that space. Sometimes we get instructions from deep down inside of us or high above. I don't know about what to do next.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:04:26]:
Without understanding the end game, without understanding the reason, the reasoning behind it. We're asked to trust our core self and to break our own heart, even though it doesn't always make sense in the moment, actually, very often it doesn't make sense at all. But you've got to trust that it's going to make sense someday soon. But for now, I'm left grieving. I'm grieving our relationship. I'm grieving his presence in my life, the morning hugs, the game nights, everything we had built. I'm grieving the future we had planned together. And I'm grieving a part of me that had to die, who I was and who I had pictured becoming with him.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:05:15]:
All of that's gone. So some days I wake up feeling peaceful, like today. And other days I wake up feeling extremely sad, like someone's stepping on my chest. But that's okay because I am supported by so many loving friends and family members. That's actually been really surprising how much support I've received. It's brought me to tears sometimes, the kindness. Also, I trust myself. I know this will pass.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:05:54]:
And most of all, I am okay with not being okay. Because I believe that the heartbreak of burning down what's good enough to make space for extraordinary is the price to pay for a life of true alignment. And above all, I am committed to truth. So I wanted to record this podcast today for you guys to share five things that have helped me find the courage to make the jump. I'm not going to share a lot of details about the specifics of my breakup in respect to me and to my ex partner's privacy, but there are things that I've learned that I want to share because I think this experience is pretty universal. Those impossible decisions that we have to make to stay or to go. And I want to walk you through five things that helped me jump jump into the unknown. Okay, so this is for you if you're struggling with a decision like this, whether it's to leave a partner, to leave a job, to leave a country, to break up with a friend.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:07:03]:
I hope this helps. So let's start with the first one. Number one is unconditional love. Now, that might sound cheesy, but bear with me. It's not what you think. Okay, so in every relationship, there are things that our partner does that gets on our nerves. And we tend to have thoughts like, oh, well, they should do this, they shouldn't do that, they should judgments, right? In my book, this is how you should behave. And if you don't, then I am going to withdraw love from you.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:07:38]:
I'm going to love you when you are this way, and I'm not going to love you when you do. X, Y, and Z. Many people break up from that place, from a place of ego because the other person is not thinking or feeling or behaving like they want them to, like they think they should. Now, the problem with this is that it's going to follow you, your desire to control and to mold someone like you want them to be in order for you to feel good that is going to follow you into your next relationship. And I think most people would say, oh, I don't do that. I'm not like that. But hints that you might be acting from a place of ego is if you judge them, if you blame them, if you have feelings of self righteousness, like they should behave like this and that this is the right way to be, and they're not following the right way to be, then you're acting from a place of ego. We've all done it.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:08:44]:
That's fine. Now you just want to notice what I did in this relationship for the first time in my life, is decide that I was going to love him unconditionally. All the little things that got on my nerves, I asked myself, okay, how do I get to a place where I just accept him as he is? I don't try to change him, and I am at peace with this part of him, and I can love him exactly as he is. And that doesn't mean that you have to stay at all. But in my opinion, this is worthwhile work to do. Because you know what? When you can love someone else unconditionally with all of their flaws, you can love yourself unconditionally with all of your flaws. Because when you're withdrawing love from someone because there's a part of them that makes you angry or disgusts you, you're also withdrawing love from you, from similar parts of you. If you can't accept someone else completely as they are, you're not accepting yourself completely as you are.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:10:00]:
Think of it like a toddler. Let's say you have a toddler, and the way they're eating is super messy. Like they're eating spaghetti, and there's spaghetti on the floor, on the walls, all over their face. And you're like, okay, I'm not a fan of this. I would prefer if they ate in a way where the spaghetti remained in the plate, but that doesn't affect my love for them in any way. If your toddler gets angry for no reason because maybe my goddaughter once got angry because I was not wearing the shoes that she wanted me to wear. I didn't like that. In the moment, you might not like their reaction, but it again doesn't change the love that you have for them.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:10:46]:
This is the same except with another adult. You don't have to stay. Doing the work to love them unconditionally is going to mean that when you decide to leave, if you do, you're going to do so from a place of love, complete love for them and for you. And personally, I think this makes the decision even harder because for me it was like, I love you so much exactly as you are and I want something different. It makes it heartbreaking, but so much more honest than I am leaving because I think you should be different. And then when you get into a new relationship, when you left the last one from a place of complete acceptance and love, then you'll be able to take the person in front of you as they are, this is them, and not try to fall in love with your idea of them. No, you're just going to take them as they are in the side from a place of love for yourself, is this who I want to be with? So that was number one. Make a list of those things that you struggle to love in your partner and ask yourself, and you might not have the answer right away, but sit and hang out with the question, how do I get to a place where I love them unconditionally even though they do that thing, or even though they are this way? Basically, you're dropping all attachment to how things should be.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:12:31]:
And this is going to serve you moving forward because things are rarely how they quote unquote should be. And our desire to control everything around us in order for us to feel good, it's just wasted energy. If you're trying to control the external world, for your internal world to be at peace, you're going to waste so much of your precious time moving forward. So might as well do this work now. Just drop all attachments, figure out how you can love them as they are, and you'll notice it'll become easier to love yourself as you are. And from there you can make a powerful decision. You might decide you want to stay or you might decide you want to go. Because it's okay to love someone and want to go.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:13:23]:
It is okay. Now let's move on to number two. Want matches? You're going to make a list of everything that you want in a relationship and I'm going to ask you to pretend that you are not in one if you are and to just imagine if you could start over and pick any partner, what would you want in them? Because what you wanted in a partner five years ago is different from what you want now because you've evolved, right? You've changed and that's okay. So if you're in a relationship, just ask yourself, what is it? If I could choose all over again that I want in a partner, make that list and then check what are the boxes that my partner ticks and what's missing? Then for everything that's missing, you ask yourself, okay, is this something that I could add into the relationship? Is this something that my partner is able or willing to give me? Like, for example, if you want to listen to rumcoms with your significant other, they might not be into rumcoms, but they might be willing to watch one with you every month. I don't know. We want to be careful here because, yes, it's great if the other person is happy to do something for you. But we also don't want to force them to be someone that they're not or to do something that they don't really want to do. Because then we're not in a relationship with them.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:14:55]:
We're in a relationship with like they're trying to mold themselves into who we need them to be. So for everything that's left that's still missing, you ask yourself, how can I fulfill this outside the relationship? Can you do this on your own? Can you do this with a friend? If you like to, you wish you could do sports with your partner, but they're not into sports. Maybe you join a sports club and then that's going to tick the box for you. Because we don't want to expect our partner to fulfill all of our needs and desires, right? That's just unrealistic. There's so much pressure on partners nowadays in so many cultures. And it used to be like this here as well. They marry for economic purposes and for logistical reasons. Now, in our western world, we've gotten so high up on the pyramid of maslow that we are in relationships, many of us, for self actualization as a part of our self actualization.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:16:09]:
And that's fine. But we also have to realize, okay, well, we don't want to be with someone for them to complete us, we have to rely on multiple sources of fulfillment, not just our partner. Our partner is just one part of our life, one way that we enhance our well being, but we don't want to put all our eggs in the same basket. So how can I fulfill this outside the relationship? And most importantly, or just as importantly, is this something I want to fulfill outside the relationship? That's the question that was super important for me in making my decision. What was missing in my relationship, I could fulfill outside of it. I had to found ways to fulfill that outside the relationship. And then I came to the realization that I just didn't want to. I wanted those needs and those desires to be fulfilled within my intimate relationship.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:17:17]:
And that's okay. I had to give myself that permission instead of what I did for too long, which is denying myself those needs and desires, making myself wrong for wanting or needing these things. I was like, no, I want to be low maintenance. But there's no pride in being low maintenance. You're allowed to have needs and desires, and you deserve to fulfill them in whatever way that you want. And so it's okay to say, you know what? I know I can fulfill these outside the relationship, but I don't want to. I don't want to. That's the truth.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:18:01]:
Okay, now let's move on to number three, which is self awareness. Getting super familiar with what's going on inside of you, like, getting curious about the different parts of you, the different voices. I found that when you've gone through the cycle enough times, you can tell, or I could tell, okay, this is my reasonable voice. The part of me that's trying to convince me to stay safe. It has, like, an energetic quality to it or a tone of voice almost like this part of me, this inner voice is, like, frantic and a bit panicky and insistent. And then, okay, there's this other part of me that's very shy, that's soft, that's nudging me, I think, in the direction of truth, but it's like it's not used to being listened to. So it's very quiet. It makes itself heard for me in my body.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:19:09]:
If I'm listening to it, my body is open, is relaxed, and if I'm ignoring that part of me, my body's contracted, and it's like it doesn't want to be where it's at. So you've got to get to know that for yourself might feel different for you. But what I'll say is that if you rely on your mind a lot and a story that your mind has to make up to make you want what you have or to make you want the situation that you're in, that that's a red flag towards the end. Right before I made the decision, I could see myself with so much clarity, almost as if I would see a friend trying to convince themselves that they want to stay when it's so clear from the outside, it's so obvious, and I think we've all experienced that with a friend of ours. How it's so obvious that you want to go, but you're just scared, honey. I could see that play out with me in my mind. So take this as an opportunity to get to know yourself and how you operate. What's the language of your intuition? What's the language of your ego? Your ego is just trying to keep you safe, away from the unknown.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:20:34]:
And often I found that it uses words like, oh, you shouldn't do that. You can't do that. This is wrong. Your ego has, like, an idea of right or wrong versus your intuition, which is, like, your soul, your heart is trying to nudge you in the direction of true alignment. And it doesn't have such a righteous way to be. It's more of like, hands on your back, like pushing you softly in a direction. So just get curious. There's no rush for you to make this decision.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:21:09]:
Take this as a time to observe yourself. Okay, now let's move to number four. Number four is repression fatigue. So as time went on, I could just tell that I was no longer like myself. There was less life in me. And there were moments where I felt like I had to kind of be an actress in the play of my life. Like, I was acting like myself, but I was not feeling present. There was like a disconnection.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:21:43]:
And that's because when you repress truth, you also repress creativity and joy. Like, I am a playful, creative person, but in the last six months or so, that was mostly gone, this, like, fiery passion that I have inside of me. So if you feel similarly, like your enthusiasm has been dulled, like, you don't really recognize the eager person that you know that you are, deep down, it might be because you also have been repressing the truth, you probably know what you have to do. But because we're scared, we spend so much energy trying not to know, trying to drown the knowing. And that looks like, for some people, over drinking, overeating, overworking, over shopping, over whatever it is that allows you to drown that inner knowing that you wish wasn't there, because it's going to require so much courage from you. But trying to ignore the truth is going to make you sick. It's going to make you physically sick, or it's going to make you depressed. This is the internal split.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:23:08]:
There's on one side what your heart wants you to do, and then on the other side, there's what you actually do. They're not in alignment. And the longer you wait, the bigger the split, the heavier life is going to get. I remember right before making my decision, I was in Florida for a vacation, and I was looking at my parents, which are in their sixty s, and thinking, oh my God, they have so much energy. I miss having this sort of energy. I felt drained. I felt disconnected. And I just got tired of that and surrendered.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:23:49]:
I thought enough. I surrendered. And then I had no other choice but to trust. Actually, this makes me think about Ether Anderson, the through hiker. She talks about that day where she hiked like, 40 miles in one day. And then at the end, she was so tired, she sat down and she was terrified of cougars. But in that moment, a cougar walked right in front of her, looked at her, and she was like, I don't care. Eat me if you want.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:24:22]:
I'm so tired. And it was this similar kind of feeling. I'm so tired of feeling this way. I'm desperate to get my energy back. And also, from a place of self love, I deserve to get my energy back. And the only sustainable way to do so is the most painful decision. But screw it. Just like, eat me alive, cougar this is what I got to do.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:24:50]:
I've tried all the other paths and they haven't led me where I want to be. So take me. I was listening to We Can Do Hard Things, glenn Doyle's podcast with her partner Abby Wambach and her sister Amy, and she said something really profound. And it's when you're thinking about leaving a relationship, you think to yourself, oh, I can't see myself living without them. And she says, it's true, you cannot live without them. The you that you have been is going to have to die and you're going to have to trust that this new you you're going to become is at the bottom of the freaking cliff and she's going to catch you. But it's scary because between the death of the old you and the birth of the new you, there is a void where you don't know who you are. It's a shift in identity and you have to decide if you're willing to experience that.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:26:00]:
Personally, I came to the decision, I told myself, I am willing to lose what's good enough for a chance at experiencing extraordinary it's up to you. Some people are in a relationship for companionship. They're okay with the idea of a life partner that's there for convenience mostly. And this is not me. Otherwise I would have definitely, definitely stayed. This is not me. I want now in my life to be in a relationship that energizes me and helps me to expand and to grow. But that's not for everyone and that's okay.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:26:45]:
Which brings me to number five words of wisdom. I love books. They've always been so helpful in my life and again, they were like a life raft for me in this period, helping me to make a tough decision by connecting me to my true values. For example, I went back. To what's? My Bible. Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strade. It's not funny how much I've quoted that book in this podcast, so I'm not going to quote it again, but I'm going to say that there's this tiny Beautiful things. It's basically an advice column, or more like a gathering of the best advice columns that Shawl Strait has written.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:27:34]:
And there is one that I keep going back to. It's called The Truth That Lives There and it's about when you're in a relationship and you have the word go go whispering in your ear no matter how good the relationship is. And I've also read Glenn Doyle untamed the highlighted parts of the book again and again to help me connect with courage. Because you know what? I told myself, if I stay, what's going to happen is we're going to have kids and then eventually I'm going to meet someone who is in alignment with what I'm looking for in a relationship. Just like Glenn and met Abby and then I'm going to leave my partner. Then we're going to have kids and it's going to be so much more complicated. And so to me knowing that it would be personally I think cowardly to stay, knowing that I would leave him later, that would not be kind. I'd rather do the hard thing now and in a way liberate him to go be with someone who's all in, to go be with someone that wants wholeheartedly to be there instead of keeping him just so that I'm not alone until I meet the person that I want to be with.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:29:09]:
To me that's not kind. So I decided to do the kind thing, the courageous thing even though it felt awful for everyone in the moment. So that's Glenn and Cheryl. Thank you girls. I love you. And then there's also I was walking around in a bookshop in the few days before making my decision and I opened up a book, another advice column by Dolly Alderton. And I went through the book looking for relationship and breakup advice and there was this sentence, I don't remember exactly the words but basically she wrote, he will find a way to be okay or he will be okay and more than okay in the end something like that. That helped me see that okay, this is just like a momentary pain for the good of all of us long term.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:30:10]:
There was also words from Corey Mascara on Instagram, super wise, xavier Dagba also on Instagram. They're all committed to truth and truth is one of my most important values. I can forget about that when I'm scared and these people help me get back to it. So thank you. And I encourage you to go find your people. You probably already know them. You know the voices that make you feel seen and you're like exactly, this is exactly how I feel. They're kind of like your helpers in a boxing ring telling you like yeah you can do this.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:30:57]:
Come on, get back in the ring, do the hard thing. Okay, so that's it. These are the five things that helped me make my decision. So if we summarize first was unconditional love. Getting to a place of unconditional love and deciding from there. Number two, want matches, seeing what's missing in your relationship, what you have and what's missing and deciding if that's something you want to fulfill outside your relationship. And if not that's going to give you insight about what you need to do. Number three, self awareness.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:31:35]:
Get to know the different tone of your ego versus the tone of your intuition. Notice when they show up. Number four, repression fatigue. Eventually you just get tired of disconnection and you surrender and you decide to trust, to trust that jumping off the cliff is going to pay off because it's just better. Taking that risk is better than staying where you don't feel good anymore. And lastly, number five, words of wisdom find people either in books, podcasts, instagram that speak to your soul and help you remind you of who you are. Now, that was a podcast episode about what helped me before I broke up, and I know in the future that I'll want to do another one about the after, right. What helped me once I'd made the decision, because that was awful, and it still is in some ways.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:32:50]:
In the meantime, please let me know what aspect of what we just covered you want to learn more about. I know that I want to create workshops about this and help you in a deeper manner, so let me know. And also, I'm opening up my books for new one on one clients, so if you want to meet with me, the first call is free. We're going to sit together, talk about your situation, see how I can help you, how I can help you find the courage to either stay or to go. Basically, my job is to help you connect with your truth and make decisions from there. So if you've been feeling stuck, heavy, unhappy, don't wait. You deserve to get your energy and enthusiasm back. So head to Selfgrowthners.com coaching and book a one on one call with me.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:33:47]:
You have nothing to lose. We're just going to get to know each other. I'm going to tell you about what I can do for you, and then you get to the side. All right? So I love you all. Have a beautiful week, and I'll talk to you soon. Bye. Hey. If you love what you're hearing on the Self Growth Nerds podcast and you want individual help finding a new direction for your life and developing the courage to make your dreams a reality, you have to check out how we can work together on Selfgrowthnerds.com or message me on Instagram at selfgrowthnerds.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:34:29]:
My clients say they would have needed that support years ago. So if you're tired of feeling like you're wasting your life, don't wait. Get in touch now. And I cannot wait to meet you. Hey.