According to traditional psychological paradigms, when we undergo a loss, we experience five distinct stages in order to cope with that loss. (I passed my human behaviour class by memorizing DABDA or Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance).
The stages do occur in that order but the duration and severity of them can vary from person to person and situationally as well.
So, although I thank you, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross for your stages of dealing with death/loss, I think there’s something to be said for those of us not who cannot deal with loss but choose to avoid it for as long as possible.
More succinctly: “what’s the deal with not being able to let go?”
In medicine, when we’re presented with a patient who may or may not survive a trauma in a way that will allow them to live a “normal” life, we offer them a chance to sign an Advance Directive form. By them signing the form, they can prohibit us from administering heroic measures in order to save their life. We have to let them go because they get to make the choice of living the way they want to live, or dying so they don’t have to live a certain way.
When signing the form, there’s often times no going back.
What if we were to create our Advance Directive form for our relationships with others? Could we write, “no heroic measures to recuscitate this relationsip” and “if the condition of this relationship leads to _____, ______, ______” then we’d have to figuratively pull the plug, no going back. We can decide the extent of our treatment plan but if all fails or the conditions worsen, we have to let go.
The comparison to medicine is uncanny:
An Advance Directive needs to be signed by someone when they are in a state of mind that they can understand what they are signing and the decisions they are making. If the person is unconscious or unable to comprehend what they need to decide, then someone else needs to make the decision (relative, spouse, medical professionals).
The bottom line is that this decision is made when a person is level-headed, clear-minded, and so on. When have you been able to describe a person in the midst of relationship-chaos as any of those things? To add to Kubler-Ross and her DABDA…one could say that there should be an additional stage that comes before all of those: Idealization.
There’s that stage when you know you need to walk, but focus on the positive traits, despite how few they may be in our partner. That makes it harder to let go. But, if we were to write our Advance Directive while sitting with a cup of coffee one night, regardless of who we’re with, just based on our own needs and limits, and actually stick to it then we’d know to let go when the time came.
Also of interest: Psychology Today Article on Anger in Ex-Relationships