Help For Your Lesbian Breakup Is Here! Ruth Schwartz & Clare Rosoman Offer Tender, Wise Guidance

People— somebody's saying in the chat, this is fabuloso, thank you for bringing Clare to us. So, um, oh yay! So given this map, can we dive into some of the practical questions? Like, you know, do you find that it usually helps people? And I know sometimes people are dealing with, you know, shared custody of children and/or pets or other, you know, where it's not so easy to make a no contact Period. But yes, if it's possible, do you find that a no-contact period helps with the reset, um, or not?

I, I don't like to be black or white because I do feel like every relationship is its own unique special thing, um, and we have to be a bit flexible in how we meet the challenges and the uniqueness of that relationship. But if you think about what's required to build a bond, It's lots of time together, lots of vulnerable sharing, eye contact, soft touch, being together, positive attributions about the other, curiosity, openness. They're all the things that nourish and build a bond. And we're undoing that.

Mm-hmm.

So if you keep turning to each other for soothing, for regulation, for support, for reassurance, for all those safe haven, secure base functions of a good attachment figure, Then you're just continuing to build the bond. And I think if if you are trying to undo this bond, then you have to put less into it and turn those energies to other relationships that can give you your attachment needs. And that doesn't mean instantly repartnering because I've got to leave that time to process and let your heart heal and to use that time to harness and reflect. I think a new love and new love energy is like an anesthetic to an. Aching heart that can mask some of the pain there.

I'm glad you brought that up, um, because it's, it's a tricky thing in— I mean, in all communities, I'm sure, but definitely in the lesbian women-loving-women community, you know, where on the one hand, I think because some people have gotten burned by getting together with somebody who wasn't over a breakup, um, you know, or maybe being that person people try and set rules like it must have been at least 1 year since, you know, or whatever. But in my own experience, it doesn't necessarily follow a strict timeline. I mean, probably if it was last week, you haven't moved through the phases.

Yes.

Quite possibly if it was last month. But, you know, I, I have an experience where I got together with somebody where it had been a year. She was the one who the relationship. And yet the deeper we went, the more she missed her ex. It was excruciating for both of us. Oh, you know, and this is— attachment is complex.

Yes.

You know, so it really is. So how do we know whether we are and whether the other person is actually ready to form a new bond?

It's not an absolute. I think though, um, openness and honesty around the journey and, and where you've worked through those phases and what you've learned and what you're taking, I think, um, that gives you many clues. Like, have I truly stopped yearning and searching for this person?

Oh.

Have I truly accepted That it's never going to be the same, even if we're still in each other's orbit, even if we're still co-parenting or we still work together. We've redefined this relationship. Have I really redefined it? When I feel sick, when I'm scared, when I get good news, are they the one that I call or go to call? And does it hurt my heart when I remind myself that I Can't. That is their rawness still around missing this person.

Yeah, I've got a question, Claire, because I see somebody asking in the chat, what about giving permission to miss the ex? Yeah, I think none of these things are black and white. You know, there are— I think that the relationships that affect us most deeply, there may always be a part of you that misses that person. Yes. But that's different than it being a raw missing. And that's different than your being in yearning and searching. Right? Yes.

That's, I think, a really, really important point. I don't think grief is something we just get over. I saw a really lovely image that showed a bottle, like glass jars, and that there's this idea of grief is like a ball inside those glass jars that should shrink over time. And that's the idea is that it should get smaller. But in reality, the ball of grief stays the same, the jar just gets bigger. And I thought, yeah, that's so true. The pain doesn't go away.

We get bigger around it. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Thich Nhat Hanh actually has an image of how if you put a teaspoon of salt in a glass of water, it's too salty to drink. But if you put that same teaspoon of salt in a lake, you'll hardly notice it. So, so it's not that we have to make the grief smaller. But, but we get, get bigger and get reorganized around it. Yeah.

Yeah. I think, you know, if someone has impacted your life and impacted who you are, and, and you've experienced them deeply, and you've loved them, and you've learned and you've grown, they've impacted you, to just expect yourself to not care about them anymore, and to feel nothing when you think of them is way too much. It That just feels so wrong. It feels like sandpaper on a wound. But I think—

It would be a dishonoring of yourself to, to not care about them anymore. But at the same time, somebody's saying in the chat that, um, she was with her partner for 26 years and it's been 3 years now since they parted. And she said, I just can't bring myself to love or trust again. Yeah. Um, I don't know what the timeline for these things is.

What do you say about Like, I don't think there is a timeline. I think going back and looking at the raw spots and looking whether you can mine the meaning in those moments. Maybe there's, there's more work to do around what feels most frightening about opening your heart again. Maybe there's more work to do around resolving some of the pain that you experienced in that loss. Maybe there's more work to do around the processing that will then free you up, or maybe there's been a reorganization around what you want and need in life.

Hmm. Hmm.

We just honor the process and go back and keep looking at it and dive deeper and deeper and see if because sometimes I think if we don't find the the need underneath the pain, then We don't know which way to move our life. But once we've uncovered the need that's embedded in those most painful emotions, you can't unknow that.

I think it fuels forward movement. I love that because I think it's way too simplistic to say, oh, you should be able to trust again. You may have trusted in places that were not trustworthy, you know, which often we do. Like, there are people, as you said earlier, you know, I can't remember exactly how you phrased it, but it's not appropriate to walk around in this world just being willing to give our hearts to anybody that's attractive and with whom there's chemistry and, you know, or anybody that's interested in us. I mean, that's so much of what I teach in the academy is to really know yourself, know what you're looking for, know what you're capable of.

Yeah.

Are you capable of the kind of relationship you want? Because if you're not, you need to develop those capacities before you go look for somebody else. Yes. And then also need to assess them to see, are they capable of it?

Exactly.

And so for the person who said it's been 3 years, you know, maybe it's not right yet for, for her to love or trust. But maybe a question could be, how can she get bigger around this pain? How can she enlarge the jar that she is?

Yeah.

You know, and it's so individual what that, what that takes. But I like the idea of offering that as a, as a movement.

Yeah. And, and I feel like for someone who's grieving like that, I would— one of the key questions I might be asking is, do you want to love again? And can you connect with that part of you that just yearns for love and closeness and connection? And what happens when you do lean into that part? What fears come up? Because as you voice and process and explore and name those fears, they get easier.

Mm-hmm.

To manage. And then the other thing is, could you share those fears with some trusted others? Not necessarily with a view to building another romantic connection yet, but sharing those fears with people who can regulate your nervous system, be there with you in them. That's powerful.

Yeah.

Because then not only are you naming those fears, you're hanging out with them, and you're having other people help you co-regulate around those fears. And maybe provide some alternative corrective messages. And the other— then the other thing that comes up is you don't have to be fully healed to love beautifully. You don't need to be secure and A-okay to have amazing relationships. You can go into relationship with the wounds there, and you can heal together. That's the beautiful thing about attachment.