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Splitting Things Up: It Is What It Is

“It is what it is.”  This is what I said to myself a million times a day when I was struggling through those final painful “to-do’s” on the way to putting the final period on the last sentence of the story of my Ex and I.

“It is what it is,” is also the sentence I would email to him in response to whatever Mean Thing of The Day he was emailing me during the final throes of the relationship.  It seemed that during those awful weeks and months of splitting every material object we’d co-owned up, this very neutral sentence was the perfect response to keep the conversation from blowing up.

When he’d email things like, “I’m taking this,” and “Don’t think you’re getting that,” I decided that it was too exhausting to really care about those “things” any more.  That couch? Take it!  The crystal vases? Go for it!  Couches, beds, lamps, kitchen appliances, furniture, rugs, blah, blah, blah.  Ah, let him have it.  This is what happens when couples break up.  “It is what it is.”

Yes, this man royally screwed me over in every way imaginable, but when it came down to brass tacks, there was something SO FREEING about JUST LETTING HIM HAVE IT.  Whatever “it” was.  It took all the air out of those arguments he was just “itching” to have.  And  an amazing thing happened by NOT engaging in all of that conflict – I did not feel stepped on,  I FELT EMPOWERED. (It is what it is!)

” Take it!” “Take It!” I began to say over and over.  And EACH TIME I said it, I felt, lighter and lighter, and more and more in CONTROL of the entire situation!

Even though dismantling our life together brick by brick was sad on several levels, I realized the time had come to BRING THIS HOUSE DOWN.  Thing by now meaningless thing.

Because what I really needed to do at that time, what I needed to do for myself, was build my own place of comfort and joy.  And how could I do that looking at the crystal vase he bought me for our tenth anniversary?

Take It!!!!

I have to tell you that this is a fantastic strategy.  If you are in the “splitting things up” phase of the break-up, I urge you to avoid all the drama, and yelling and finding old sales receipts for reimbursement and just say, “If you want it, it’s yours.”  You will SO take the WIND out of his SAILS.  His “fists” (real or attitudinal) will surely come down when he hears that.

Freeing myself of those material things also helped me disconnect from the memories connected to them.  It helps not to have to look at that stuff anymore, you know?  Because time and life go on, and I will find new cherished things from trips I WILL TAKE, and EXPERIENCES I will have.  And as those memories of the years with him fade, so will that ball of pent-up-emotions I’ve been carrying around for SO LONG.  Especially while the entire house was falling down around me, and I kept trying to hold the roof on to that crumbling structure.

Impossible of course, but we gals try anyway.  And that’s okay.  It was just  what we had to do at that time.

If you are in a new living space now, or feeling empty in the house you shared with him, don’t feel empty. Emotionally or figuratively.  You have a right to be done with it all.  And you don’t care what “things” he took.  You have the MOST IMPORTANT THING: YOURSELF!

We all go through major life transitions when relationships end… Through this website, I will share my thoughts as I walk the path of “New-Self” discovery. It doesn’t matter which side of 50 you are on. The real question is, Are you ready to live life? To forge a Path of Your Own Making (For a change!)? Then stop dwelling over the What-Might-Have-Beens and join me. Share your thoughts here, comment on mine, and let’s do this together!

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