We Can Do Hard Things: Answers to Life's 20 Questions

by Glennon Doyle

Sometimes you may decide that a relationship was a beautiful love story, but it may not be a life story. You don’t have to squash the love in order to move on. You may just say, “This love is precious, I will hold it dearly, but it is not going to be my life.” There are beautiful rituals to honor the intimacy while also inviting the relationship to end or transition. You can start with “I’m here to say goodbye, and this is what I wish for you.” And bring an object to represent what you want the other person to take with them. “When I think of us, these are some of the main images, memories, associations that I will have. All the things that we shared that I’ll take with me, and that I hope you will take with you.” Choose an object that you can hold, touch, smell, listen to so that you, too, can take away with you a visceral memory. There may be grief or sadness at this closure. These are the feelings that often accompany endings. Let them be in you and then come through you. You may want to have an object that represents grief. A ritual I have often used is to throw something into the water. Often it is bread, so that other creatures can feed themselves on what you let go of. Relationships are filled with rituals from the beginning, but the way you end will do everything for what will follow. Esther Perel