How Are Those Stages Of Grief Coming Along? (Spoiler: It’s Messy)

04/01/25

Right back at the start of this process of healing, it was pointed out to me that getting over the end of a long term relationship is a similar process to grieving loss due to death.

Accepted thinking is, although there’s clearly no fixed time frame, that one should expect a minimum of 12 months cycling through the grief stages

It sort of made sense then, and it makes more sense now, one year on.

So let’s have a look at those stages shall we?

According to the Kübler-Ross Model the five stages of grief, (in the order in which I experienced them), are:

• Denial: A state of shock and disbelief, feeling numb or that the loss isn’t real.
  
  This hit almost immediately and is very evident in the very earliest days, weeks and months of my posting on here. The totality of the relationship being over, for ever, was too much for me back then – even sitting with the thought of it for a few moments would trigger my somatic responses and I’d be on my knees puking.
  
  This stage came to a full, firm, and final end at around the four month mark. In that time EH had continued with his typical manipulations, lies, and arrogance, and I’d continued to fall for it, excuse it, or ignore it. Then, I found out that he was seeing someone else and the portcullis came crashing down.
  
  It’s interesting how little I was bothered that he was with someone new – my emotions were about his dishonesty and cowardice. There was also a fair chunk of anger at myself for having let him continue to pull my strings right up until that point.
  
  However, ultimately the true finality of knowing that the marriage was absolutely over, was actually a relief. Knowing for sure, that no matter what, I would not take EH back, gave me the freedom to start truly healing.
  
  One thing I never did, during the denial, or any other stage of the process, was to look at the past through rose tinted lenses.
  
  It took a while to fully see, absorb and accept just how wrong the relationship had been from the very start (the red flags are so much more obvious in hindsight, from this new, healed perspective), but I never kidded myself that it had been one great long love-fest.
  

• Depression: Intense sadness, loneliness, and hopelessness as the reality of the loss sets in.
  
  This was very intertwined with Denial (above), and Bargaining (below).
  
  In those early days, the loneliness when I got home from work each day was absolutely crushing.
  
  This was when the enormity of the depletion I’d experienced in the marriage was only just starting to dawn on me; when all the blame, loathing, and criticism was directed inwards, at myself.
  
  At that time the Black Dog of Depression was regularly sniffing around my front door.
  
  It was purely the knowledge of previous experiences with depression, and the fear of going back there, that forced me to keep going forwards, rather than letting that dog drag me down.
  
  I continue to be impressed by the sheer power of my will.
  
  I can’t count the number of times I literally scraped myself up from the floor, face sodden with tears and snot, and talked myself through walking up the stairs, just to wash, just to keep going.
  
  Nor how many meals, that tasted and felt like sawdust in my mouth, but were consumed alongside great dollops of willpower, to maintain the strength to keep the Dog from breaking down the door.
  
  And, of course, I couldn’t break the Vow, that I would come out of this as more, not less. An evolution, not an ending.
  
  If I gave into depression I would be giving EH yet more power and influence in my life. At that time, in an odd way, it felt that if I let the Dog push me under the water, then I’d be validating EH and his piss poor view of me.
  
  And I’m very aware of how much I was still focusing on him, and his feelings at that time – but it really was a case of ‘whatever gets me through today’ (with one eye on moving to healthier thinking1)

• Bargaining: Making deals or promises, often to a higher power, hoping to reverse or postpone the loss.
  
  Yep, this was fully on display, when I wrote about friends with benefits, or being able to push a reset button on the relationship. These are some of the journal entries/posts that make me feel really cringey and icky inside when I read them now. I was so willing to debase myself, to accept nothing but a crumb or two, to keep that worthless man in my life.
  
  And whilst my efforts to improve my physical health and appearance were about taking some kind of control over my time and my life, in the early days they were laced with a desire to win him back with my body.
  
  Again, the bargaining came to an abrupt halt on the day I was told he was seeing another woman.
  
  However, it took a while before the desire to see him want me again fully left. It wasn’t about wanting him – it was about wanting to be able to reject him. Which kinda leads us neatly into the next stage…

• Anger: Frustration, rage, and resentment can surface, directed at others, God, or the one who has gone.
  
  Anger was an elusive beast initially, unless it was towards myself.
  
  I knew anger would be a powerful part of my recovery and yet it wouldn’t come.
  
  At first.
  
  And then it did – a first explosive display of righteous rage that took me (and EH!) by surprise and started the anger generator up in earnest.
  
  The shame, guilt and self blame I’d had about my abusive marriage had evolved. It stopped being internally directed and started to go outwards, towards EH.
  
  As my glorious friend Altan observed, this is where it should rightfully have been directed all along.
  
  After a few months, I became tired of feeling simmering rage towards EH so much of the time. I went from wanting the anger as motivation, to wanting it released, and gone from me, once and for all.
  
  And so, coupled with the use of psilocybin, I wrote it out. The rage and the pain that had been suppressed through childhood, adolescence, and that marriage was all allowed to be seen, recognised, acknowledged, validated – by me.
  
  It took many months from writing out my rage list, as part of my psilocybin integration, and much, much more processing, before I felt the anger was truly easing back.
  
  I read and re-read that rage list many, many times. I mentally added in further examples, that had been omitted from the original vent.
  
  I raged that I couldn’t take back past apologies, and that he would never feel bad for what he did to me.
  
  I indulged in vindictive fantasies, created rage filled playlists, and I cried. I cried for all the years lost, for all the times I should have left but didn’t, for the version of me who thought I didn’t deserve better.
  
  I talked it over and over with a wonderful, trusted friend gaining new vocabulary, sometimes new perspectives, and always, always validation.
  
  Then one fabulous day, said friend and I were talking, and as I told the story of yet another of EH’s maltreatments of me, I found myself giggling. I realised I wasn’t angry, I was mocking. Mocking his emotional ineptitude, his (in hindsight) predictability, his utter lack of empathy, the hollow shell of a person that he is.
  
  That was the day my beautiful friend and I celebrated together as I realised just how far I’d come with my healing.
  
  I’m not saying I never have any feelings of anger any more, I do, and probably will for the rest of my life. Some of the things I experienced due to EH were so heinous, it would be madness to think anything other than anger was an appropriate response. However, these are contained, flashes of anger when recollecting or telling another about a particular incident. They are not deep or prolonged – simply righteous recognition, then moving on.
  
  It’s pretty much ‘Meh’.

• Acceptance: Coming to terms with the loss, adjusting to life without the person or situation, and finding a new normal. 
  
  This came about in stages, each one deepening the feeling. Ultimately I went from acceptance to joy.
  
  I guess the very first stage was when I was told he was seeing a new person, and I felt that very definite shut off from him. That was accepting that the relationship itself was over.
  
  But there were other things that needed to be accepted – the fact that I’d unwittingly spent 20 years in a relationship with a covert narcissist.
  
  The fact that I could never confront EH with my newly realised truths, I could never gain closure from him; he would never accept responsibility or culpability.
  
  That took time.
  
  It began with starting to appreciate little things, then fully and consciously realising I couldn’t have had that thing, or that moment, if EH had still been around.
  
  It reached a high point on the day I woke feeling honestly, deeply glad that he had left.
  
  That feeling continues.

I know that if EH hadn’t left, I’d have continued to try to be better, to try to make him happy, to try to have the marriage I wanted, with closeness, respect and love. I would still be unhappy, lonely and diminished.

I’m glad he left but I’m not grateful to him. He doesn’t deserve that.

I am, however, grateful that I have the strength, courage and fortitude that I do, which is what enabled me to be in the place where I’m glad he left.

So, in summary, I think one can safely say that the five stages of grief have been fully processed.

The age old, wise ‘They’ are correct when they say it’s not a linear process. I was aware of it as I was going through it, and am very aware of it as I write this out.

For me, the most prolonged, most frequently looped back to stage, was anger. Research tells me this is not wildly surprising for someone in my circumstances.

Feelings don’t go away because you stuff them down, and I’d been stuffing things down since I was a very young child, through violent adult relationships, and an abusive 20 year marriage. That’s a whole lot of feelings, including a metric fucktonne of anger.

But it’s been worth every painful moment, to be here, free of so much toxicity, free to live as I wish.

Free.

MUSIC OF THE DAY:

JP