Episode 4 - Relationships: Breaking up is hard to do

Mondays at 7.30pm on W.

Intro :

Relationship breakdowns are painful affairs – depending in part on whether you’re the one who’s giving or being given the shove. There’s the sense of rejection, the loss of self-esteem, and the terrible empty space that your other half used to occupy. Not to mention the strain on your wallet – and that’s just on tissues, chocolate and beer!

But unless you found the love of your life at birth, chances are you’ve been through it at least once. Maybe you’re stuck in a relationship that you’re unsure how to get out of. There’s little doubt that Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, but are there ways to keep the scars to a minimum?

Our Panellists:

Rebecca Gibney, Patrick Thompson, Dale Lewis, Holly Brisley and Prue MacSween

See panellist profiles

Our guests

Sue Ostler

The queen of love and dating, Sue is a devoted rock fan, demented romantic and media whiz. She is the Associate Publisher at Rolling Stone magazine, a columnist for Sunday Magazine, Body + Soul, Cleo and New Woman and a well known TV head and regular guest on Triple J, Nova and 2Day FM radio.

Sue has worked extensively in and around the singles circuit. She is the founding director of Sydney’s hottest new single-friendly event, Vodka & Chocolate Concoctions, and also runs the School of Seduction – a series of mini courses brimming with games, guests, activities, flirting workshops, seminars, forums, lectures and practical lessons on sex, relationship and self-esteem issues.

Sue is also the expert on getting over relationship break ups. The author of “Get Over It!”, “Get On With It!” and the upcoming “Relationships That Rock!”, Sue speaks from personal experience when she says that br eaking up, especially the first time, is like suffering the death of a family member. She says if you’re dumped without seeing it coming then it is even worse.

Sue says she wrote her books after suffering exactly that fate. Out of the blue, her partner of four years dumped her. Sue says she walked around like a zombie for six months, much of it in denial, after being dumped, until she finally realized she just wasn’t getting over it. She says writing was her way of understanding what had happened to her and it was great therapy – she got even and she got paid for it!

Sue says it’s the loss of control and structure in your life that makes it so hard to cope with break-ups. You’ve felt validated by that person and that relationship for so long that once they step out of the picture you feel like a failure. Sue says you need a 12 step program and to monitor yourself. She says people also need to realize there are all different sorts of love – self-love, platonic love, and the love of your family – not just romantic love. After much pain, Sue says she finally realized that not being bogged down in a romantic relationship for the first time in her adult life gave her a real lust for life. She threw herself into her professional life, social life, health, diet, and fitness. Sue says she was the most goal-oriented and productive she’d ever been in her life, and she loved it.

Sue says the way to recover is to reinvent yourself. Reconnect with those things you loved doing as a child – horseriding, reading, playing a musical instrument, whatever – and learn how to make yourself feel good again. She says it’s easy to sink into the victim mode, but much harder to own the fear, take control and put your survival instinct to work. As for recovery, Sue says you know you’re over a break up when that person is no longer the first thing you think about when you wake up in the morning (and when you’re over your addiction to chocolate!).

Sue also warns not to depend on the rebound romance for rebuilding your self- esteem. She says it’s usually a disaster rather than the love of your life. But Sue herself is proof you will find someone else. She says that literally weeks before the launch of “Get Over It!” she met a man who has been her boyfriend for the past two and a half years.

Karla Grant

Breaking up is bad enough, but imagine if the details were splashed over the nightly news. Karla Grant’s high profile journalist husband Stan left her for a female colleague four years ago, and the media relished the story. For Karla, though, the best revenge was to blossom personally and professionally. She now presents and produces the current affairs show “Living Black” for SBS, and is the proud mum of three beautiful children.

Karla says she and Stan had been a couple from the time she was 17-years-old. At 35, to suddenly lose that relationship was very difficult. She says they had split up once previously so when Stan left the second time it was much easier to cope. This time the difference was that Karla was working, she had her own friends and a much better sense of herself. Karla says she took just two days off work and refused to sit around crying like she did the first time. She says she knew she just had to get on with life, and so threw herself into her work and into getting their children through a difficult time.

Karla says there were no real warning signs, even though she was aware she and Stan weren’t communicating. It seemed they only talked about bills or who was going to pick up the kids, but she really she didn’t see it coming until he said he wanted to leave.

Karla says she was grateful for the support she received at the time from the general public and from work colleagues, although she says the media kept harassing her for the shot of the devastated wife. She says the hardest part, apart from the loneliness, was the creeping self-doubt, and the gnawing question: what is it about me? All she could do was grab all work opportunities that came her way, and to give her children plenty of love, support and talks about what was happening. At first Karla says she had plenty of thoughts of hate and revenge, but she says they’ve now faded.

Amanda Ferguson

Psychologist, hypnotherapist and relationships specialist Amanda Ferguson says break-ups from significant relationships can take two years or longer to recover from. But she says in some cases people are in denial – they don’t want to face up to the problems and don’t want to disrupt their lives – and they simply stay in bad relationships.

Amanda says detaching from a relationship is a major life change, resulting in a loss of security and often a grieving process. She says some people choose to stay for lifestyle reasons, such as financial security, social status or if there are children involved. Contrary to popular belief, Amanda says staying for the children can be a good reason to stay. Amanda is concerned about the negative perception such action can have, and that people regard those who stay in troubled relationships as weak or copping out. Rather, Amanda says it’s easy to leave and many marriages have lasted through affairs and become stronger.

Amanda says it is unrealistic to expect that in any relationship, and especially marriage, that you’ll be in love all the time. She says all relationships have rocky patches. She says that people often regret not working through these patches and maybe seeking counselling. But if people have already tried those avenues and given 100 percent to salvaging a relationship, she says they are definitely ready to leave.

Amanda believes that relationships go through developmental phases. She says that for marriage the seventh year is a difficult time, then the fourteenth year is very difficult but at twenty one years there is often a re-blossoming of the romantic passion of the relationship, and if you have made it past twenty one years then chances are you will stay together forever.

Amanda says men deal with infidelity better than women. She says that when one partner has an affair, typically the other partner has already left the relationship, so the infidelity is symptomatic of other problems in the relationship.

As for the serial wedders like J-Lo, Amanda says these people are simply avoiding themselves. She says they can’t bear the loneliness and insecurity of being alone so they practically line up the next relationship before leaving the first. She says such problems are preset from childhood, when we observe our parents’ relationship and how they love us.

Maintaining a relationship is about skilling yourself in the same way that being in a career long term is about keeping your skills up, Amanda says. The concept of marriage for life has died, in the same way that a job for life has, and people need to be prepared to go to counsellors, read books, watch TV programs and take the time to work at their relationship, she says.

Amanda says people should seek help and talk about their relationship problems. She tells her clients that if you want to fix a relationship, don’t work on it, work on yourself. That way, she says, people can avoid going for the same type of person, whether they abuse, neglect, hurt, or abandon us.

Robert Benjamin

Family Court lawyer and past President of the NSW Law Society, Robert Benjamin says the first thing to do when a relationship has ended is to get your head around the whole notion, because you can guarantee your ex-partner already has. The second thing is to get good legal advice to learn about rights and obligations.

Going to court, says Robert, is the worst thing you can do. It won’t solve your problems, and since judges are human too, their idea of fair may not be yours. Instead, Robert says people should use a psychologist or lawyer to work out the issues involved, and then negotiate, either by yourselves, with a lawyer or through mediators.

In relationship break-ups, he says, the court decides who gets how much, depending on their contribution to the relationship, and their future needs. For example, he says if a couple had been married 20 years and they had jointly contributed to the relationship, the split of assets would probably be 50/50. But if the man was earning $150,000 and the woman was at home raising their three children she would probably get more.

They may seem unromantic, but Robert recommends pre-nuptial agreements – whether the couple is married, de facto or gay. Robert says pre-nups are even more important for people on their second marriages and where there are children involved.

From his experience, Robert says two people breaking up go through the same emotional stages as those of grief, but at different times. Those emotions range from disbelief to anger to upset, then belief, acceptance and moving on.

In a typical scenario, he says, the person breaking off the relationship may have arrived at the decision long before the dumped person even knew, so they have a head start in moving on with life. Meanwhile the other person has only just been told and may still be dealing with enormous anger, while the dumper is peppering her or him with what they want to do about the kids and the house.

But all the dumped person can think about is ‘How can I get this person back?’

Robert says it is this difference as to where the two people are emotionally that can lead to real hostility and to unnecessary legal hearings, where they end up in court just to vent their anger and frustration.

The most important thing, he says, is that people need to have a degree of integrity and honesty and be able to deal with each other to reach a solution.

Rosie Beaton

Rosie is the 6-9pm weekday announcer on national youth radio network Triple J. She is also somewhat of a revenge expert, as every Tuesday night she turns her ‘Super Request’ show into Love and Hate Song Dedications. This is her listeners’ chance to announce to the nation who they have a shocking crush on, or to rant and rave about someone who has stomped on their heart. Listeners can request a relevant tune to seal the message.

Rosie says she started the Tuesday night spot in response to “Love Doctor”, Richard Mercer’s saccharine love song request show on Mix FM. She says her show is designed to appeal to a younger audience, and to give equal time to the opposite side of the love coin – breaking up and revenge! Rosie receives a couple of hundred requests a night, and puts five live calls and two emails to air.

Rosie says she is absolutely in favour of getting your own back if someone’s done you wrong in love. Her message is don’t let them get away with it and if someone’s made you feel bad, make sure you make them feel worse!

Rosie shared her own revenge story with us. Four years ago she found out the guy she’d been dating for eight months not only had three other women on the side, but also had a live-in girlfriend (which explained why he never wanted her back at his house!). Rosie’s revenge was to call the gym where the man worked to make sure everyone there was listening at the right time, and then dedicated a song to “Slapper” (the man’s nickname) on behalf of her and the other women. She then played “I’m an Asshole” by Denis Leary.

Rosie says she’s always amazed at how frank her listeners are on air when it comes to telling their love/ break up stories, probably because she’s careful never to judge. Rosie says her callers have plenty of ideas for revenge, including putting an ex-partner’s toothbrush somewhere where it is not meant to go, and putting a death notice in the paper in the ex’s name. Rosie says the “Asshole” song is always a popular request as is Beck’s “Loser”.

Revenge really does help the healing process, says Rosie, but it’s also important to keep yourself busy and active.

This show may have convinced a few couples to stay together, or caused more break ups in this country! Either way, remember that wounds do heal, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time, and life does go on after a break up.

Tune in to Mars Venus, Mondays at 7.30pm on W.

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