Woman's Hour - Late Night Woman's Hour: Breakups

Episode Date: April 28, 2017

Emma Barnett and guests Sali Hughes, Philippa Perry and Daisy Buchanan discuss break-ups.

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Listen wherever you get your podcasts. We only said goodbye with words I died a hundred times You go back to her And I go back to her I go back to her Good evening and welcome to Late Night Woman's Hour with me, Emma Barnett, in the hot seat where nothing is off the table. Cast your mind back. The unhappiness started a long time ago.

We agreed, we differed, the problems rumbled on in the background and we tried to ignore it, bumbling on through thick and thin. But the rot had set in. Eventually we couldn't paper over our differences any longer and made the decision to split. Now the name-calling has started. As the country undergoes what's shaping up to be a painful and protracted break-up in the form of Brexit, here on Late Night Woman's Hour this month, we're looking at break-ups, but on the personal rather than the political level. I'll concede it's highly unlikely that you've ever called an ex

a mutton-headed mugwump, unless you've dated our Foreign Secretary, of course, Boris Johnson, his pet name there for Jeremy Corbyn. But I bet you've called your ex something as equally as insulting, if not a heck of a lot worse, to their face, your friends, their friends, or maybe you've just gone for it on social media. So how can we learn to weather this most painful of personal storms a bit better? And can there ever be such a thing as a good breakup? With me in the studio are the psychotherapist

Philippa Perry, writer Daisy Buchanan and writer and broadcaster Sally Hughes. Now Daisy, if I can come to you first, it's all very civilised us sitting here being very reasonable and calm, but if we're talking about breakups, that's not usually the voice people have. That's not usually how they're feeling. The mental zone that they're in, they're feeling angry, they're feeling hurt, they're feeling tearful. They might be feeling a little bit revengeful. Whatever has happened to them,

it can go to a very dark, desperate place. What are some of the worst things that you have done during a breakup? Ooh, I mean, they do tend to hit me like a long and violent Victorian illness and I think perhaps the worst thing is my sort of tendency towards melodrama and exaggeration um and I've definitely I think that every single breakup I've had and quite often it's been when I'm the one being dumped I've said slightly longer and more expressively you know well you're crap in bed and it's funny how this comes back to haunt me to their face or in a text message or how do you do that sometimes on the phone usually on the

phone actually so that's your that your kickback and it's sort of it's come back and I'm just sort of thinking of like what are the worst things what are the most hurtful things I can say and you know during more civilized times it's come up and I thought well you know I didn't mean that I just wanted to say something really horrible and it was the first thing that came to mind so I'm quite shocked about the fact that when even when someone is breaking up with you you do still have some kind of emotional power I think because I always feel so crazed with my own powerlessness and looking back I think that's been the biggest take-home it takes two to break up. Powerlessness is a very difficult thing to kind of deal with when you feel like you've had

everything together. Philip if I can come to you then is it good to be angry is it good to have those emotions do you think? Well you can't really help, so it doesn't matter if it's good or it's bad. You will have emotions. It's a very primal thing. You thought you were with a person, and then you find, maybe to your surprise even, that you're not. You will feel like your security has been shaken. I mean, we are tribal creatures, and these days we might live in tribes of two even. So when you are expelled from the tribe, you might as well be in the savannah with nobody watching your back

because that's what it feels like. It's a sort of a survival instinct. So you're furious, you're fighting for... It feels like you're fighting for your life almost. And do you feel women... I mean, there is obviously the bunny boiler image. There is that women have that, I don't know, more psychotic response to it, the stereotype that it's like that.

I would dispute that. I think we can be equally disturbed by a break-up and avoidant personalities can belong to men or women, so that would be the slightly cooler response. That's only because if you have a cooler response, you're possibly not in touch with your emotions anyway. But the sort of response that Daisy's described is fairly typical. And I don't think you should give yourself a bad time

for saying something particularly hurtful because you're sort of doing a counter-attack. There you go, Daisy, you've got a clean sheet there. You just clear your conscience of all the things you've said. I feel like I've just come out of confession. That's what we like to create here. I think you need to do what you need to do and if you're angry, then by all means express it.

The only exception to that rule is is if there's children involved because um your child will think of themselves as partly you and partly their partner let's come back to children in just a moment sally hughes let me bring you in at this point i know that when you were younger you were married and then you were divorced and one of the big things one of the emotions attached to breakups is failure. And then there's a whole other element of being divorced and people use that word with it and they sort of punish themselves even more

when they're at that point. What do you make of that? I think I definitely fall into the avoiding and private category. I'm not somebody who would say the cruel thing. I'm not somebody who would say the cruel thing. I'm not somebody who would come up with a counterattack. And I'm not necessarily saying that that's a good thing, but I would avoid it. And when I was going through my breakup,

I did feel a huge sense of failure. But the way I wanted to deal with it was not by sort of rehashing it and having endless rows I just sort of became quite cat-like and wanted to go into a corner and think about it which isn't to say that I didn't have those feelings I did have those feelings but and I wouldn't try and control them but I do control my behavior in a breakup and I sort of need that I need that quiet to come to terms with it so you wouldn't catch me shouting something hurtful at somebody and that was the same in my marriage when that broke up. But you do feel a huge sense of failure.

But what's important is that as time goes on, you still see that marriage is worthwhile. Because a relationship ends doesn't mean that it was a waste of time or that it was a mistake. A lot of people feel like that though. They do. And also I should say when women are in that zone where they're thinking about children and maybe they had hoped that would be the person that they would have children with, they do start to look, certainly in their 30s, I wasted this time with you. Yes, I think, I mean, yes, that's a very complex issue.

We did have children together and that did absolutely influence how we broke up and how I behaved. As Philippa said, I never, ever, ever would say anything negative about their father. I never once did because it just felt like a sort of abusive behaviour to me. And the children obviously influenced that as well. Completely. I just didn't... I felt it was abusive to them to be sort of negative about their father. And it sort of kept me sane, I suppose, of a fashion. Sort of being forced to behave, in a way. Yes, I I suppose, of a fashion. Sort of being forced to behave, in a way.

Yes, I think so, of a fashion. I mean, I was very, very upset and I did feel those feelings. It was an absolutely horrible time. It was worse than any death I've known. But yes, having some kind of code of conduct for my behaviour was definitely very helpful to me and my family. And gradually, over time, I thought, you know, people would say to me very sweetly

and very kind of encouragingly trying to bolster me, would say, oh, do you think you got married too young? Or, you know, would you do it all again? Yes, I absolutely would, even if I hadn't produced, even if that marriage hadn't produced children. Really? I don't... We were really, really happy. And every relationship gets you to a point in your life

from which you can draw so so no insults from you a code of behavior that sort of kept you together and you didn't even call him a mugwump i would never call anyone that well i've only learned the word this week but apparently i should have known it all along no i certainly didn't okay philip to bring you back in here i started by asking and it's something we've been asking our listeners is there anything about a breakup is there any such way you can describe it as a good breakup? Do you even buy into that phrase? I suppose I do.

I mean, the more you're invested in a relationship, the more painful the breakup's going to be. So you'll probably have a really good breakup if you've only been together for a week and then discover terrible differences then. You haven't invested enough to feel like you've been hurt. You won't have changed your shape in relationship with the other person to feel like you need them or anything to make you who you are. And also it matters who broke it up of course as well if it's if it's mutual I mean I don't know if anyone's ever had a mutual breakup that's

genuinely mutual but that also plays a part. It's funny you should say that because I've been married before my present marriage as well and if I look back on it now it was such a long time ago I can't really remember who broke up with who. It wasn't that clean cut. It was more of a series of events or just the way our relationship was going. It was a mutual thing, I think. So you consciously uncoupled before Gwyneth Paltrow?

I don't think it was that conscious, I'm afraid. I mean, that phrase... We weren't that well together. I mean, again again we're laughing but people who are listening to this and perhaps going into the bank holiday weekend long time to be alone there's not much laughter when this is going on and I wonder if it's got worse now because of the digital side of this Daisy let me bring you back in at this point I mean social media you can now look at your ex all the time after you've broken up with them if you know that they were potentially

with someone else while you were together or you suspected it you can torment yourself go on their instagram go on their social feed on facebook and you can sort of stay looking at them in a way you just couldn't have done before unless you'd literally camped outside their house um i had a really really hard horrible breakup pretty much when Facebook arrived. I was a student and it was when it was still associated with universities. And I remember looking obsessively and saying, there need to be more features. I need to know exactly where they are because I knew I'd been dumped for another girl who ended up becoming one of my best friends. That's the whole of the programme.

But I need to know exactly where they are. Are they together? What are they doing? What's happening? And, you know, thinking that that tantalising tiny, tiny bit of information was out there. And it just, I think, made those feelings worse. So it can make it worse is what was what you're saying much and then actually um it sounds really unnecessarily dramatic but there was another breakup that was and it was one of those things where you know we'd broken up we'd broken up and then we had a very protracted six months of sort of seeing each other and you know that was sort of toxic and terrible and we couldn't quite work out where we were and then

um when he dumped me for the second time I blocked him on all of the social media channels and it was so painful and so actually I made it easier for myself because there was um a a bag I wanted there was a Mark Jacobs bag and I didn't have much money but I thought if I can go a month without contacting him this is how I'm going to reward myself. And that did it for me, and that made it a much happier and healthier and easier experience. Cutting off these links that you have to people, though, is harder now. You're sort of embedded within each other digitally.

And what we're talking about there, Daisy, is you looking and seeing what's going on. But there is also the other side of this, that people who are in the stronger position in a breakup can be quite cruel themselves and flaunt their new liberty and their new life or whoever they're with, which can be also very damaging. Sally, you're nodding to that.

Yes, absolutely. I think the sooner you can cut ties digitally, the better. I really do, because I think social media means that you never quite tear off the plaster, you're constantly sort of sticking it back on every five minutes, and then tearing it off again. And it never comes clean away, because you get these constant updates of where people are what they're doing. Even if they're not with a new partner, you just see them having fun when you feel sad, for example. Or, as has been my case, a few times, I've just

thought I don't want to check my own behaviour because I'm worried I'll hurt someone's feelings. It's just better that you sever digital contact, I think. Put them into acquaintances on Facebook if you don't want to go as far as block them. Mute them on Twitter, but just protect yourself from their movements and protect them from yours, I think. And you mentioned earlier, you used the word a grief.

Yes. Do you think that, Philippa, we should talk about this in a way of grief, in a way of loss and death and use some of that same language? I think it's a very good idea to talk about how we really feel. And so often we hide our grief behind things like blaming and resentment because it's easier perhaps for some of us to blame than it is to really feel how very sad we feel or how very scared we feel. So it's much easier to sort of get off that track and go into anger and then not process and not properly grieve the relationship. But what if you don't want it to be over?

And what if you want answers you just can't get? Because what if they just don't love you anymore, but you feel you need an answer? Yes, this is quite a common thing, is that people endlessly analyze their ex's behavior like why did she do that why did she do this um or why did he do that and quite often people come to psychotherapy because they want the analyst to analyze their ex partner through what they say.

And they get very frustrated because the therapist will invariably say, we're going to shift the focus to you and how you're feeling. And that might be very frustrating for the person who's come to therapy, but it is actually the best treatment for them to stop obsessing about the other and to work through their own feelings. But it can be messy, as we've all been saying here in different ways. I mean, Daisy, you were talking about relapsing and were you on and were you off? And I can't talk about breakups without talking about breakup sex.

And you're nodding now with a bit of a smile. I mean, that's part of some people's breakup experience. In fact, it's often part of people's breakup experience. Do you ever think it's in fact it's often part of people's breakup experience what do you ever think it's a good idea i think there is that um you know philip is saying about needing answers and sometimes you almost do feel like you need closure that final bang i can't believe i just said that but that might be how people are feeling if you know you feel like the world ends with a big bang your world can end with a little bang not if you've told them they're terrible in bed they're not going to do that

final I know I really sort of you know shot myself in the foot there but that blurring of borders do you think that can help prompt a turning point Sally I think breakup sex is mostly hard to avoid I think I don't just think it's common I think think it's usual. I think for the most part, if my friends and my previous relationships were anything to go by, it mainly does seem to happen. You have that final, as you say, little bang. But as much as I think it's unavoidable, I think that probably should be it. To try and ease yourself off is a bit like saying I'll smoke 10 cigarettes instead of 20. I don't think it really ever ever works if you need that little full stop on it then I quite understand but I don't think you can keep on doing it to wean yourself off I just think that's really messy we're sitting here

Philippa sorry I was also saying it it's it's like two messages as well yeah you've told me you want to break off with me yet you can't mean it because we're still in bed together and look you're aroused you fancy me you must like me but you always want what you can't have as well though isn't it doesn't somebody become i mean i remember you want to tell me more i was going to say oh here we go but i do remember you know a relationship a long time ago and i was just determined to have a bit more with that person because i just felt a they'd become so much more attractive to me the minute we'd broken up and secondly i just needed to. It's this sense that you need to know. Need to know what?

I don't know if it was the right decision, if we should have carried on and then literally get back together. Boom, it was over very soon afterwards. And I have to say, another thing I was going to ask you all is, I totally lost my dignity in that process. I mean, that's another thing. You look back and I don't know if you do, but I cringe at some of the ways you, in that process. I mean, that's another thing. You look back and I don't know if you do, but I cringe at some of the ways you, in that particular respect, you know, I wanted somebody to come back to me. Do you think dignity is important in all of this or do you think you just have to throw that out the window? It's very difficult to hold onto your dignity in a breakup because you are usually, if you're the one being dumped, you're in pain. And to be in pain and dignified takes an awful lot of effort. If you've got children, you have to make that effort.

But it is difficult. And I think that if you haven't got children, I think you can enjoy a little bit of undignified behaviour. You were going to come in on the dignity point. I mean, dignity is really important to me. However, I have often been very undignified. But I think in a breakup, it's a matter of choosing your audience and relying on that audience. So for me, my girlfriends are hugely important in that sort of situation in any trauma, because I need to be

undignified, I need to shout, I need to say unreasonable things, I need to blame people for a period of time. And I'm reliant on my girlfriends to absorb that so that I'm not on social media live tweeting a breakup which is mortifying which people do and whenever I read that I think where are your girls where are your girls or all boys or your mum or anyone yes exactly where are your friends where are your squad absorbing this indignity and I was going to ask about the squad or, because if you are listening to this and you're not going through a breakup, but a good friend is or somebody in your life, what should you do for them? What's been some of the things that have either helped you through that moment

or you wished somebody had done? My friend Jude, who is amazing, the really awful, awful boyfriend. And I think when it happened everyone was quite relieved um but she um set up a website um can I swear uh depends sort of she said it was the um it was the website was name of ex-boyfriend is a dick I think she only got.org I don't think she could have.com but I'm fine with that and she said look look what I've done for you and that was just an amazing generous kind and it's one of those really petty things because with you know revenge I've never done any real revenge I thought going back to dignity I've always sort of told myself the best revenge is living well and I would

describe some of my post-breakup behavior as a pantomime of dignity it's not convincing anyone but the idea is there but that that kind of and I think but do you listen to your friends so that's a lovely thing to do I mean none of my friends I don't think would know how to set up a website necessarily actually one of them would but I don't want to do them all down but I mean Philippa to come back to you on this because you get into a situation don't you with something which is a matter of the heart where there are only a few people are allowed in. And actually, it does seem with the experiences I've had, but also friends have had, that it's only when the individual is ready to move on that they can move on. Or do you think friends can have an influence and other people can? enormous influence because if you've been with someone who is metaphorically holding you up and they go you might feel like you need other people to hold you up for a while until you find

your new shape until you reform into a new person that hasn't got the old partner and some people are more optimistic that they'll be able to manage than others. And I think if someone is having a crisis and doesn't think they'll be able to manage, I think it's a really nice thing for a group of friends to have a rota, say, so that they're not alone for too long, so someone is checking in with them every day. So they can feel like they're part of something, feel that they're liked, feel like they belong to a group. And they've got a structure. They've got a structure.

Because if you are rejected, one of the worst things about it is you don't feel you belong. You don't belong to the couple anymore. You have a sense of not mattering. So I think it's great if your friends can rally round and just keep up a rotor as it were of contact. It's a lovely idea, really lovely idea. Sally with some of your life experience then how long should it take, can it take, how do you get to that turning point do you think?

Do you think you just wake up one day and know? No, I think it's very gradual and you're not really aware of getting better until you feel so much better. And I think that's applied to all sorts of things in my life, breakups, postnatal depression or whatever it is. It's one day I realise, oh my God, I was really bad back then. And you sort of, it's crept up, recovery has crept up on you. And that definitely happened to me. So I didn't have a kind of I didn't have a lightbulb moment. It was a long and arduous process. And I relied very, very heavily on my girlfriends. But I do think that I didn't start to get better until I sort of faced up to what

was happening. And whether that was completing paperwork I needed to complete or sort of doing practical things that I was avoiding, I think it's only when you really are staring reality in the face that you can start to rebuild. Were you the same person afterwards? No, I'll never be the same person. I'll always be a little bit sadder than I was before, I think. And I think that applies to bereavement or any major trauma.

Even though you experience the same levels of joy as before and you're still able to have fun in the same way you're always a little bit sadder overall because you have a scar you have this you have this deep scar do you think there's any way of protecting yourself though philippa when moving forward into other relationships because you of course don't want to be scarred so deeply that you can't love as openly again. I don't think everyone has the same experience as Sally had. I think, for instance, I was in a marriage for about eight years, which ended in divorce,

and I don't feel like I'm still carrying any sadness around from that relationship. I can't remember what the question was. But the idea that you... How can you in any way protect yourself and then love again in that sense? Do you think you can? I think the best protection is to make friends with your vulnerability, to accept your feelings.

So, no, don't put up a shield. Don't live behind very high stone walls. Dare to be vulnerable again. But I have to say, I don't carry the sadness into my relationship. That's not what I'm saying. I'm a slightly sadder person, but I was a slightly sadder person when my father dies. It doesn't mean I love the rest of my friends and family any less. It's not that. And actually, I think that I am much better and more successful and more loving in my new relationship because of my divorce so it's not stopped you from going forward it hasn't and it's failure as much as I sort of wish on some level it hadn't happened

made me better at relationships made me better at confronting problems as and when they arise and you're getting married later this year i'm getting married in october congratulations in advance for that let me bring you back in here daisy have you you've got any advice for moving on i mean there is the old saying you've got to just get under somebody else i'm sorry i keep bringing up sex with you i don't know why it's that pink jumper but um you know do you do you think that there have been strategies for you apart from making a website where you tell off your ex um no it's all the website that's all you can do okay um i think that one of the most powerful things um that you can remember is the number of times well maybe there have been i think three times in my life where i thought nothing has ever hurt as badly as this has. I am ruined. This is going to kill me.

And then you think, I can never love anyone this deeply. Nobody will ever love me like this person has loved me. This really, really feels like the world is ending. And then a year passes and you meet someone and you love them so much and it's great. And I think, you know, as Sally said, that you've learned all these things that you bring to your new relationship that maybe make you wiser and better someone I

mean that's another big thing that people are scared of the thing that you can you know there is always always hope I don't think that we necessarily absolutely have to be with someone at all I don't think that's you know the answer for everyone I know people are very happy just you know being being single and and doing what they do. But, I mean, if you look around at all of the love stories and all of the people in the world, and

I sound horribly classist, but it's like if I see Jeremy Kyle at the gym, and there'll be a guy with, like, smashed out teeth and these two women sort of fighting over him. Jeremy Kyle on television, not him himself. And not the actual, not him himself. Not the man. The man's standing in a suit looking quietly judgmental or noisily judgmental sometimes.

And you think, you know, if the man with smashed out teeth can inspire that much passion, there is hope for all of us. They're fighting over whose child belongs to whom. Love, we forget. I think a lot of it is about timing and a state of mind and in the way

that we can, you know, hear a song and not like it if we're in a bad mood but then if we're in a great mood we love it again. Songs.

People. I think we've got it. We started with a song. We started with Amy Winehouse. What an absolute anthem that is. Amy was my breakup I Ching, Frank was all I listened to

and In My Bed was the definitive breakup sex song. That was your album. Philippa, do you have an anthem that goes along with any of your I do not have a breakup anthem no. There's not a favourite one. Sally any

spring to mind for you? The Smiths and Leonard Cohen they're really good for wallowing in a breakup and feeling sort of really outwardly morose and sad and pessimistic but then Leonard Cohen brings a sweetness and a belief in love that kind of brings you back round and then I always think when you're more upset or you're more serious enough, you always listen to the lyrics all of a sudden, don't you?

Yes, yes. You could be going along your life and then suddenly you're like, hey, he was saying that to me all along and you discover these new meanings. I also believe in that sort of pessimism. I honestly think that little bit of pessimism makes you happier because I hear people all the time in really happy relationships say, we'll never split up, we'll never get divorced. And I think you can, you can, and you can prevent it.

There are things you can do to prevent it. And I think that complacency doesn't necessarily make for successful relationships. And having been through a divorce or a horrible breakup, you always think it's possible and know you can stop it. I absolutely agree, and I think that's huge. And the relationship I'm in now, you know, my marriage, my I hope my only marriage. Well I hope so too and I'm gonna have to leave it there. On that happy note Daisy Buchanan, Philippa Perry and Sally Hughes thank you very much.

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