You’re Allowed To Walk Away From People You Love
You’re allowed to walk away from people you love. It seems counterintuitive. It sends a shock to the system. Why would anyone want to separate themselves from someone they love? Creating distance from someone who’s made your life a living hell seems reasonable, but someone you love?
No.
It takes a heart that can hold vast amounts of sadness yet still see hope in valuing something more. It takes courage to walk away. It’s sometimes the bravest thing a person can do. It’s not a failure. It’s listening to your intuition.
Walking away isn’t about severing ties at a time when relationships are already scarce. It is all about safeguarding your mental health.
In times of financial hardship, economic stress, compassion fatigue, and teetering relationships, creating distance is a tool to pause volatile environments instead of completely destroying them.It doesn’t have to be a permanent arrangement—though it can be.
This isn’t about leaving for a fickle argument or abandoning your responsibility. This isn’t about making snap judgments. It’s a tough, well-thought-out decision. It’s hearing promises of change but seeing no evidence of it. As a result, you distance yourself.
Why distance yourself from someone you love?
You can distance yourself from someone you love to allow choice. Love always allows choice, even when the choice goes against everything you want. Giving a person space is sometimes an act of allowing them to live their dreams, even when you disagree with their decisions. Some people need to do things their way. Freedom can range from allowing your adult child to make their own decisions to giving your spouse the space to pursue their passion.
You can distance yourself from people who aren’t hearing you. It can be difficult to see eye to eye when people are dealing with their own demons. Right now, they don’t have the capacity to meet your needs. You must take responsibility to fulfill your own needs to the best of your ability.
You can distance yourself from people who continually speak harmful words towards you. Many problems stem from poor boundaries with overbearing family, friends, and people you love. You can destroy your mental health when you keep destructive people in close proximity to your life. The words you and others speak into your life can lift you up or tear you down.
You can distance yourself from someone you love to work on your healing. Maybe you’re the one who needs space to heal. You need to use this moment to get clean, get help, and process your emotions. Reaching out for help is courageous.
Distance brings clarity. Distance pauses the noise. It pauses the infiltration of other people’s thoughts, opinions, and control over your life. Here, you can sit in silence, listen to your soul, and decide what you want.
How to distance yourself from someone you love.
You can create emotional distance as a boundary. You can safeguard your vulnerability against people by distinguishing friends from acquaintances. Be careful not to confuse this with stonewalling, which is completely shutting down—one of the later signs of relationship breakdown.
Emotional distance looks more like giving people guarded access to your heart after they’ve repeatedly broken your trust. Emotional distance also looks like lowering your expectations of people, acknowledging that you can’t force anyone, except yourself, to change. You have to be aware that people might not tolerate emotional distance. Thus, they may end your relationship altogether.
“Expectation feeds frustration. It’s an unhealthy attachment to people, things, and outcomes we wish we could control; but don’t.” – Steve Maraboli
You can create physical distance. Whether it’s intrusive in-laws or family members, creating physical space is sometimes all you need to strengthen your relationship.
We take each other for granted when we get too comfortable and are used to seeing each other. Creating physical distance may or may not bring a new perspective to your relationship.
Distancing yourself from the people you love feels like a part of you is missing. Distancing yourself from someone you love doesn’t have to mean completely cutting them out of your life. It’s creating enough space to heal and grow. It means respecting yourself enough to recognize what doesn’t serve you. It means giving yourself the time needed to evaluate yourself.
Creating distance is an art. The art of creating distance is knowing the right timing and right pace to do it. And the true art of distancing is identifying the experiences and people who are worth your stay.