Daphne Rose Kingma - Coming Apart: Why Relationships End and How to Live Through the Ending of Yours

Praise for Daphne Rose Kingma

Praise for When You Think You're Not Enough

The Love Doctor has done it again! In her many books on relationships, Daphne Rose Kingma has written eloquently and wisely on love. Now she turns her attention to the relationship upon which all others are groundedthe love of self. If you're good at giving to others what you most need for yourself, please read this book. You are worth it!

MJ Ryan, author of Attitudes of Gratitude

This book speaks to our hearts and souls. Daphne Rose Kingma helps readers root out beliefs and behaviors that limit love of self and others and then, with gentle wisdom, guides us onto a more positive and empowered path. Once I began reading, I couldn't put it down!

Sue Patton Thoele, author of The Courage to Be Yourself

Praise for The Ten Things to Do When Your Life Falls Apart

Anyone going through a dark night of the soul needs to have this book. It will be your closest companion and your most tender angel. Daphne Rose Kingma more than speaks to your soul; she knows how to heal it.

Marianne Williamson, author of A Return to Love

What if, during the worst times you can imagine, you felt a warm and steady hand on your back guiding you forward? What if it helped you remember to turn toward what can be possible instead of against yourself or away from what you are afraid of? This book is that hand. Read it and you'll live better.

Dawna Markova, PhD, co-creator of Random Acts of Kindness

Praise for The Future of Love

In this innovative book, Daphne Rose Kingma breaks down the popular myth of how love is supposed' to be by introducing us to a broad spectrum of intimate connections. She reveals how to work through the various confrontations that every relationship encounters and reach deeper levels of love and intimacy.

John Gray, PhD, author of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

Deeply insightful and daringly fresh, this book takes a breathtaking step away from tradition and into the possibility of saying yes to the true and grandest desire of our being: to love fully.

Neale Donald Walsch, author of Conversations with God

Also by Daphne Rose Kingma

When You Think You're Not Enough: The Four Life-Changing Steps to Loving Yourself

The Ten Things to Do When Your Life Falls Apart: An Emotional and Spiritual Handbook

True Love: How to Make Your Relationship Sweeter, Deeper and More Passionate

Weddings from the Heart: Contemporary and Traditional Ceremonies for an Unforgettable Wedding

365 Days of Love

The Future of Love: The Power of the Soul in Intimate Relationships

A Lifetime of Love: How to Bring More Depth, Meaning and Intimacy into Your Relationship

Finding True Love: The Four Essential Keys to Discovering the Love of Your Life

Heart & Soul: Living the Joy, Truth & Beauty of Your Intimate Relationship

Coming

Apart

Why Relationships End
and How to Live Through
the Ending of Yours

Daphne Rose Kingma

Conari Press

This edition first published in 2012 by Conari Press, an imprint of

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

With offices at:

665 Third Street, Suite 400

San Francisco, CA 94107

www.redwheelweiser.com

Copyright 2000, 2012.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

ISBN: 978-1-57324-547-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on request.

Cover and text design: Jim Warner

Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro

Cover art: Robert Burridge

Printed in the United States of America
MAL

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992 (R1997).

For Nancy

who believed

For Mary Jane

Who insisted

For Wink

who encouraged

and

For Leo

Who proved beyond the shadow of a doubt

It is difficult suddenly to put aside a long-standing love
It is difficult, but somehow you must do it.

CATULLUS

Contents

A Note to My Readers

T HIS IS THE 4TH EDITION of Coming Apart. When it was originally written, a relationship, and especially a marriage, was generally, at least in public, considered to be between a man and a woman. As we now know, a multitude of relationships are between partners of the same gender, and many of these relationships, too, come apart.

Although the relationships profiled in this book follow the male to female configuration typical of the days of its writing, the issues and relationship dynamics apply whether you are a man in a relationship with another man, or a woman in relationship with a woman. The truth is that whether you are in a heterosexual or same-sex relationship, you may find yourself identifying with the person of either your own or the opposite gender in these stories. That's because just like relationships themselves, relationship dynamics are not confined within gender lines.

Above all, this note is an indication that our expression of love in relationships has found many new forms since this book was originally written. Whatever your relationship orientation, may it offer you the insight and comfort you need.

Daphne Rose Kingma
Santa Barbara, California
November, 2011

Introduction to the
Revised Edition

W HEN I WAS A GRADUATE STUDENT getting divorced, a colleague of mine said to me: Well, now you're the kind of person your mother wouldn't want you to have as a friend. I was devastated by his remark. Yet five years later I found myself counseling a number of people who were shocked to find that their marriages, too, were ending. Wondering how he'd ever get through the process, one of my clients asked if there was a book I could recommend to help him navigate these roiling emotional waters. When I realized that there wasn't, I was inspired to write Coming Apart.

Although in our hearts we still hold marriage as the form we most want our romantic relationships to take, the truth is that in the years since this book was written we have seen a whole raft of new relationships spring up like mushrooms. We've also seen that along with marrying, people often come apart; that along with falling in love, we frequently end relationships. Whatever your relationship configuration, marriage, living together, or hopeful romance, if it's coming to an end, you'll find your heart hurting, your psyche scrambled, and your world turned upside down.

No matter how many people have already ended a relationshipand millions haveno matter whether you've done it before yourself, the end of a romantic relationship is still one of the absolutely most devastating emotional experiences you will ever go through. It's like a death, except that with a death you at least know for sure that the story is over: there's no going back. With the end of a relationship, however, there are thousands of agonizing opportunities for second-guessing, wondering whether you've done the right thing, asking yourself if you shouldn't try harder, if there isn't some way to rewrite the story so it can have a happy ending.

In the last several decades, divorce, the legal, court-sanctioned break-up of a marriage, has really come out of the closet. Fully fifty percent of first-time marriages end in divorce, and many statistics speculate that the percentage is even higher for second-time marital unions. In spite of the fact that divorce is now a familiar thread in the fabric of our society, there's still a tremendous amount of shame and confusion when a marriage comes apart. And the multitude of invisible break-upspulling the plug on a living-together relationship or a romance that's barely out of the starting gatecan be equally, if not even more, traumatic. That's because when you're still just exploring the possibilities of a relationship, or if you've been in it for a while and are wondering whether or not to take it to the next levelto start living together, for example, or to turn your living-together relationship into a marriagethe heartbreak can be almost doubled. Not only are you losing the relationship you have, you're also losing the relationship that now you never will havethe one you thought might evolve out of this one.