Breaking up with someone who has been important to you can bring a sense of loss, grief, hurt, and sometimes anger. But these feelings are not inevitable. Contrary to what society suggests, separation can be a positive thing when we look at it through the lens of Truth. I’d like to tell you how this worked for me.
I was in a multiyear relationship with my boyfriend and had great plans for the future. However, it gradually became apparent that something wasn’t right. Things had happened that shook the relationship severely, and though we’d made the effort to work through the difficulties, there hadn’t been much harmony between us for a while. Finally, we had to face the question of whether to break up.
This prospect pulled the rug out from under me. I began to feel sad, helpless, and hopeless. Without realizing it, I had become emotionally dependent on my boyfriend. Suddenly I was afraid of not being able to survive on my own, and the fear grew. I began wondering, “Why does this scenario look so unbearable to me?”
After a few days of deeply studying the weekly Bible Lesson found in the Christian Science Quarterly, it became clear what the problem was. Instead of putting God at the center of my life, I was focused on my boyfriend. He had become my own little god. I felt I couldn’t live without him. I realized I had completely ignored the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3, New International Version).
Like the unwise man referred to in Christ Jesus’ parable in Matthew 7:24–27, I had built my house on the shifting sands of material sense and personal attachment, and now it was sinking. The more preoccupied I became with finding happiness and security in the relationship, the more discord there was between us. Disappointment, sadness, and anger had become my daily companions.
Instead of putting God at the center of my life, I was focused on my boyfriend.
Once I recognized that I had broken the First Commandment, it was time to put the whole relationship in God’s hands. Or in other words, let go of trying to control the outcome of it and trust entirely in God’s direction. This was hard, because I thought that if my boyfriend and I separated, I would lose all the good qualities that came with him, such as honesty, order, dependability, selflessness, care, and empathy. My biggest fear was that I would lose the good and love I associated with him.
Christian Science reveals that God, Spirit, is the only cause, and we are the effect. God is the omnipotent creator who, as the Bible tells us, has made everything very good—including each of us as His perfect image and likeness. So rather than thinking I had to use every human means to fix the relationship and keep it together at all costs, I saw that I actually didn’t have to do anything except reflect God. I knew God had the best plan for each of us.
During this time, I found inspiration in articles from JSH-Online. These helped me understand that disappointment, sadness, and anger stem from fear, and fear is no part of God’s kingdom. Fear arises from the false concept that evil is real and more powerful than good. But God, who is infinite and made all, did not make anything but good.
It was clear that my boyfriend and I could never lose love, even if we decided to go our separate ways.
If we acknowledge more than one God, we leave room in our thinking for agreeing that we can lose good or that someone can express evil. In this difficult period, I sometimes saw only a frightened, egotistical, insecure, inconsiderate, or hurtful person. But through my prayers, I came to understand that there is in reality only the complete spiritual expression of God.
Every time I was tempted to think of myself or my boyfriend as less than this spiritual expression, I instead thought: “Stop! God is Love, and God is always here, so Love is always here. We are both God’s beloved children, so we express only the good qualities God has given us.”
I continued praying this way until it was clear that my boyfriend and I could never lose love, even if we decided to go our separate ways. This thought was so clear to me that I was ready to move on. The Lord’s Prayer says, “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10), not my will be done. I felt I really had turned the whole situation over to God.
Eventually my boyfriend and I were able to talk things through harmoniously and separated on good terms. In a way I couldn’t have imagined, all the bad feelings and disharmonies of the previous weeks were replaced with a natural and loving care for each other. Each of us even came to the same conclusions about why the relationship wasn’t working anymore.
That was over two years ago, and since then I have not shed a tear or felt sad. I don’t feel that I have lost love through this separation, but rather gained the conviction that divine Love has unlimited facets and forms, and that Love is God, the source of all love.
This experience deepened my understanding of God, and of each of us as God’s spiritual reflection, not lacking any good thing. Moreover, I’ve understood that physical separation doesn’t mean losing anything at all! On the contrary, it can even mean that harmony will be reestablished. My most important takeaway was that we never lose qualities from God in our lives, because even if someone we have loved is no longer there, the qualities of God that they reflect (and we do too) cannot be lost. They become apparent in other forms in our experience.
When God is at the center of our affections, we gain satisfaction, peace, and lasting joy.
