What 4 Things to Do when Someone Leaves Your Life

This post is a follow-on to our previous post, The 2 Littlest Words Causing the 4 Biggest Problems, about setting boundaries. When you decide to set healthy boundaries in your life, it’s usually not all rainbows and unicorns. It can get really messy, because along with moving your life forward in a healthy way, setting boundaries often upsets the unhealthy apple carts of the people around us.

The purpose of living in community, like we were designed by God to do, is twofold: (1) To receive help from our community with our boulders—those burdens and life events too large to carry alone, and (2) to serve the community by carrying our own backpack—the personal responsibility each of us can and should carry on our own.

Our previous post identified & discussed the 4 boundary problems (from the excellent book Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend) that happen when we get our boulders and our backpacks confused.

Compliant – Won’t Say “No.” Seeing only boulders, these folks exhaust themselves trying to carry everyone else’s backpack. I was one of these. They get their value from doing good things for others. It’s hard to see because it looks so good. Often they’re trying to earn love.
Controller – Won’t hear “No.” Controllers violate other’s boundaries to force or manipulate others into carrying their backpack. Often they are abusers. Or they can be that person who argues with you when they ask you to do something and you say no. “Ok, but can you just…”
Non-Responsive – Won’t Say “Yes.” Seeing only backpacks, non-responsive people ignore their responsibility to love others by never helping anyone else with a boulder. They are often not emotionally available and see others as needy.
Avoidant – Won’t Hear “Yes.” This is someone who won’t let anyone else help carry their boulder. They will help others, but no one is allowed to help them. The vulnerability is too scary.

Think about a controller in a relationship with a compliant. This could be a marriage, a work relationship, or a family dynamic between siblings. It’s a sweet deal for the controller. The compliant covers for them. The compliant does their work for them. It all falls on the compliant. And the compliant gets to feel good because of all they’re doing, earning the love they desperately crave. Sweet deal.

Or think about a non-responsive in a relationship with an avoidant. The avoidant is never vulnerable, never asking for the help the non-responsive won’t give. Sweet deal for the non-responsive, not having to deal with a “needy” person. Sweet deal for the avoidant, avoiding all that scary vulnerability. Until the avoidant’s internal bitterness grows to the breaking point, and they both wonder where that messy explosion came from.

Such dysfunctional relationships are unhealthy for both parties and, although it might work in the short-term, it will fall apart and not work long-term. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.

Each of these (and many other) dysfunctional relationships have benefits for both sides. The controller gets to control. The compliant gets to earn love. The non-responsive never has to help. The avoidant never has to be vulnerable.

The problem is false advertising. None of these lead to the happiness they promised. They’re dysfunctional, and out of God’s great love for us, he doesn’t let them work for long.

So What Happens When…

… the compliant gets healthy and consistently tells the controller “no”?

… the controller gets healthy and neither needs nor wants the compliant to do everything for them anymore?

… the non-responsive gets healthy and asks the avoidant if they need help with that boulder they’ve been hiding?

… the avoidant gets healthy and consistently asks the non-responsive for help with legitimate boulders?

Yikes!

Here’s the deal.

Sick attracts sick. If our spouse is sick, so are we. If our boss has boundary issues, so do we. Both people are getting a benefit. A sick, dysfunctional, hurtful benefit that ultimately is not good for anybody, but it’s still a benefit. The thing is, when one sick person gets healthy, it upsets the whole apple cart.

The other sick person thinks, “Hey, wait a minute! What happened to our arrangement where we each took advantage of each other’s sickness? I thought we had a deal here!”

When one sick person gets healthy, the other sick person has a choice. Well, maybe not immediately. They can try to bully, manipulate, or punish you out of getting healthy and back into the comfortable, sick, arrangement. But if you stay healthy, they have a choice to make.

They can either get healthy also, or they can leave. Those are the only two possibilities. One of those two will happen. Sick will not live with healthy for long.

We hope and pray they stay and choose to get healthy. But they might leave. What can you do if they leave? You can do these 4, very important, things.

1) Let Them Leave.

You can’t stop them. You can’t control them. You can only control you. This can really hurt. I know. But the alternative is return to the sickness you just got free from. And if you do that, you’ve taught them sickness works. Their only chance for them to get healthy is if you stick to your guns. Call their bluff.

Getting healthy is a high stacks game of chicken. People who benefited from your sickness will not like you healthy. They will try to get you back into that old, sick, false, identity. Stick to your guns. Stay healthy. Set those boundaries you’re learning.

They will either relate to your new, healthy identity, or they will drop out of your life, which can be really painful. But if they choose to go, let them go.

2) Grieve the Loss.

When someone leaves your life, it’s the death of a relationship. It’s especially painful when it’s a spouse, a parent, a child, or some other family member. Allow yourself to grieve the loss. Allow yourself to go through the 5 stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance). They can change every day, come in any order, and repeat often.

Feel the feelings. Run into the pain. Find a healthy outlet for your grief. Maybe long walks, building something, working in your workshop, talking it through with a safe friend—whatever healthy outlet works for you.

You’ll go through all the phases. The trick is to not get stuck in one phase too long. For example, it’s common for people losing a relationship to get stuck in bargaining. If I can just explain it to them one more time; if I can just explain it better this time… Listen to your godly friends and family.

3) Realize the Story’s Not Over.

Even though we know it’s not God’s highest and best, honor their right to leave, without trying to manipulate them out of it. What?!? I know. But look, it may just be the catalyst they need to address the sickness in their own life.

Realize also that God moved in your life to bring you to a place where you’re ready to get healthy. They may not be there yet. You’ve upset their apple cart. Yes, it was a dysfunctional cart with poison apples that were hurting you both, and it needed to be upset. But just realize that you getting healthy has put them in a scary place where they are not in control. In fact, it may have been a long time since they felt this much out of control. Give them some grace and some time to sort it out.

Now please, don’t delay getting healthy because of someone else’s reaction (real or feared). If it’s on your heart, this is God’s timing for you. Do it! Just be prepared for the storms, and to give other people the time, space, and grace to sort out the new you, the changes in your relationship, and what it means for them.

4) Pray, Pray, Pray.

As Christians, prayer is our largest, and probably most underused, weapon. It’s huge. When you commit to pray for someone over the long haul, you don’t even have to tell them you’re praying for them, and you can see positive effects (eventually) in their lives. Not always, but often. And often not quickly, but often eventually.

So take the plunge.

Get healthy. Set those boundaries. Dare to say and hear the words “yes” and “no” in the appropriate measures. Trust God to guard your heart instead of trying to do it yourself. It’s the scariest, but the most worthwhile, adventure you’ll ever take.