Sarah Catherall's epic break-up story has lessons for all of us

Published Dec 2, 2024, 2:00 PM

Journalist and author Sarah Catherall shares her story of an epic break-up from the gut-wrenching grief to the importance of self-love and personal growth. Whether you're in a relationship or single, it has lessons for all of us...

 

WANT MORE FROM SARAH?

You can find Sarah’s book How To Break Up Well (Bateman Books) here or catch her @scatherall or via her site here

 

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Hey thereon Welcome to Extra Healthy Ish. Yes you have tuned into the big sister podcast Too Healthy Ish from Body and Soul. I am your host of Felicity Harley. We're talking all things break up today. My guest is journalist and author Sarah Catherine. She's got a new book out called How to Break Up Well, and she's here to share her story of an epic breakup, from the gut ranching grief to the importance of well finding yourself, loving who you are, and of course how it all led to this amazing personal growth. Whether you're going through a breakup or not, I actually found her story very inspiring and empowering. Sarah, thanks for joining us today on Extra Healthy Ish. How are you?

It's so great to be here. Thanks for having me for Lusty. I'm wonderful.

I'm looking forward to chatting about this, but first I have to ask you this question that I ask everyone who comes on the podcast. How do you stay extra healthy?

Well, I'm I'm a daily runner. I get up in the morning and I have my cup of coffee, and then I take my dog into the bush and I run. And that's just what gives me a little pep up for the day. I Yeah, I love running, my happy it's my happy place. I also I eat well and I try and laugh, have lots of laughter.

Laugh forget, laugh and have fun. Yeah. How long do you run each morning? Are you? I mean you run a marathon, as you told us in Healthy is so.

You I have, Look, I'm not more of it. I will run any time between from half an hour to an hour, but depending on how much time I have. And yeah, I often listen to a podcast. I listened to Yours this morning, Blister Yours. Yeah, your episodes love one. Yes, I just love that time of asissing my thoughts and it's a form of meditation for me. I've always been a bit of an active relaxer, so i'll I find that that's my relaxation time.

I like that active relaxer. I'm with you on that.

Yeah.

Now, before we talk all things well, how to break up, well, tell us a bit about your experience your Yeah, your experience with breakup. You had a big one. The days, the weeks and the months afterwards.

Yeah, it was so. It was It was two months before my fortieth birthday and we had had Yeah, it was t Yeah, I know, and I was actually finding It's funny because I'm fifty five now, but I found my approach my fortieth birthday really hard. I don't know, for some reason, it was felt I felt really vulnerable. And anyway, I the kids were three, six of nine, and we were We've been quite unhappy for some time. So just for some background on how it all happened. So we were in that you know in your sushies, you've often got so much going on. My career was at its peak. He had a business, he was aware a lot, we were renovating a house with three young children. The pressures were huge, and so about six months before we were making each other pretty unhappy. Actually, and I so about six months before we got some counseling and he said, you know, things don't improve, it's over. And I thought it was an empty threat. I mean, I've married this guy for life. I mean, you know, I've just thought, oh, couples have their ups and downs. And so we went on a family holiday to Disneyland and we just had spent a lot of the time arguing, and we came back and he just said it's over. And so blindsided, absolutely, I've never experienced anything like this. I was an excellent shock. I it's it's true. I think I've blocked quite a lot of the actual moment out, but my whole world was up, you know, like it's not just the loss of that relationship, it's your family, as you know it, the extended family. I got on very well with his family, and I still do now, but that took a while to come back. You know, your friends, you've got so on. So I liken it to like being in a car accident or something, just this absolute shuttering, yeah, earth shattering. Yeah. And so the only way I could get through it was really sleeping pills, had to go on antidepressants just to get myself out of bears. I went through the denial phase, No, no, how could this be over? Then you go, oh, I'm loving it. I loved him, I hate him. You feel like you're going a bit crazy. It's the most it's They liken it to like a death, actually a breakout like that.

How did you come to understand the grief and how did you kind of get yourself through it apart from the sleeping pills and the crawling out of bed and.

Yeah, well actually running helped. Running helped, exercise girlfriends, chatting with girlfriends, being around, being with people, friends, and I how did I get through it? It is a blur. I worked, I went to my roach, I wrote poetry, you know, I did anything to try and get myself through, you know, through through it.

Yeah, you wrote, you write about the army of support, And that is such a great term, I think, because you right, you need your friends, you need exercise or whatever kind of feels your feels your cup or hopefully tries to fill your cup. What about therapy and getting help? At what point did you realize, Okay, I really need some help here.

Yeah. Well I'd actually been seeing a therapist up till then, just occasionally, and she was amazing and she really helped me. She was the one that helped me actually draw this orange and say, let's look at your life now, look at all the carve your orange into slices, slight, carve your orange into slices. This is you and him. What do you want to do with that that slice now? And she helped me understand that. Well, she told me that it was going to be a temporary state and that I would feel better. That was It was really helpful. I had a really wonderful relationship with this therapist and she listened to me while I cried and so on, and that was Yeah, So I needed that because I think the thing is girlfriends can only friends can only listen to so much, and you quickly realize who is there for you or as a who can cope with this emotional load because it's hard for your friends as well, they've lost you as a couple, and so I think it's really helpful and their families. A lot of people don't know what to say. So actually, if you can afford it, and I think there is also some some free counseling as well, but if you can afford it, getting some therapies really helpful. And also the other tip I'd say is don't use your lawyer as your therapist with a lot of people do.

What about if you know? You said friends can be there and a lot of them don't know what to say. What if you are a friend and someone that you know is going through a breakup? What what's the best responses that you got from friends that really helped you?

It was thing, It was them saying things like I'm here for you, How can I help you know? Is there anything you need and also you've got this, you'll be okay, you'll get through it. And I think it's really helpful as a friend if you actually see that that that relationship wasn't probably ideal for that person to sort of help by giving them evidence and saying, well, he may or she may have left you, but actually just think about that time that this happened, or try and sort of focus help that person, because often what we do, the natural thing is to try and when you've been dumped or left, the natural thing is to try and win that person back. You bargain and you say, oh, like for me, I said, oh, I'll quit my job. I know it's really stressful. You know all these things that were actually important to me. I was willing to bargain to win him back. So you do this bargaining. You can do this bargaining. So I think supporting your friend if that person has been left or if they made the decision to leave as well, you don't do this, especially if they're children involved, You don't do this slightly, So just letting them know that you're there for them.

And often when you get dumped or if you're the dump, you will focus on all the good things and forget all the bad things. And I think as a friend, you can go, yeah, but remember that time and that time, because often the friends see things that perhaps you don't with your with you don't exactly your breakup lens.

And also you're in that state if you are, like I was used to being in a couple, and a couple, you're in that state of thinking you want this, even if you can sort of recognize that it wasn't the best relationship for you. Sometimes a good enough relationship is better than no relationship, so you might try and cling on to that person, so you know, it might be actually things like let's go for a walk, or how about planning a weekend away with your girlfriend, you know, just to One of the hard things is if you've had this quite busy time with this partner and so and couple friends, that sense of being on your own and being alone and being lonely for the first time. I found that quite harsh. So I think for friends to kind of I'm getting together and saying, oh, how can we support you know, Joanna, and let's plan a weekend away or you know, let yeah.

We're back after this short break with more from Sarah, how did you work through, you know, being lonely and also turning up to things when other people have partners and you're the only single one. I mean, there is many things when you come out of a break up, especially from a long term partner. How did you heal from from all these?

Well? It took some time actually for us to meet. It really does. And I think the thing is that you you are a bit of a social outcast in some situations. You know, there'll be dinner parties and you won't be invited because it's a couples are going along, you know, and so you have to take some time. I think it's really hard. Actually, I think we underestimate what it's like. In those early days, I was going to say, I made a lot of single mum friends. So I thought, okay, so this is part of the work. This world that i'm it's going to be more difficult for me to be in for a time. And so I made these wonderful new single mum friends and we had so much fun. One of my very she's still a great friend today. We took our kids camping, you know, a year after my breakout, and we had so much fun and we showed them. You know we we single mums are powerful. We're matriarchs of our households. So yeah, that's that's how I healed. I just had to shift and change. I had to adapt to the new situation.

What were some key learnings around perhaps you know, if kids are involved or dog's involved, off in that there's a dog involved, Some key learnings you learn, Some key things you learn around breaking up, well when it comes to sharing property, humans, animals.

Yeah, it's so this is a big part of my big motivation for writing the book Felicity, because my daughter's in our twenty four, twenty one, and eighteen, and I was always saying My mantra was, I want them to be healthy and happy down the track. I don't want them to be scarred by this breakup. And so my thing was, let's behave. I've always said, behave like grown ups, like you chose this person once. It hasn't worked out, but let's allow our kids to have still believe in love, still have happy, healthy relationships. So that's the thing. So I wanted they were always co parented, they went to their dad's. It was important to me, and I think I think sometimes people get into a bit of a pouse struggle. So they especially, you know, it's like I try and punish. They try and punish their ex via their children, and you can't have them that weekend. I know you want them to go to whatever event. I'm going to make it really difficult. And I don't think that's fear nothing. I think that's childish. So yeah, behave like grown ups and it will and eventually, like my ex and I are our friends and we get on well.

And that surely wasn't easy sometimes when you felt like exploding, but you had to almost pull yourself together and be grown up. But you're grown up.

Oh yeah, absolutely, I mean exactly. Of course, of course you sometimes you do explode, You explode within yourself, but you don't need to.

What did you learn about yourself through, you know, the breakup time, and particularly what you have taken into your new relationship.

Well, I realized that I had such huge personal growth going through this relationship breakup. And I think it was quite interesting because when the breakup happened, I was a real victim. Telessly. I was like, oh, it's so unfair, it's all his fault. But we were actually mate. But we had become the worst versions of ourselves around each other. You know how somebody can often just bring out the worst in you. There's a.

Relationship we have, and we.

Hadn't started out that way. But I actually realized as I wrote the book and over time that at times I was a bit of a grump. I was a bit of a nag. We became he became the more fun one I got. I was so stressed, and so I think I was recognizing that he was my chapter one and I'm so happy that we were together and we had our kids. But the other thing I learned is I never knew that a relation could be easy now. But you know how people say, oh, I'm with this person and it's so easy, And I didn't understand that concept, because the two of us together was like sparks and fly. We're all missed a bit similar, and I don't I'm with this lovely new partner. But I don't know if I would have chosen him for my first when I was looking in my late twenties or mid twenties, I was drawn to my ex's dynamic personality. He was successful, he was driven. I was too, you know, But over time I felt a bit lost and dominated, and our relationship as time went on. My current partner is low key easy, he's clever, he's successful, but together we bring out the best in each other. And I think that's something. I think that's that's what I learned that I'm better suited with someone like that. And I think it's something to really think about, you know, for your listeners that are in there at certain age wanting to partner. Is this person going to grow with you? Where you going to grow apart? And do they bring out the best in you? Do the two of you together fit like a glove or just as there's so many annoyances that it's just going to get harder and harder when you throw on the preciures of children and jobs and house renovations or what are you doing? So I think that was a big thing for me, understanding what yeah, understanding.

Questions you commit And I think, you know, the other inspiring thing about your story is that you can call time on things that don't work. It's not going to be easy. You're going to hit there are loads of grief and deal with so many emotions, but you can come out the other side better for it.

Yeah, that's absolutely right, and it's really hard. Sometimes somebody does have to make a decision, and it was his decision. I would never have left. I was kept married for life, but I can now say I'm really pleased that he did well.

Sarah, thank you for coming on Extra Healthy Ish and sharing your inspiring story.

Oh thanks for having me for Lustener. It's been so great to talk.

What a lovely story Sarah shared with us, from wealth the depths of grief after a breakup to the highs of finding someone new, if you are going through a breakup, if you know someone who is grabs. Sarah's new book is called How to Break Up Well and it is out now anything else at a Body insoul dot com dot or you you can follow us on social media. You can catch me at Felicity Harley as well. Check outur print edition which is out in your local Sunday paper and until tomorrow, stay Extra Healthy Ish