Dr. Leahcim Semaj
Psychologist | Author | Social Philosopher
The Semaj MindSpa — Where Mind, Spirit, and Science Meet
There are some relationships that end because somebody did something terrible. There was betrayal. Abuse. Dishonesty. Disrespect. Perhaps infidelity. Those endings, painful as they are, are relatively easy to explain. When people ask what happened, you have an answer.
But what about the relationships where nobody did anything particularly wrong? No villain. No dramatic confrontation. No scandal to report. You simply woke up one day and realized that a relationship that once fitted comfortably into your life no longer does. That, I suspect, is much harder to explain. Because we are taught how to begin relationships. We are encouraged to repair them, forgive people, remain loyal, stay committed and “work things out.” All good advice. But we don’t talk nearly enough about another possibility:
Some relationships may simply have completed their work in our lives.
The older I get, the more interesting that possibility becomes. By 50, 60, 70 and beyond, some of our relationships come with serious mileage. These are people who knew us when we had more hair and less belly. When we were broke. When the children were small. When the marriage was new. When we were trying to figure out what we wanted to do with our lives. They remember things about us that we may have conveniently forgotten. That history matters. But does history automatically deserve a future? I’m not sure it does.
Can You Love Someone and No Longer Want a Life With Them?
I believe you can. And that may be one of the most difficult things for people to accept. We tend to treat love as proof that a relationship should continue. If you still love me, why would you leave? If I still care about you, surely we can make this work. Maybe. But love and compatibility are not the same thing. You can genuinely love someone and no longer enjoy living with them. You can want good things for them without wanting to organize the next 15 or 20 years of your life around them. You may even discover something that feels almost shameful to admit: You are happier when they are not around. (Could this be one of the drivers for the increase in grey divorces?)
That doesn’t automatically mean either person is bad. Maybe the relationship was exactly right for the two people you were 25 years ago. You raised children together. Paid school fees. Survived job losses. Sat beside each other in hospital waiting rooms. Buried parents. Bought a house. Watched children leave home. Built a history that cannot simply be erased because things feel different today. All of that was real.
But this is real too: The person you have become may want a different kind of life. Perhaps you want more peace. More conversation. More affection. More freedom. More laughter. More adventure. More intimacy. Maybe you simply want to wake up on Tuesday morning and decide what you want to do with Tuesday. Love can remain after the desire to continue sharing a life has gone. Painful? Certainly. Impossible? I don’t think so.
When a 30-Year Friendship Has Run Its Course
I have been thinking about old friendships as well. Some friendships survive because they remain alive. Others survive because they are old. Not quite the same thing. You meet an old friend for lunch and within 15 minutes you’re back at school. You’re talking about who did what in 1972. Somebody brings up the same outrageous incident you’ve all laughed about for 40 years. Nothing wrong with that. I enjoy those conversations myself.
There is something comforting about being with people who knew you before you became whatever you eventually became. But suppose that is all you have left? Suppose every conversation requires a trip backwards because there is very little connecting you in the present? Your values may have changed. Your interests may be different. Your lifestyles may have gone in opposite directions. One of you is curious about what comes next; the other seems determined to spend the rest of life discussing what happened before. Nobody betrayed anybody.
You simply stopped becoming together.
That phrase may sound harsh, but I think it describes what happens in many long friendships. And because the friendship has lasted 30 or 40 years, we assume it must continue. Why? Longevity tells us how long something has existed. It doesn’t necessarily tell us whether it is still alive.
Nobody Wants to Be the Bad Guy
Then there are relationships that survive for an entirely different reason. Nobody wants to end them. Or, more accurately, nobody wants to be the person who ended them. There is a difference. I suspect more marriages and friendships fall into this category than we are prepared to admit. Two people know the relationship has changed fundamentally. They don’t talk much anymore. They aren’t particularly interested in each other’s worlds. They function well enough. Bills get paid. Birthdays are remembered. Family events are attended. Christmas dinner happens. Gladys Knight & The Pips perfectly captures this sentiment.
From the outside, everything looks fine. Inside? Two people may be living increasingly separate lives. But who wants to say it? Who wants to tell the children? Who wants to explain it to friends? And at 65 or 70, somebody will certainly ask: “But after all these years, why leave now?” There is enormous social pressure attached to longevity. The person who leaves often becomes the villain. The person who stays gets to say, “I tried.” So sometimes people stay. Not necessarily because they are happy. Not always because they are in love. Sometimes because leaving requires a courage they have not yet found. Staying can occasionally be fear dressed up as loyalty. Not always. But sometimes.
Who Still Has Access to You Simply Because They Always Have?
This is the question I keep coming back to. Who still has access to you simply because they always have? Think about that for a moment. There are people who can call you at almost any hour. People who assume they can drop by. People who expect you to solve their problems. People who know you will lend the money, provide the ride, listen to the crisis, attend the function or rearrange your Sunday because that’s what you have always done. At some point, access became entitlement. And perhaps you never noticed. Some people were given access to a version of you that existed 20 or 30 years ago. The problem is that the access remained even after that version of you disappeared.
We change passwords when security circumstances change. We change locks when necessary. Yet emotionally, we sometimes give people lifetime passes. Why? Someone knowing you for 40 years does not automatically give them the right to disturb your peace for the next 20. History may explain access. It does not guarantee it.
But Be Careful With This “Outgrowing People” Business
Now, I need to challenge my own argument. Because there is something about the popular language of “I’ve outgrown them” that makes me slightly uncomfortable. It can sound terribly self-important. As if I have evolved into some magnificent new creature while everybody else has remained psychologically stranded at the bus stop. Sometimes we haven’t outgrown people. Sometimes we have become impatient. Sometimes selfish. Sometimes intolerant. And sometimes lazy.
Relationships require work. Long relationships require even more. The friend who irritates you today may be the same person who sat with you at 2:00 in the morning when your world was falling apart. The spouse you now describe as “boring” may have spent 30 years helping to create the stable life that now gives you the luxury of seeking excitement. People also go through seasons. Grief can change somebody. Illness can change them. Retirement certainly can. Financial problems can consume a person for a while. Menopause, caregiving, losing a parent, watching children migrate, suddenly becoming responsible for grandchildren – all of these things affect how people show up in relationships. So before announcing that you have “outgrown” somebody, there is another question worth asking: Have I really outgrown this relationship – or have I simply stopped investing in it? I don’t think we should answer that one too quickly.
Loyalty Has Limits
I value loyalty. Probably more at 75 than I did at 35. When you have lived long enough, you begin to appreciate the people who stayed around when staying wasn’t always easy. But I have also learned that loyalty without boundaries can become a kind of prison. You can honour what somebody has meant to your life without giving them unlimited access to the rest of it. You can appreciate what a relationship was without pretending it is still that. You can remember 25 good years without automatically volunteering for 15 unhappy ones. And perhaps most importantly, you don’t have to rewrite history in order to move forward.
I notice people sometimes do this after relationships end. Suddenly the marriage was always terrible. The friend was always selfish. Nothing was ever good. I don’t believe that is necessary. Maybe it was good. Maybe it was wonderful. Maybe it saved you at a time when you needed saving. And maybe it is finished. Both things can be true. Not everything that ends was a mistake. Some things simply reach their destination.
Is It Ever Too Late to “DO You”?
At 75, this question has a different weight for me. How old do you have to become before you are finally allowed to live your own life? Sixty? Seventy-five? Eighty-five? Or do we keep waiting for permission until there is very little life left to live? Many of us have spent decades being what other people needed. The responsible son or daughter. The spouse. The parent. The provider. The reliable friend. The person who everybody knows will come through. There is dignity in that. There is meaning in being needed. But there is also a danger.
You can spend so much of your life being useful to everybody else that one day you realize you have almost disappeared from your own story. And at 75, the mathematics becomes difficult to ignore. I have fewer years ahead of me than behind me. That is not depressing. It is clarifying. Time feels different when you understand that it is no longer an unlimited resource. Peace becomes more expensive. Bad company becomes more expensive. Unnecessary arguments become more expensive. Spending three hours somewhere you don’t want to be with people you don’t particularly enjoy becomes more expensive. Because you are paying with something you cannot earn back: your remaining time.
So the question changes. It is no longer simply: “What will people think if I change?” It becomes: “How much of my remaining life am I prepared to spend being someone I no longer want to be?” That doesn’t mean abandoning people who depend on us. It doesn’t mean becoming selfish, careless or indifferent. It means finally adding yourself to the list of people whose happiness and wellbeing you are responsible for.
Repair It. Redesign It. Or Release It.
Perhaps those are the three possibilities. Some relationships need repair. Others don’t need to end; they simply need to be redesigned. That old friend may work perfectly well as someone you have lunch with four times a year instead of someone you speak with every day. The sibling you love but who exhausts you may need different boundaries. A marriage after the children have left home may need to become something quite different from the marriage that raised the children. Not every relationship problem requires an ending. Sometimes what needs to end is simply the old version of the relationship.
And yes, occasionally the relationship itself may need to end. Preferably without warfare. Without recruiting supporters. Without Facebook announcements. Without spending the next five years convincing everybody that the other person was terrible. Sometimes two decent human beings simply reach the end of the road they were meant to travel together. There is sadness in that. But there can also be gratitude. You can bless the journey without continuing the trip. I call the ‘Constructive Disengagement’.
A MindSpa Moment
Take a quiet inventory of the people in your life. Not to judge them. To understand yourself. Who leaves you feeling energized? Who consistently leaves you depleted? Who knows the person you are becoming rather than only the person you used to be? Which relationships are being sustained by genuine affection – and which mostly by habit, guilt, obligation or fear? And then the question I think is worth sitting with:
Who still has access to you simply because they always have?
The Anchor Leg of Life is too precious to live entirely according to arrangements made by earlier versions of ourselves. There comes a point when loyalty must include loyalty to yourself. When love must include some love for the life you still have left. When “doing you” isn’t necessarily selfishness. It may simply be responsible stewardship of your remaining years.
Some people will walk with us all the way home. Others were meant for a particular stretch of the journey. I am learning to be grateful for both. But I no longer believe that a long history automatically creates a lifelong obligation. You are allowed to grow. You are allowed to change.
And, yes, even late in life, you are allowed to ask: Who do I want beside me for the road that remains?
The Best Is Yet to Come.
Dr. Leahcim Semaj
Transformational Psychologist
The Semaj MindSpa