The First Holiday After Separation

Dear Johnny

This time of year feels heavy.

It’s my first holiday separated from my husband, and we’re not speaking. I feel angry, exhausted, and honestly, I don’t want to be around anyone. The separation happened months ago, but his behavior since then has been confusing and unsettling. At times he feels like the man I knew, and at other times he feels distant, cold, or even hostile. I’ve tried to understand what’s happening, but the more I try to make sense of it, the more drained I feel.

I don’t know how to carry this pain without it consuming me.
I just know I’m tired of hurting.

— Exhausted and Heartbroken

Letters in this column are composites inspired by real messages shared in relationship forums. Details are changed to protect privacy.

Dear Exhausted and Heartbroken,

What you’re feeling makes sense.

And before we go any further, I want to say something that very few people say out loud to women in moments like this:

Nothing about your reaction means you’re weak, dramatic, or failing.
It means you’ve been living inside emotional unpredictability for a long time.

Let me offer you a gentle framework, not to fix this situation, but to help you move from where you are right now emotionally to somewhere that feels steadier.

First, awareness, not answers.

When someone you love shifts between warmth, withdrawal, fear, and accusation, your nervous system never gets to rest. The mind keeps searching for logic, for explanations, for the moment it will finally make sense. But some patterns don’t respond to understanding, they respond to naming.

Not labeling him.
Not diagnosing him.
Simply naming the pattern.

There’s a form of relational dysregulation often described as disorganized attachment, where connection feels unsafe and distance feels unsafe too. People caught in this pattern may pull close, then push away, then reinterpret the past through fear or threat.

Naming this doesn’t make him bad.
It gives you a place to set the confusion down.

And I want to check in with you here, gently, not conclusively:
Does this description feel even partially familiar?

Second, steadiness before strength.

Right now, your system has been in survival mode for months. Asking yourself to be calm, rational, or forgiving is too much, too soon. Instead, we start smaller.

If you can steady yourself for 30 seconds with a slow breath, that matters.
If tomorrow it becomes 60 seconds, that matters too.
Eventually, those seconds string together into moments, and moments into pockets of peace.

This is how people stop drowning, not by swimming harder, but by finding something solid to hold onto.

Third, protect your energy, not your explanations.

Today is not the day to process the past or solve the future.
It’s a day to notice what steadies you even five percent.

That might be stepping outside for fresh air.
Putting your phone down for an hour.
Letting the tears come without narrating them.
Sitting somewhere quiet and letting your body know it’s safe right now.

Small acts of care count when you’ve been emotionally depleted for this long.

And here’s the part I hope lands gently but clearly:

Your job right now is not to understand him.
Your job is to keep yourself intact.

You are not abandoning the relationship by tending to your own steadiness.
You are reclaiming yourself.

If it feels helpful, I’ll leave you with one quiet question to hold, not answer:

What would it look like to care for your own nervous system today, even if nothing else changes yet?

With care,

Johnny Lascha

🌿 Dear Johnny is a weekly column by Johnny Lascha, Relationship Coach at RelationshipVoice.com & Moderator of the online 39,000 member Marriage Support Group. He helps deeply caring women who’ve lost their voice in their relationships find the clarity, confidence, and communication tools to feel heard, valued, and emotionally safe again. Learn more or schedule a free communication breakthrough session at RelationshipVoice.com.