Back To Oneby Cheryl L. Fuller, Ph.D.

Back to One

Ten years ago I left my husband of 24 years. My daughter was about to leave for college and my son was soon to be a junior in high school. I was 48 years old. Leaving him was more than finding a lawyer and more than finding a new place to live. Or deciding about whether to return to my maiden name. The day I left I started the process of going Back to One.

I was 24 when I got married. I’d been on my own since I went off to college at 18. I had my own apartment, career goals, my own tastes. Along the way in those years of being married, Cheryl changed and became Cheryl-and-Steve. We developed shared tastes, shared goals, shared dreams. Any important decision I made always had the welfare of the marriage and family in the forefront. I went from One to Two to Four over those years.

The first day after leaving when I awoke in my apartment, I was faced with getting Back to One. What did I want in my life? What shape did I want my life to take? What about my career? Would there be new relationships? Would friendships formed as part of a couple continue now that I was One? Everything from where I wanted to live to what foods I really wanted to eat was there to consider anew.

Going Back to One is a process that any woman who ends a long relationship in mid-life faces. After years of being immersed in partner and children, of letting go of certain individual goals and desires in order to care for home and family, suddenly you are faced with having to discover again, as you have not since very early adulthood, who you are and where you are going. Any kids who are still at home will likely soon be off into their own lives. When the preoccupations of parenting are no longer part of everyday life and there is no partner to consider, suddenly there are spaces in life to be filled with You, but first you need to decide who you are and what you want.

Your process of getting Back to One began the day you decided to end the relationship. It continues not only in the big things like the divorce agreement or your agreement to divide property and possessions but in small things like when you go grocery shopping and realize that yes, you can stop buying cereal that you don’t like and that the soap and toothpaste you choose need please only you.

The heart of getting Back to One lies in making time and space in your life, every day, to consider what is the life you want and what do you need to do to have it. If you hope to partner again, getting back to one is a first step, and an important one to avoid making the same mistakes a second time. Start a journal about You.. Write about the life that you want. And dedicate yourself to pursuing it.

By Cheryl Fuller, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2004 by Cheryl L. Fuller


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