by Natalie Lue
Halt Revisiting Discussions
They may try to draw you into a discussion about why you’re being ‘formal’ (read: not so accommodating) or try to be flirty with you to start the preamble to attempting to cross your boundaries, or they may even try the whole “I miss you”. Seeking validation and understanding and/or feeling rejected, coupled with the fact that you both share a child means that you may be tempted to be receptive to this chitchat. If this isn’t the first time you’ve found yourself at this juncture, you must remind yourself of what has happened before and consider and even ask your ex what has truly changed? This has got to be about more than getting confirmation that you’re still emotionally there for him/her – you have yourself and your child to think about, so do you really want to be dealing with someone’s mixed messages?
Don’t be afraid to warn them that if they start this conversation, they need to be able to follow through as you’re not prepared to disrupt your own or your children’s lives for what could turn out to be a whim. This in itself may be enough to shut them up, however, I would also caution against getting into this discussion until you are several months out of the woods because you may not have enough perspective yet to have worked out what your own needs are and whether you actually want this person. If you’re too quick to enter into this discussion, you may let your ego do the talking and the decision-making.
If you’ve previously fallen off the wagon say, “There’s nothing to discuss if this conversation hasn’t got something to do with our kids. What happened that time was a mistake and it won’t happen again.” If they keep pushing it: “I think it’s best that we make a different arrangement for collecting/dropping off because it’s clear that you are not prepared to respect my wishes/what we’ve previously agreed” and then go ahead and make the arrangements and let them know about them. They won’t like not being in control but you’re teaching them that they cannot dictate the terms of everything and effectively have their cake and eat it too.
CO-WORKING
It’s unsurprising when you spend a significant portion of your life at work, that the environment is ripe with the opportunity for romantic relationships. Work seems almost ‘easier’ to meet people because there’s an assumption that’s often made about common ground and values. You would be surprised at the number of people who believe that somebody is going to make a great relationship partner because they’re intelligent, high up, popular, have been in the same job for a long time, or even just assuming that because they’re working with one another and a romance has started that it means that they’ll be treated better and that it’s going somewhere.
Work environments are handy for meeting people and if it all works out, great, but if it doesn’t… well… unless you can get another job (not always an option in the current economy), you’ll have to suck it up and put some boundaries between you both so that you can get some breathing space and move on.
While this situation isn’t easy, you can make this as big or as small a deal as you want.
The truth is that while you may attach some importance to events like bumping into this person at the copier, the likelihood is that they won’t attach the same importance – these events are unlikely to register on their radar and if they do, it’s because they realise that they can generate a desired response from you due to the way you then act around them. How you act around this person can end up communicating that you’re still into them and for some people, that’s more than enough. While initially during NC they may assume that you’re not engaging due to being crazy about them, if you stick to your guns, they will gradually realise that you have become indifferent – trust me, I know this from experience!
No Contact is about breaking the contact and habits that facilitate the relationship. Work means that you have to approach things from a practical and professional level so as not to actually hinder your career. You’re not breaking NC by sharing a copier or an office – you break NC if you decide the fact that you share a copier and an office is a reason to engage with this person or to even restart the relationship.
Only engage on a professional level and leaving out everything else.
I won’t bullshit you and tell you it’s a walk in the park, especially if there are people who were aware that you were involved, or even worse, nobody knows that you were involved so they have no appreciation for what you may be going through and so inadvertently end up hurting you with seemingly innocuous comments. The alternative to not doing NC is continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result while potentially undermining your work performance, credibility or even your business. It’s hoping that they will ‘do the right thing’ and prioritising your ego (and possibly your ‘principles’) and emotions over your wellbeing. If you don’t do NC, you could end up losing your job or end up having to leave. That’s more of a reality than NC not working.
I’ve also heard too many stories of awful disciplinary and mediation sessions in workplaces where attempts to continue engaging can end up being used against you by the other party. It is going to be hard (but not as hard as you think or as hard as continuing without NC) but it passes, especially if you keep busy, work hard and remain focused on your own personal growth and professional behaviour.
Make the Decision and Get On With It
This is a straight-up cold turkey situation. There are people out there who have so much self-control that they can do moderation, so for instance, they can eat naughty foods all of the time and not overdo it, but that’s not the case for a lot of us and the truth is, if you could moderate your own behaviour with them while continuing to engage, you wouldn’t be reading this book.
Be Professional
This is your job and your career and if you’re planning to stick around, there will be far greater prices to pay than the pain you are going through now if you either behave in an unprofessional manner or allow what has happened to derail you. And this is coming from someone who at one point wanted to reach across my desk and throttle my ex. If you can afford not to give a monkey’s about your job and your professionalism, you have to ask yourself why you’re still there as you could leave and take yourself out of the pain zone. If you’re going to remain in your role, it’s time to pull it together.
We all have to work with people who get on our last nerve and who we don’t like for certain reasons but we don’t go in there and lose our shit with them each day or tell them all about themselves – it’s the same when you break up. Yes you may have certain opinions but the fact that you work together precludes you from making them known verbally or via your actions. If you want to do that outside of work (pre-NC), then knock yourself out but always consider whether sounding off is going to do anything for your work situation or whether it’s just to give you a quick high.
You can be professional and even friendly without being friends or pulling down your pants or starting a big discussion about your relationship.
It’s quite a shift to go from bed partners to cordial, polite but distant, but it is extremely possible and judging by the amount of people who say that they have dalliances with people at work, there are a lot of people who have to get over someone they worked with and grin and bear it. And actually, it’s the grinning and bearing it that helps; I don’t mean grinning at them like a loon, but not taking the situation too seriously and pushing yourself through the awkwardness. Yes you may have to fake detachment when you really want to hurl yourself at them and beg for mercy, but don’t. The litmus test of what you say and do is: would you say this to another work colleague? Yep, probably not.
Don’t Resign Your Power
Don’t be helpless and resign yourself to breaking contact before it’s even started. Part of the reason why I initially struggled to end things is because I decided it would be:
1) Impossible to end it because we worked together – obviously that is not the case.
2) Too hard to be polite because I’d seem like a bitch or it might create tension – act
ually more tension was created by trying to do things on his terms and sacrificing my own needs.
3) I imagined what might happen if he asked me to meet up or told me he loved me still etc, and imagined being helpless to his advances – I decided that I had to be strong and that I wouldn’t be helpless.
4) I couldn’t imagine how we would both deal with clients we shared – well of course I couldn’t imagine it. I hadn’t actually tried to and had never experienced it before but I realised that I had to get on with it and do my job, because staying in a bad situation for a piddling little client, or even a big one, was not an option.
It’s very easy to write off NC and make all sorts of excuses as to why it won’t work when you have to work together.
The fact that they’re charming or do ‘cute’ stuff doesn’t disguise what they’ve clearly stated or shown, or even how you’ve been affected. You have to change your mindset because you’ll sound like somebody who is expecting to break NC instead of someone who is planning for it to be a success because they’re focused on themselves and rebuilding their life. Don’t think, “How can I stay strong?” or “I hope I will find the strength to be strong” and instead think, “I will stay strong”. Repeat it frequently and do a bit of faking it till you feel it.
Avoid Discussing NC
If you’ve broken up before or claimed to be going NC, they’ll just think that you’re playing games. The best time to say something if you really have to, is if they approach you about the change in your behaviour. Don’t say “I’m No Contact” and instead just explain briefly that you’re fine, that you’re taking the space that you need and that of course it won’t stop you from being professional and then smile (if possible) and move away. Don’t hang around for a discussion/validation and just head back to your desk or to the bathroom if you’re feeling shaky.
Work Out What You Need To Do
NC is at its most successful when you do a bit of constructive thinking ahead and familiarise yourself with the typical routine between you both. Get a piece of paper and write down when and how they are most likely to get in touch and what it’s about. If you know what their modus operandi is, you know what to expect, so you can plan ahead and build enough resolve to be ready should they attempt to make contact or you can just neutralise the effects of those cues and triggers by going through the grieving process and addressing any personal issues.
When they’ve typically engaged with you beyond the professional, how do they do it and how do you respond? This is where you get to identify cues, triggers and alternative responses. For instance, my ex assumed that when he wanted to go for lunch with me, that even if I was ‘in a sulk’, that I would say yes. The first time I declined, I’m sure he thought that it was a one-off but I kept declining. Whatever you would normally do outside of being professional, stop doing it.
In social situations, I made myself scarce by busying myself elsewhere talking to another group of people, and in some circumstances I left early. I didn’t need to prove a point to myself, or take the high road and feel that I had every right to be there and that I shouldn’t let him ruin my evening. This was more about how I didn’t want to ruin my own evening by putting myself in the front line of pain. I only had to do it a couple of times and he got the message loud and clear and I didn’t have to recover from any major blowups.
Easy On the Ruminating and Obsessing
You’ll likely worry about what they think, what everyone else thinks, what they’re doing, whether they’re trying to screw up your job, why they’re not chasing you, how not to cause a scene, how not to cry every time you come face to face, and you’ll probably want to scream and yell at yourself for ever getting involved with a colleague. I’ve done it all. Sometimes I just wanted to throw myself on the floor and have an I Can’t Take Anymore Effing Thinking Tantrum.
Worrying about what they or others are thinking is natural, especially in the first few weeks or so, but you’ll be thinking too much about these things if you are still obsessing over these things months down the line and bringing your life, and possibly your career to a standstill. The obsessing will be about trying to work out what is going on in other people’s minds and the likelihood is that you will end up doing things in an attempt to prevent unfavourable outcomes and manage your reputation. Unfortunately, you will just make the situation worse.
If you get behind your own decision, while you will have moments where you panic about what they or others think, it will always come back to meeting your own needs and the fact that your colleagues don’t know and weren’t in your situation so it’s none of their business. Of course it is their business if you let your involvement play out around them or it affects your work performance, so keep it together.
This Is a Good Time to Be On a Bullshit Diet
Bad enough that you may have illusions in other circumstances but it’s time to take off the blinders and get real if you’re working together. Particularly if you feel a strong sense of rejection, it’s important to remind yourself that just because they may be liked by their peers, they treat these people very well, they’re highly respected, or they make a fortune or whatever, it doesn’t distract from or change the fact that things did not work out with you. The way that somebody behaves at work and to ‘their public’ hasn’t got a damn thing to do with how they behave behind closed doors. Don’t make the mistake of persecuting yourself with the bullshit that comes about from imagining that someone has customised their persona especially for you. You know this person in a different way to everyone else.
Don’t allow any perceived rejection to distort your sense of reality because many of you in this situation will convince yourself that everyone is talking about you or that you’ve been humiliated. You’d be surprised how many people will actually empathise with you – they may see this person for who they are and not actually be anywhere near as admiring as you are. This doesn’t mean going and talking to them about it though, as you should be as professional as possible.
Give It Time
Work is a very routine place. Unless you’re doing something chaotic, there’s a hell of a lot of routine to your working week, which means that in adapting your routine and switching to professional, what seemed impossible will quickly become normal if you stick at it. If you don’t have to speak to each other, don’t. You also don’t have to use any of the facilities at the same time, and if you do, don’t engage. If you find yourself in the lift, in the kitchen making tea, or bumping into them in the corridor, smile and be polite. Practise smiling even when you’re hurting, in front of the mirror. It’ll stop you from looking ‘manic’ when you actually have to do it, but you’ll also learn how to fake it till you feel it and probably have a giggle. Try to plan stuff at lunchtime or after work so that you have healthy distractions.
Avoid Gossip
Tempting as it may be to get the down low, you’re opening yourself up to pain as you may learn far too much plus people chat a lot of rubbish anyway and add their own conjecture. Do you really want to know that he’s trying for a baby with his wife? Or do you need to know that she’s now trying to date someone in a different department?
-- The upside of any info that you do catch is that it may cement your reason for doing NC.
-- The downside is that you may magnify the meaning of this info, internalise it, give yourself a hard time, lose perspective and react to it.
Be very careful, for instance, if you hear someone saying that they’ve been looking a bit sad recently and then assuming it must be because they miss you. You don’t know this and they may also be missing you for the wrong reasons!
But They’re My Boss!
Whilst it’s tempting to remain stuck in your position, and I mean this from a relationship perspective, all of the same rules apply as if they were a colleague, it’s just that you will have to keep assessing the situation and at some point, you may have to weigh up whether this is worth it. The reality is that if you’ve slept with your boss, on a deep
er level you likely accepted when you went into this that if it didn’t work out that you’d have to leave, or maybe you assumed that because they were your boss that it was bound to work out because it was such a ‘big risk’ to take. They may have assumed that if and when it didn’t work out that you would leave so if they are being difficult, it’s a passive aggressive or even aggressive move to get you to go.
Some people abuse their power and in wanting to be in control of everything around them, may not appreciate you not dancing to their beat any longer. This may mean that they give you a hard time, either making things difficult at work or making it difficult for you to back off, either by being mean to you or by chasing you harder.
There’s no easy way around it. If they’re decent enough and accept that it’s over and that they can’t give you what you want, they may take a hint at NC. Some people do have pride so when you decide that you want to distance yourself, they respect it. But some people don’t. They may be trapped in their own feelings and just don’t do loss of control very well. I’d like to say that this isn’t your problem but if they’re your boss, it is. I’ve known of some bosses to arrange a transfer to another department or you can try to do this with HR. If things are very tense, they may not comply though and while you can remind this person about being professional, it’s a bit tricky when they own the company and even if you threaten to sue or even do sue, it will likely mean having to move on.
It’s best to avoid a showdown if you’ve decided to stay. Stick to all of the guidelines above and keep a note of any and all abuses of power. You may find it useful to have a brief discussion about wanting to move beyond your involvement in a professional manner.