DEVELOPMENTAL CRISIS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A ...

“By the time I moved into my own flat, the only thing on my mind was escape,
escape, just get out of here. I wanted to get out of England.” (Frances, p.8)
In Violet’s case, psychological separation was precipitated by her boyfriend’s
admission that he had had serial affairs throughout their relationship. This caused
intense emotional upset, but was also the point at which she is able to realise that she
could live without him:
“When he told me that there had been all these affairs, it was like uh, now I know,
now it’s over, this is the end line, because I had still been trying to work it out,
because I didn’t know. When I knew that, I thought well there is nothing to save, and
it was like a turnaround – it’s me and the children.” (p.2)
Physical separation
All four women physically separate from their husband or partner, and the
three who have children take them with them. Gemma divorced her husband and
distanced herself from her parents. Frances left her boyfriend and left the UK, for that
was the only way she was sure he would not follow her. Violet and her partner split,
and Rachel divorced her husband.
This actual separation is the peak of the emotional component of the episode,
with the women reporting a variety of negative emotions around the separation, such
as guilt, anxiety and sadness:
“And feeling so guilty, it never occurred to me that me and the children should stay in
the family home. So I moved out and took the children. Terrible guilt – women did
not do that in those days. Husbands left their wives, but wives did not leave their
husbands.” (Rachel, p.3)
“But there was guilt and bad feeling, it wasn’t wonderful, believe me, but it was
there.” (Gemma, p.8)
“I felt horrible, I felt guilty, I felt as though I was being the most horrible, abandoning
person in the world, but I was beginning to pull it back together again.” (Frances, p.7)
Gemma describes how this process of physical separation amounted to breaking
through to a new sense of freedom:
“I think there has to be a complete breakdown of everything in order to break through
into a new sense of being and freedom. The word freedom means you are breaking
down over something which is holding you, which is never going to be easy or pain
free.” (p.9)
84