Michelle Wollaston On Healing After Break Ups: Freedom Doesn’t Come With A New Address

When a break-up happens, it’s easy to believe that healing comes with the move: a new address and a new bedside table. On the surface, it all looks different, but if your boundaries are still broken, the same patterns will follow you into the next chapter.

We’ve all heard these words—sometimes from ourselves, sometimes from friends, sometimes from people we care about deeply: ‘I’m unlucky in love. I keep attracting the same person. Why does this keep happening to me?’ They’re not words of bad luck; they’re words of broken boundaries.

I know this because I lived it. Looking back now, I can see the pattern I couldn’t see then. Not every man I was with was critical or controlling, but many of them were unavailable in one way or another. Because I hadn’t yet learned to hold strong boundaries, I accepted it. By the time I found myself in a relationship marked by criticism, control and abuse, the pattern was already in place.

The Tragedy

The tragedy wasn’t just that long-term relationship. Looking back now, I can see a history of choosing men who, in different ways, could never really give me what I needed. Some offered fragments of attention, but not the kind of presence or partnership I deserved. And when I finally found myself in a relationship marked by criticism, control and emotional abuse, it wasn’t about his availability; it was about me not yet having the self-worth, self-image or self-love to expect more for myself.

Even when I did begin to set boundaries, it wasn’t a clean, triumphant moment; it came with grief. Most boundaries are drawn with people we still love—partners, parents, siblings, friends. Boundaries don’t erase love; they simply draw a line where self-abandonment can no longer be the way we stay connected. That is its own kind of heartbreak.

That’s what happens when boundaries are broken: you tolerate what doesn’t honour you. Often, we convince ourselves we’re doing it for the children, for stability, for the appearance of a family that’s ‘holding it together’. But the truth is that when we don’t honour ourselves, we’re teaching the next generation to repeat the same story. We’re showing them that love looks like self-abandonment, and that keeping the peace is worth more than personal truth.

That’s why I now see the same story reflected in so many people’s lives. They believe that leaving will fix everything, but without new boundaries, it’s just new furniture in the same old story.

The Turning Point

My turning point wasn’t the day I signed the papers or closed the front door behind me; it came earlier, when I realised I could no longer abandon myself to keep the peace.

That realisation led me to start doing the work that truly changes things:
Naming my patterns and owning where I had given my power away.
Allowing myself to feel the grief and rage I had buried for years.
Building boundaries that honoured my needs instead of erasing them.
Drawing on soul work that brought me back to the woman I had always been beneath the hurt.

This is what I wish more people understood: the break-up might change the furniture; boundaries change the future.

The Triumph

My triumph isn’t simply that I left; it’s that I stopped leaving myself.

That’s why, today, the bedside table is just furniture. What matters is that the woman beside it no longer bends, blurs or breaks her boundaries to keep the peace—not just in relationships, but in everything: in family dynamics, in friendships, at work, even in how I honour myself day to day.

Break-ups might change your pillows, but peace only comes when you change the patterns.

Your Reflection

This is the piece self-help culture often leaves out. Boundaries aren’t always a rush of empowerment; more often, they are a slow, painful courage—the courage to love someone as they are and still refuse to keep losing yourself to stay close.

If you are grieving after setting a boundary, it doesn’t mean you made the wrong choice; it means you’ve stopped abandoning yourself.

So I invite you to pause for a moment: where are you still swapping out furniture instead of changing the pattern? Where do your boundaries need strengthening so you stop leaving yourself behind?

Because the truth is this: freedom doesn’t come with a new address; it comes when you finally come home to yourself.

If you’d like support with that journey, my free resource Come Home to the Woman Within is a beautiful place to start. It’s designed to help you reconnect with your voice, your strength and the woman you were never meant to leave behind.