What if control is just a story we tell ourselves to feel safe?
Most of us know we can’t control everything—life is unpredictable, after all—but we trust that if we plan carefully, try hard, and act responsibly, we’ll create a meaningful future. This belief is especially important in our relationships: who we love, how we build families, and the ways we imagine our lives unfolding.
It’s one thing to accept uncertainty in theory. But when a relationship ends unexpectedly, when the path to parenthood is longer or more painful than we ever imagined, or when the life we envisioned falls out of reach, we’re forced to consider how little control we actually have.
Our culture tends to prioritize agency and self-determination. We’re told to be proactive. Make vision boards. Manifest success.
And to a degree, that mindset can be empowering. Psychological research supports the idea that the perception of control is linked to greater well-being and resilience. Julian Rotter’s locus of control theory (Nowicki et al., 2021) suggests that people fare better emotionally when they believe their actions have an impact, particularly when they have an internal locus of control.
But there’s another side to that coin: When outcomes don’t reflect effort—when doing everything “right” still ends in heartbreak—it can shake our sense of self. Ellen Langer’s classic research on the illusion of control (1975) highlights how we often overestimate our ability to influence uncertain outcomes. In the context of relationships or fertility, this illusion can be especially painful. We may believe that if we try hard enough, love deeply enough, or choose wisely enough, we can prevent loss. And when that turns out not to be true, it can feel like failure, when, in reality, we’ve simply encountered life’s unyielding nature.
So what do we do then?
One guiding principle is this: Do your best. Then let go.
It sounds simple. But, in practice, it asks a lot of us.
“Doing your best” might mean years of trying—emotionally, physically, financially. It can mean sitting with uncertainty, having hard conversations, or holding onto hope longer than you thought you could. And “letting go” is rarely a single moment. More often, it’s a process—a slow release of what might have been. It’s not about giving up. It’s about making peace with what we cannot force.
In therapeutic terms, this mirrors the concept of radical acceptance (Segal, Kivity, & Bernstein, 2025), which invites us to stop fighting reality so that healing can begin. In relationships or reproductive journeys, this might mean accepting an ending we didn’t choose, grieving a version of ourselves we imagined, or acknowledging that the outcome isn’t ours to control.
Letting go isn’t passive or an act of defeat. Instead, there is wisdom that comes with removing our hand from a doorknob that won’t open and leaving ourselves exposed to other potential doorways. Not because we are retreating into loss, but because the fight isn’t serving us anymore.
Of course, letting go can be devastating, like the ground has been pulled out from under us. That grief is real and valid. But as we begin to live within that absence, other parts of life may start to emerge—unplanned paths, relationships, strengths, and perspectives that may not have been visible before. It’s not about pursuing silver linings or forcing toxic positivity, but staying open to what comes next.
We can care deeply.
We can try wholeheartedly.
We can love fiercely, grieve honestly, and still, when the time comes –
We can let go.
