5 Techniques for Coping with a Breakup

The severity of a breakup will depend on various factors. Not every breakup is heartbreaking. Although it may sound heartless, it is the truth. It is also true that the age of a relationship doesn’t determine how hard coping with a breakup would really be. There are people who have been in a romantic relationship for months and have struggled for years to get over the breakup. There are couples who have been married for decades and have had no problems coping with a breakup. It all depends on how you are breaking up, when or in what circumstances, for what reasons and how you end up coping with a breakup.

1. Do not run away from your feelings.

You cannot and should not try to do away with the initial heartbroken phase. Since we are talking about coping with a breakup, we have already focused on people who were in love and seriously committed in a relationship. Those who move on easily don’t need tips on coping with a breakup. The initial heartbroken phase is unpleasant. Most people will feel miserable, helpless and pessimistic about love. It is not only acceptable but necessary to experience this phase. There are many who believe distraction works better and that one must not be alone. Such approaches will be necessary if a person is experiencing psychotic episodes or is at risk of harming oneself. Otherwise, the heartbroken phase is quintessential to the recuperating process.

2. Coping with loneliness can be difficult.

Unless you spend time with yourself, deal with the unloved moments and actually feeling alone, you wouldn’t be able to get over the heartwarming reminisces of moments and experiences while you were in a relationship. The reason why coping with a breakup is so difficult for many is the over reliance on the fond memories to derive happiness. The compulsion to delve and depend on those memories is what keeps one from possible sources of happiness in the near future. Being alone and idle, sad and bored will help one to realize the importance of the world out there. It will prepare you to go out and encounter the world anew.

3. Distractions can be a good thing.

Distractions are of many kinds. Immediate distractions that don’t have a lingering effect will be futile because the person will come back home and start brooding again. Distractions need to be organic and their impacts should be long lasting. This is why hobbies, pursuing passions, really good friends and personal or professional aspirations will be better distractions. Everything from working out to pursuing that elusive promotion, trying to hone a skill to having a hearty good time more often than frequent with best friends will help anyone coping with a breakup. Random partying or drunken stupor, casual sex or meaningless pursuits can help as transient distractions but it would be the same after the rush of adrenaline has done its job.

4. Should you be friends after?

A quintessential question is if you should be friends with your former lover or if you should cut all ties. There is no standard formula or thumb rule here. If you have to meet your former lover at work or in social circles, then maintaining a cordial relation will help. You cannot possibly avoid all professional engagements or obligations and social associations because your former lover would be there. If you don’t have common friends, do not have any professional connection and you don’t have to be in the same place at the same time, then you should decide whether or not being in touch with them will help you while coping with a breakup. Many people cut off all ties as it helps them get over the person. Many people remain friends. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ is a wise old saying and for a reason. It is indeed harder to let go off someone after a breakup when the person is constantly around. Checking up on their social media profile is not the same as having them next to you, talking to you or your friends, brushing against you while they walk over to another part of the room or those uncomfortable glances that you would be sharing for many weeks if not months.

5. Don’t hold yourself back.

If there is something you want to tell your former lover, if there is something you want to do or certain issues you need to clarify, then you must follow up on them. You don’t need to do these immediately the day after you breakup. You can attend to these a week after. Letting any wish or feeling fester will make matters complicated. You must try to have a clean slate. This will not only help you in coping with a breakup but you would have no baggage whatsoever. That helps when you are moving on and getting into another relationship in the future. However, do not use another relationship nor should you clutch back on to an old one to get over a recent breakup.