COPING WITH THE BREAKUP OF A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP

I wish there was one easy answer to this issue.  Unfortunately, the answer depends on so many different variables such as duration of the relationship, intensity of the relationship, age at time of breakup, and reason for the breakup.  Breakups are stressful and painful no matter how they happen, even for the person doing the breaking up.  The loss of a relationship is a form of grieving, just like when we experience a death.  We grieve many types of losses, not just by death or loss of relationship.  We may grieve the loss of a job, moving away and losing our home and community, loss of a friend, even loss of physical integrity.  When dealing with the loss of a relationship, as painful as it is, we have to remind ourselves that the pain is temporary.  We have to also remind ourselves that were the relationship strong and balanced, it would not have ended.  Therefore, I like to describe it as a dress rehearsal for the real relationship.  It was a time to learn about relationships and what you like and what you don’t like.  Many people express a fear that they will end up alone.  Better to be happy alone than miserable in a relationship that just does not work or even worse, may be abusive.  So how to go forward?  

The most important requirement to coping with a breakup is to get out from under the covers, take a shower, look great, and go out with your friends and/or family.  Stay active and involved.  If you were never that involved or active, now is a good time to start.  You can hurt and be miserable or you can hurt and be active and distracted.  That latter is better as it allows you to see that life can go on in a positive way.  Who knows, maybe when doing something you love, you might meet someone wonderful who really gets you and wants to be with you forever.

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ACCEPTING HELP GRACEFULLY

 There are many of us who are quite happy to give help and enjoy the role of caretaker.  It makes us feel good to help someone else.  However, there is a subset of us who are not comfortable accepting help from others.  We are concerned that we are a burden, we feel guilty that someone may have spent money on us or gone out of their way to do us a favor.  The bottom line, however, is that a balanced relationship allows us to be on both sides of help and sometimes we just need to be gracious and say “Thank you”.  This means not constantly or frequently telling the other person how sorry you are for inconveniencing them and accepting their help at face value.  Helping you allows the other person to also experience the joy of helping and actually creates a better balance in the relationship if you have been able to help them in the past.  All this being said, even when offering or accepting help, we need to have healthy boundaries.  Don’t accept help that you know will absolutely hurt the other person and don’t offer help that you know you either can not afford to offer or will hurt you and your family in some way.  There are times we want to help, but what we can offer may not be realistic for our current life situation. 

However, the strength of emotional support can never be underestimated.  Even small measures of help can have a tremendous impact on the other person.  For example, a phone call or visit, sending over dinner or inviting someone over for dinner.  This allows the other person to know you care.  If you are on the receiving end of this type of help, understand the other person is giving what they can based on where their life is and know they are thinking about you and you are not alone.  Remember, when someone wants to help you, they care.  Let them care.


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