Handling the Grief of a Breakup
After college, I had a neighbor in Greenwich Village who lived a couple of floors below. I didn’t know my neighbor well, but our impromptu stoop chats always left me with the impression that she was kind and wise. One evening we both arrived home at the same time. As each of us juggled grocery bags and front door keys, she asked how I was doing. I told her the truth—that I had just broken up with someone.
“It’s like a death,” she answered.
I blinked back at her. She might as well have told me a spaceship had just landed on West 10th Street.
“Seriously,” she continued. “I think employers should offer bereavement leave for things like this. Have you thought about grief counseling?”
That neighbor helped me more than she’ll ever know. She allowed me to see why I couldn’t seem to make sense of anything. Her pithy comment offered me clues about why I felt like I was stumbling around inside my life rather than walking through it. My neighbor recontextualized the shock, the loss, and the rawness of the breakup in a way that eventually helped me to dig deeper and work it through.
If you’re struggling in the aftermath of a breakup, I’m guessing you may be experiencing some of this, too. How to sort through it all?
Who am I without this relationship?
Even if you have a large circle of friends and family to rely on, that romantic partner occupied a special place. If you had a period of doing well together, you may have found that you were each other’s greatest support, filling in spaces that had long been empty. If this was your first significant or successful relationship, you may feel as if you’ve just lost something that you thought you’d never be able to find again. Finding it once doesn’t mean you’ll never find it again. It means you’ll find something different and find yourself again, too. Here’s when it’s a time to consider therapy for grief.
What will other people think?
People will talk. That’s just what they do. If you and your ex were part of a larger community of friends, you may be all too aware of this. You may be feeling self-conscious about showing up alone for events you once attended with your significant other. Even worse, you may dread running into that person or seeing them talking to someone else at the next get-together. There’s a good chance that, even if you maintain ties to that friend group, your relationship to it has changed somehow, now that your single. Such a loss can bring up powerful grief.
How will I live on my own?
If this is your first time on your own after living with your partner for an extended amount of time, you may be feeling at sea. Who’s going to fix the smoke alarm when it won’t stop buzzing? How am I going to get dinner on the table by myself? Who will I hang out with for long holiday weekends? Who will spoon me at night? These may be just a few questions you’re asking yourself. Adjusting to living alone or with roommates is no small thing. But the experience of living on your own while feeling contented is nothing less than soul-building. Stocking the fridge with what you like to eat; picking out new soap for the bathroom; getting to know the sounds and smells of the place you’re living will bring up all kinds of feelings, including grief. And as painful as grief, is, it’s part of healing.
Why can’t I just get over it?
While you’re reeling from the grief of a breakup, there could be those you love very much who are impatient, asking you move along and get over it. Here’s why that’s unhelpful. Any big loss usually brings up losses from the past. Losses from childhood are deeply embedded in us. And because those losses are deep inside us, they’re going to keep reoccurring. (Everyone has had such a loss.) But with time, the loss gets modulated. Therapy for grief offers a path to insight that you can use to help heal yourself.
If you’re having a hard time with grief, why not call or text me at 213-807-6021? Let’s talk about how grief counseling can help.
(Photo: Carola G)