Breakups Are Small Deaths

We too often minimize the overwhelming power of breakup grief, anger, and depression.

(Photo by Jacob Owens on Unsplash)

By Dr T J Jordan

When our relationships end in breakups, we are told to move on, in spite of the fact that we are suffering with disenfranchised grief, anger, and depression. We acknowledge and respect the emotional burden of partner death and even divorce, but we grossly misunderstand and diminish the agony of breakups.

We don’t allow enough time for healing after breaking up. With social pressures to move forward with new relationships, as well as anxiety about being alone, we try to reset ourselves as though we have not experienced a traumatic loss. We try to form new relationships and think we should enjoy sex with someone new well before we have healed from and understand what just ended.

When we fall in love, we share so much of ourselves. We seek to know our beloved as well as to be known fully and authentically by them. By the time we get to the end of the relationship, we have invested ourselves too deeply to avoid deep pain.

One of the reasons we hesitate to break up even with partners who no longer are good for us is because we have invested ourselves so heavily and so emotionally in the connection. A recent article about the losses from divorce does a good job of illustrating how pervasive the losses of relationships can be and how difficult is recovery.

Just as every individual is unique, two together in an intimate relationship make a unique connection that, for good or for bad, will never be replicated. Losing the connection through breakup can be as serious as death.

The Mixed-Up Stages of Breakup Grief

The grief we experience when a relationship ends is disenfranchised. This means that our pain is not fully or appropriately recognized or understood by our best friends, our relatives, and the culture at large.

In efforts to be helpful, they focus on what was not great about our relationship, and they tell us that we should move on.

We find that we can’t move on as quickly as we might prefer. We remain troubled by sadness/grief, periods of anger, and depression. And we…