You grieve your relationship just as deeply as a lost one. Why not handle it with grace with the same stages of grief that we've all been told about? Learn more.
Whether the end of your relationship is slow or abrupt, there are breakup stages of grief to get through that are tough but have benefits. It’s not that different from the Kübler-Ross model, and you might have to look at them through a more intimate lens. So let’s explore those stages of recovery and how they apply when you and your ex-partner go your separate ways.
It’s hard to visualize the world without your ex – you think you cannot be without them. All the effort you put into it makes it feel like you’ve put your whole life into the relationship, and the reality of it being over makes it look like it doesn’t exist.
At this point, emotions rule over reason heavily as you adjust to your new post-breakup life. However, there are still glimmers of hope that things will work out, to the point that you might fantasize about it.
Friends, family, and other people can tell you that the relationship is over, but you don’t believe it yet. You think they’ll come to their senses eventually and will answer your text or social media post.
Unfortunately, at this stage of grief breakup, the most reasonable you can think of is expressing rage. You aren’t ready to give up on what you feel exists in the relationship and want to protect it, no matter what damage it does to you or others. There are three symptoms in this stage of recovery:
· Wanting that person back
· Undoing things
· Fixing things
Also Read : Kamille's Guide to Loss Grief Recovery
Anxiety kicks in, and you wonder what you are willing to do to avoid accepting it. Can you be a better, considerate partner this time around? Everything that went wrong the first time you’re sure you can do right this time. The pain can go away if you jump the hurdles to get your ex back.
None of this makes sense, and you are at an unstable part of your life if you keep going in that direction. Moreover, in those promises you make to fix things, you lose sight of what’s essential to the relationship, most notably that what happened to cause the breakup didn’t fall on just you.
There might be times that your bargaining works, and you get back with your ex. It’s not a unique concept for couples to get back, nor might it be your first breakup. But most times, it’s a brief moment of relief before it all crashes again, sometimes harder than the last time. You might have to go through this so that you can finally convince yourself it’s time to let go.
Eventually, you sink into the sadness of what’s happened, and it’s hard to get back from it. Of breakup’s stages of grief, it’s one of the toughest because of how it severely affects your life.
You lose interest in everything and have a hard time performing everyday tasks. Feelings of inadequacy form every time you compare yourself to your ex when you think about them. You have problems sleeping – sleeping all day, or can’t sleep at all.
There’s this unhealthy idea growing that you’ll always be alone, and the only way to fix it is for our ex to come back into the equation. There are three things you can do to break away from this:
· Keep your ex away from your life, even if that means being tough and having no contact with them
· Slow down the overthinking that takes over your mind
· Admit the reality and stop seeing your ex as what will fix your problem
After making it through the rollercoaster, the best thing you can do is finally allow the breakup as a natural part of your life. The truth is that a breakup or divorce happened, and they won’t come back, and things won’t go back to how it was before.
But the best part is that you can see this as a significant triumph in the stages of moving on. The amount of energy you’re wasting holding onto a relationship you can’t change lowers every day. You’re showing interest in new things and people, and hope comes into focus.
Just because you’ve made it past these stages of grief breakup doesn’t mean it’s entirely over for you. Things can happen where you can easily swing back into one of the stages above, but always remember that every step leads to recovery. Believe in your self-worth, and you can move on.