Breakups come in many forms, whether it be a legal divorce, a quick separation, or even ghosting after a few dates. No matter how long or short your relationship was, breakups hurt and require time to heal.
When a relationship ends, a person is drained emotionally, physically as well as psychologically. In addition to losing your partner, you are also grieving the loss of an imagined future, certainty, and part of yourself.
The process of grieving a breakup is very similar to grieving other losses. A person is left sad, angry, confused, or otherwise emotionally affected. The partner who wanted or initiated the breakup may also feel this inner turmoil.
How Can Therapy Help?
1. Therapy can offer you a safe space to work through the experiences you have had following the separation.
2. Therapy allows you to explore and acknowledge the emotions and behaviors associated with the relationship and helps you learn how to handle them.
3. The objective lens of the therapist allows you to see yourself and your situation more accurately.
4. Therapy can help you recognize and manage any traumatic experiences you may have encountered during the relationship.
5. When you have a therapist to talk with about your emotional struggles you have the capacity to maintain a more balanced relationship with the other important people in your life.
6. Therapy can help you clear the emotional marks of your last relationship and give you a clean emotional canvas for your next relationship.
7. In relationships, we often lose parts of ourselves, and therapy can help you find your true self and reconnect.
8. In the chaos of a breakup, therapy gives you the opportunity to gain objectivity, which helps you focus on yourself and your goals.
Written by Zoha Merchant
Counselling Psychologist