It doesn’t matter how serious the relationship was, learning how to cope with a breakup is always hard. So much has to change in such a short time and you no longer have them for support.
In the first couple of weeks, it can often feel like those negative feelings are permanent. Like you’re never going to find happiness again or, even worse, that we don’t even want to move on.
Thankfully that isn’t true. Today I’m going to walk you through 10 simple ways to cope with a breakup.
How to cope with a breakup the easy way
Before we get started, I want to remind you of something important here. You deserve to be happy and you don’t need your ex to achieve that. Focus on yourself for a while and figure out what brings you joy in life. That’s where your attention should be going.
No matter how amicably or nicely you broke up, you might still feel some negative feelings towards the breakup. And that's okay. What you need to do is learn how to cope with those feelings in a way that's healthy for you.
You might also need to get your confidence back after a breakup. Luckily, we’ve created an online course that will help you boost your self-confidence as well as teach you how to find, approach and attract women.
Now, let’s talk about how to cope with a breakup.
1) Create some space between you for a while
If you’re living together, it’s time to move out ASAP. If you can’t yet, try to limit any contact between you for about two to four weeks.
This gives you the time you need to actually move on with your life. If you’re still interacting with your ex every day, you’re constantly forcing yourself back into that headspace. You might end up wanting to win back your ex even if you know it's not good for you.
You can’t help but think about the breakup and this will only make it harder.
You also need to get used to the idea of being on your own again. Living in the same house or still talking to them constantly is not going to help you with that process.
2) Allow yourself some time to grieve
Most of us are conditioned to ignore this phase. To focus on moving on as quickly as we can and always be ‘okay.’ The thing is, that just isn’t a healthy way to deal with emotions and it’s definitely not how to cope with a breakup.
Your ex was an important part of your life and it’s okay to feel sad about it. Allow yourself a window of time to feel that sadness. Acknowledging those emotions gives you a chance to address them and better understand where you’re at.
The key is to set a timeframe on it. Whether it’s a couple of days or a week, set a hard limit and stick to it. After that, it’s time to dust yourself off and focus on the positives in your future.
Emotions don’t just disappear because you refuse to acknowledge them. By trying to ignore this phase, you’re only going to drag things out even longer.
3) When you’re having a really hard time, write it down
Another common struggle when learning how to cope with a breakup is not wanting to open up about it. If you aren’t comfortable talking to others, that’s okay.
Instead, try writing down how you’re feeling. It can be on a piece of paper, in a phone app or even a Google Doc. The medium isn’t important, it’s getting down your thoughts.
Start with how you’re feeling in that moment and list why you think you’re feeling that way. What emotions you’re dealing with and where you think they come from. The first words can be the hardest, so begin with “Today I’m feeling . . .” and let things flow naturally from there.
You’ll probably end up with a list of questions, many of which you don’t have an answer to yet and that’s fine too. The goal isn’t to be okay immediately, this stuff takes time.
This might sound like pointless advice but I assure you it’ll help you get through things faster. Essentially what you’re doing is talking things through with yourself. You’re getting the benefits of seeking emotional support from others without the display of ‘weakness’. It’s anything but weak but that’s a topic for another time.
Unlike the thoughts running through your head, writing it down takes time. You have to slow down and put them into a logical order. This alone can give you so much more insight into how you’re feeling which leads to a host of solutions.
I’m a pretty typical guy in that I first sneered at this concept when it was suggested to me. All I can say is to try it for yourself just once. Nobody else will ever see it and you might be surprised by how much it helps.
4) How to cope with a breakup -- reach out to friends
Social support plays a massive role in our mental health. I get it, you aren’t comfortable asking for help and that’s not a topic I’m going to approach in this article.
You don’t have to message friends and tell them you’re having a hard time. You don’t even have to talk about the breakup at all. All you need to do is keep them close to you.
It’s less what you talk about and more about removing those feelings of isolation. Dealing with a breakup can often feel lonely and this can lead us down a bad path.
If you do feel comfortable opening up about how you’re feeling, that’s even better. Only you can make that decision.
5) Don’t try to assign blame
Depending on how and why the breakup happened, it can be easy to fall into playing the blame game. It might make you feel better temporarily but it doesn’t change the outcome.
All it does is give you something negative to focus on. Whether you’re blaming them for the breakup or you pin everything on yourself, it’s still a negative.
Rather than doing this, focus on accepting that the relationship is over and look to the future instead. There are positives all around you -- try focusing on those instead.
6) Remove them from your social media. At least for now.
If you’re like most of us and are active on social media each day, it’s best to remove your ex from them for now. Recovering from a breakup is hard enough without seeing photos of them through the lens of social media.
The things we post on Instagram/Snapchat, etc. are ultimately a highlight reel of our lives. That means the only things you’ll see of them on social media suggest that she’s doing great without you. Even if she’s an emotional wreck.
If you’re struggling to cope with the breakup, seeing photos of them so happy can be confronting. Often, it’s enough to put you in a bad mood for the rest of the day.
It’s best to avoid subjecting yourself to that until you’re in a better place. If you need to, send them a message and let them know why you’re removing them temporarily. This can avoid any potential fallout and might even open the door to constructive communication in the coming weeks.
7) Stay busy -- don’t give yourself time to dwell on the breakup
Going through a breakup is always tough to deal with. For many of us, the natural response to this is to stay at home where nobody can see us in that state.
The trouble is, doing that just gives you infinite time to focus on just how bad you’re feeling. As I mentioned earlier, taking some time to acknowledge your sadness is a good idea. Using it as your only coping mechanism though . . . not so great.
Once you’ve had your time to grieve, try to stay busy. Put in more hours at work, reach out to your friends and spend time with them or even pick up a new hobby.
Whatever it is, just make sure you’re keeping your mind occupied with other things so you spend less time in your head.
Time will help you heal and you’ll get better figuring out how to cope with a breakup. The more you can distract yourself during that process, the easier it’ll be for you.
8) Work on being the best version of yourself
Quite often, breakups can make a real dent in our self-confidence, like I mentioned at the top of the article. This is particularly the case if we feel as though we’re to blame for how things played out.
The solution? Work on improving yourself. Stay active, get to the gym or start working on a new skill. It’ll give you a positive that you can focus on amongst all the negativity.
The better you feel about yourself through the breakup, the more effective you are at dealing with it.
The other benefit here is that exercise produces a bunch of positive hormones that will help your mental state. Get out there, get active and learn to appreciate how great you are. You don’t need a girlfriend to tell you that!
9) Don’t try to become best friends quite yet
I’m all for being friends with your ex, just not yet. Not until you’re feeling better about the breakup and have let a little time pass to settle things down.
I recently wrote about how to be friends with your ex and this is a point I covered in detail there. Basically, until you’re at a point where you’ve come to terms with the breakup, trying to be friends with them just won’t work.
Your motivations will probably be all wrong and there’s simply too much tension between you. Also, you aren’t ready to see them with another guy yet. You might want your ex to miss you like you miss them, but there's no certainty of that. And it's not something you want to focus on anyway.
Give yourself time to recover, read my article about how to transition to being friends and then go for it. Just when you’re really ready for it.
10) Definitely no hooking up with your ex
It’s a common trap to fall into and one I’ve been guilty of in the past too. I can tell you from experience, it only makes things worse.
Reaching a point where you’re able to move on from your ex and the relationship is about closure. By hooking up with her, you’re undoing a lot of the progress you’ve made for the sake of sex.
It creates a big gray area and a whole lot of confusion. It might even give you false hope which means you have to start the recovery process all over again.
Don’t open yourself up to that kind of torment. If casual sex is what you’re looking for, download Tinder.
That sums up the 10 steps for learning how to cope with a breakup. It’s an emotional journey and this in itself can make it hard for us to handle sometimes.
Do your best to be aware of your emotions so you can address them more effectively. Most important of all, remember that you’re not alone. There are people around you that will happily be there for you.
Sometimes just a basic conversation is all you need to remove those feelings of isolation. Put these tips into practice, stay active and social and you will get through this.
