A way to survive. How to survive a breakup with a loved one. Advice from psychologists on how to cope with loneliness after a breakup

"I've never had a client say that social media helped them feel better during a breakup," says clinical psychologist Jennifer Taitz.

Research confirms these observations. One of these scientific studies found that people who encounter information about former partners on social networks experience separation more difficult. They feel the grief of loss much more acutely than those who prefer to cut off online communication with their exes. Another study found that simply looking at a photo of an ex-partner activated the area of ​​the brain associated with physical pain. “To truly get over a breakup, stop stalking your ex online,” recommends Jennifer Taitz.

Remember your ex's shortcomings

One study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that remembering your ex-partner's shortcomings was more effective in helping you cope with a breakup than thinking about your ex-partner's positive qualities or trying not to think about him at all.

The researchers put it this way: “In the context of grief over romantic loss, negative reappraisal is an effective strategy for reducing affection, whereas distraction is, conversely, an effective strategy for increasing positive attitudes toward a person.” Accordingly, your task is to constantly remember everything that infuriated you so much about your ex-partner: smelly socks, the habit of slurping loudly, quick foreplay during sex, or something else.

Kill your grief at the gym

"If you're feeling down or anxious, exercise can lift your mood just as much as taking medication," says Jennifer Taitz.

Her words are supported by a study published in the Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine, which found that people who practiced yoga after a loss felt much better than those who were physically inactive during this period. Other scientific work has shown that even simple actions like standing up and walking around reduce symptoms of depression by increasing the release of the “feel good” hormone endorphin. Therefore, instead of crying on the couch in front of love series, go to the gym - you will forget about your ex and tone up your buttocks.

Avoid "nostalgic" sex

Many of us are guilty of agreeing to have sex with our ex. Some people do this for a guaranteed orgasm, others do it to restore their wounded pride. Either way, science says sex with your ex is a bad idea. Scientific evidence published in Family Relations found that intimacy with an ex-partner can increase the symptoms of psychological distress that accompany the process of separation. Jennifer Taitz adds, "Sex with your ex may sound comforting or even sexy, but it's just not worth short-circuiting your recovery."

Be alone with your pain

How to pull yourself together, calm down, find the strength to continue living? Here are some tips to help you get through difficult times.

1. Train yourself to rejoice

Our ability to rejoice is nothing more than a habit. If you don't know how to extract the positive from events and only remember the bad, the neural pathways in your brain that are responsible for good news are not activated. If the brain is not used to receiving good news, it does not have the neural pathways to produce it itself. In other words, we program our own well-being. Optimism is a matter of practice. You need to consciously look for, notice and remember what makes you happy, then a good mood will be with you more often than a bad one.

One way is to ask positive questions that open—rather than close—the door of opportunity. In almost any situation you may ask yourself: What's good about this experience? This is a quick way to use gratitude to change your mood and thoughts.

2. The bad is just as valuable as the good.

Perhaps you are afraid that believing in the best will make you vulnerable and attract unhappiness. The key is to train yourself to accept feelings that may hurt, rather than avoid them. American writer, Nobel laureate in literature Toni Morrison said this very precisely: “I want to feel what I feel. What belongs to me. Even if it's not a feeling of happiness. Because you are all you have." To be ashamed or to cross out your experiences, to run away from them because they hurt, means to get stuck in some unlived experience, depriving yourself of the opportunity to learn an important lesson so that it does not happen again in the future.

3. Giving up is better than hitting a wall.

In a very old book (1934 edition) “How to Master Life,” the priest James Gordon Gilkey gives amazing advice. When you go through a difficult life experience, your first instinct is to try to explain, to find a reason why what happened happened. Usually this only provokes confusion, despair and self-pity. Most difficult life situations cannot be explained - they can only be endured, overcome and gradually forgotten. As soon as we give up trying to find a reasonable explanation, the tension inside gives way to silence, and it helps us find a way out.

“Why is this so hard for so many people? - asks the priest. - Because from childhood we were told: to win means to fight and destroy. This is what happens when you are young. Many of the difficulties we face in our youth are usually not permanent, and a combination of heroic courage, strong will and perseverance helps us overcome them. But with age the situation changes. We discover in our little world prison walls that no hail of blows can destroy. Within these walls we must spend our day - happily or with hatred in our souls. In new circumstances, we must consciously change the technique of youth. We must achieve victory not by attacking the walls, but by accepting them.”

4. Shift attention from yourself to others

In Christianity, one way to feel better when you feel bad is to pray for others. You don’t have to be a religious person to wish something good to a stranger passing by and feel relieved yourself.

The author of an article in the New York Times writes that it helped him cope with panic attacks. “I sat on a park bench and began to pray... I prayed for the nanny who was pushing a stroller with a baby in front of her, for a young woman who was going for a morning jog next to them, for a little boy who was pedaling a bicycle nearby. I prayed that each of them would always have what I wanted for myself: health, peace of mind, financial stability. By focusing on others, I realized that my problems were no different from the problems of other people, and they stopped pressing me.”

5. Love, not fear

Ultimately, all our emotions come down to two main ones: love and fear. Moreover, they cannot exist in the soul at the same time. In every situation we make a choice: to love (believe, accept, invest, give, care) or fear (not to trust, run away, take away, attack, manipulate). If you choose to love, then you displace fear from your soul, if on the contrary, you plunge deeper and deeper into the abyss of horror, where there is no place for love. Every time fear sets in, you can tell yourself: “I choose to love and not be afraid.” This short mantra can be used as auto-training.

The only way to truly get over a breakup is to give it time.

Biological anthropologist Helen Fisher told Business Insider: “The day will come when the person who lives in your head will leave it. You wake up in the morning and realize that yesterday you didn’t think about him at all.”

In fact, research shows that we tend to overestimate how long it will take for us to get better after a relationship ends.

There are, however, many ways to speed up the recovery process - you can show yourself as a person ready to work, and not an eternally sobbing wimp. Below, you'll find five scientifically proven ways to deal with a big breakup.

Forget about the Facebook pages of your exes

A 2012 study published in the journal Cyberpsychology found that people who view their ex's Facebook profiles are more likely to have negative feelings toward that person, more likely to want their loved one back, and less likely to recover after the relationship ends.

It's hard to say whether viewing an ex's Facebook profile can cause anxiety or vice versa. Either way, do yourself a favor and try to resist the urge to “just check” how your ex is coping with the breakup.

List five must-have traits in a potential partner and five that you can't live with

Syrtash previously told Business Insider that she recommends going deeper with each trait—so instead of "having brown hair and brown eyes," try "I should be attracted to this person."

One of the benefits of this exercise is that you may realize that you want someone to be emotionally open in a way that none of your exes were, for example. This way you can start looking for a partner who is more suitable for you.

Try not to think that the breakup happened because something was wrong with you

A 2016 article in the journal Personality and Social Psychology suggests that your ability to cope with a breakup has a lot to do with how you feel.

One of the study's authors, Lauren Howe, disagrees: “In our studies, people reported feeling most depressed after a breakup when it worsened their self-esteem. People reported that they were still upset when they thought about the person who rejected them.”

On the other hand, people who responded with remarks such as, “I learned that two people can be good people, but that doesn't mean they can be together,” tended to have an easier time with the breakup.

Write about a glimmer of hope you found in a breakup.

Research shows that simply journaling about your emotions after a breakup can make you feel worse.

But a 2015 paper in the journal Social and Personal Relationships found that if you journal in a certain way, it can help you cope. All you have to do is write a redemptive story. That is, a story about how you turned suffering—in this case, a breakup—into a positive experience.

Study participants felt less upset after writing their redemptive stories for four days—so it's unclear how long the effect lasted.

Discussion of the breakup

This strategy may seem counterintuitive: why dwell on a painful past?

The group of participants who spent more time with the experimenters and filling out breakup surveys experienced less distress than the group who spent less time in discussions. The first group was also less likely to agree with a statement such as “I don’t feel like myself anymore.”

In an interview with The Atlantic, lead researcher Grace Larson said this could lead to an objective assessment of your past.

At different stages of their relationship, couples perceive separation for a period of time differently. At the beginning of a relationship, you cannot imagine that you could survive even a day without your loved one, but after a couple of years you still really value the time spent together, but, especially if you already live together, you can control yourself when We have to be separated for some time. It’s harder, of course, in the evenings, because only then do you realize how difficult it is to fall asleep without burying your face in your favorite shoulder.

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But what to do, life is such that various situations and circumstances will periodically separate you for different periods of time, and you will have to somehow cope with this time. Of course, I don’t dare call myself an expert in such matters, but I already have some experience - my husband is periodically sent on business trips to various cities in Russia, so every 2-3 months I have to cope with bouts of loneliness and a feeling of emptiness in the house , from the fact that there is no one to cook and wild longing for a loved one. Which, by the way, is exactly what is happening now.

And despite the fact that nothing can be done about the very fact that you will miss a person - after all, this is a “reward” for being truly you, I have learned to cope with the rest. All you need is to understand how beneficial this time is for you and your relationship. How to do it? I'll tell you now.

1. After separation, love glows in a new way

I will never forget what my husband and I experienced after our first forced separation, which lasted two weeks. Yes, not a year, not six months, not a month, but just like two weeks. However, this time also affected our feelings in a completely surprising way. It all started with an excited meeting at the airport and did not end, probably, until the second separation 2 months later. And this is absolutely normal and logical, because a person manages to get used to absolutely everything, especially good things. When you first met, you walked in the park once or twice a week, went to a cafe, to the cinema - that was the same time. You managed to miss each other and every time you flew to the meeting in pairs of love.

When you move in together, you don’t have to fly anywhere, your man is always at your side, you just get used to the fact that he is always nearby. You still gently snore on his shoulder and inhale the smell of his perfume with pleasure, but you no longer appreciate some moments so much. And then BAM!, and he’s not around! It’s such a thrill to re-realize how much you miss him, how much you need him, and he needs you, how nice it is to understand that love and passion are still wandering around, you just sometimes forget to pay attention to them.

I’m not a masochist, but I still understand how great it is that after so much time, we are still happily writing tender SMSs, looking forward to hearing each other’s voice and sincerely loving and looking forward to meeting. And when it finally happens, both of you are overwhelmed by a flurry of emotions, your feelings seem to have been born again and are now burning with triple strength. In fact, it is still the same love, just now it is much stronger and stronger. That's all.

2. Surprise

This is quite an interesting way to brighten up loneliness and at the same time make the moment of “reunion” even more interesting and sweeter. You can cook something especially tasty, change something in your apartment, simply buy something that he dreamed about so much, or organize an entire erotic show with your participation in the company of seductive music.

It is clear that if your husband got home through several flights or a tiringly long time on a stuffy train, at first he may not have time for sexual pleasures, but after he rests, I think you will know what “a very long time” means endured." Especially if you warm up his interest, albeit tired, by arranging dinner plates in a transparent peignoir and scenting him with his favorite feminine scent.

You can also simply help him relax by giving him or taking with him a hot bath with a glass of wine, candles and pleasant music, and then finally sleep in an embrace under a warm blanket, which is what you so dreamed of on those bitter lonely evenings. You can edit a short film for him, the main plot of which will be the story of how you missed him.

In fact, when you are interested in preparing some kind of surprise for your loved one, firstly, time flies by instantly, and you can also have fun from the heart. Plus, how nice it is to give gifts! But choosing, buying, packaging, hiding, signing your gift with kind words is also very pleasant! Don’t waste your time, when will you still be able to calmly prepare a surprise for your loved one if you are always at home together?

3. Photo session

Now let's try to come up with a surprise for your loved one that you can give him while he is still far from you. Arrange yourself a beautiful (better, of course, erotic) photo session, and send the photos afterwards by mail. How pleasant it will be for you to dress up, put on makeup and smile seductively for your loved one! And how nice it will be for him to receive photographs of his beloved, whom he also hasn’t seen for a long time!

You can do this literally every day, for example, in the evenings. At the same time, it is not necessary to order a professional photographer, every girl already knows how she does it best, and all cameras have a timer that will allow her, after she presses the shutter button, to have time to run to the right place and portray the desired image.

Don’t overwhelm him with millions of your photographs, 3-4 from each evening will be enough: and it won’t be very expensive and time-consuming for you to take and process this whole thing, and he won’t get bored and will want the next evening to come soon, when he finally gets a new batch of photographs.

4. Losing weight

Many girls justify their reluctance to start losing weight by the fact that even if they go on a diet, they will still fail, because for their loved one they will continue to prepare all sorts of tasty treats that are harmless to him. Great, here's your opportunity! They say that the most difficult are just the first two or three weeks, then the body begins to more or less get used to it, and it becomes much easier to restrain yourself and show willpower.

Imagine how happy you will be to boast to him of new results that are already simply unrealistically noticeable. You will meet him happy, satisfied with yourself, confident and therefore, of course, very beautiful! Wow, that sounds like a great way to cope with separation!

5. Romantic calls and SMS

Let's turn again to the moment when you just started dating. Remember how you reacted when you received an SMS from him? Wow, I’m sure that in your heart you were quietly dancing and rejoicing. Now what happens? What do you see and write in your SMS? “Buy some bread,” “Let’s not go anywhere, I’m tired,” or “I’ll be late at work, sorry.” There is little positivity and flirting, you will agree. Of course, I am considering the most extreme stage, but I think you understand me. And when your husband left, what do you most want to write? Of course! So they flew away - romantic SMS with the words “I love you so much!”, “I miss you terribly!” and so on! And that's great!

What about calls? Remember the last time you talked to your husband for more than 10 minutes? That's right, because this time is just enough to list all the products you need to buy or explain how to get to the market where onions are sold the cheapest. What about separation? There are so many unspoken and interesting things that appear, how much you need to tell each other! An hour or two in the company of a native voice flies by, and, in my opinion, it’s great! In addition, this is one of the.

6. Rest from feminine duties

Now let’s talk selfishly, but honestly, about why it is sometimes beneficial to be separated from the man you love.

We all love that the house is always clean and tidy, that it smells of something delicious cooking in the kitchen, that the sinks, toilets and bathroom shine, and that the clothes are always washed and ironed. When a woman lives with a man, she has to perform most, and sometimes even all, of these tasks alone, which is not very easy, especially when she also works.

Take a break from your everyday routine! I’m not telling you to grow overgrown with centuries-old dust and completely forget about basic hygiene products, but why not give yourself a few days of rest. In addition, you must admit, a good half of the responsibilities simply disappear, cooking for yourself is much easier and more economical, no one scatters socks around the house, you may create some of the mess yourself, but it turns out to be half the size!

You need to wash and iron half as many things; not a whole mountain of dishes accumulates in the sink, but only 1-2 mugs and a plate. Try turning this time into your well-deserved women's vacation and spend it truly relaxed. And before your arrival, of course, (which again will be twice as simple) and now your house is shining with cleanliness as before!

7. Inspiration

How many brilliant novels, poems, paintings, and musical works were written under the influence of the difficult separation of two loving hearts! And why all? Because in moments of special suffering, many people are “covered” with a ray of insight and enlightenment, inspiration is literally knocking on the door, just have time to write it down, sketch it or play it.

Sometimes this even happens simply because of a change of environment and some kind of renewal of an already established, calm, peaceful life. Remember that any shocks are only good for you!

Try to create, express your extraordinary personality, pick up brushes, pencils and draw what is going on in your soul! Let you end up with complete abstraction and art chaos, the main thing is that you put your whole soul into your painting! Firstly, it will help you emotionally, you will throw out all your emotions, including negative ones, and, secondly, perhaps, thanks to these passionate impulses, you will discover something new and previously unknown in yourself that was previously hidden from you and everyone else! Who knows, maybe someone will really like what you did and buy your creation, and over time you will understand that this is your recognition!

8. Hobby

It happens that many women abandon all their old hobbies as soon as they start living with a man. It’s simply not enough time, laziness, or simply no longer interesting. This, in principle, of course, is already normal, but it’s never too late to start all over again! Why don’t you get out your old patterns and still finish that skirt that you started making many years ago? Or, for example, try knitting. By the way, you can also add a surprise to this, which we talked about earlier: knit your loved one a cool stylish scarf, hat, mittens or socks.

Firstly, you will have fun remembering old movements, and, secondly, while doing your favorite activity, time flies by! The same goes for other hobbies: embroidery, weaving, creating jewelry, drawing or writing poems! Your lonely evenings will fly by unnoticed, and this despite the fact that you are doing what you once loved.

And also, you can try something new! You will experience many new impressions, be distracted, and you will have something to tell and brag about to your loved one when he returns!

9. Meeting with friends

When we start a serious relationship with someone, as a rule, all friends and girlfriends fade into the background, and you can no longer afford to meet so often! But in vain, because they are your very close people after your beloved man.

Therefore, when your husband packs his bags and suddenly flies off somewhere, feel free to invite your friends to visit you and throw yourself a real bachelorette party! Finally, you can chat, gossip and laugh heartily. Ask them to help you cope with the melancholy, I think they themselves will definitely not mind, and if they themselves already have husbands, I think they will also surrender in front of your pitying eyes when you ask them to let their girls go with you. You can occupy your free time with shopping, sports, gatherings in cafes and restaurants, while doing it all together. I think that in this way you will brighten up your loneliness very well and also remember why you once became friends.

10. Learn to exist separately

In fact, you just have to be able to keep yourself busy. This is a very important and adult skill, and I think that you are no longer a child at all. If you no longer know how to cope with the free time and energy that appears out of nowhere, then it’s time to learn. Remember that everyone loves self-sufficient and interesting girls. Nobody needs those that hang on you like a heavy burden or stick to you like leeches, waiting for the next instructions for action.

Learn to manage your life on your own, you will become much stronger and stronger, and, despite the fact that we are still the weaker sex, these qualities in the depths of our souls will not hinder us at all.

Separation always brings something new into our lives, but if we know how to cope with the feelings that overwhelm us, directing all our vital forces into some useful activity, it becomes much easier to wait out the days in which you are far from each other. I hope that you will not have to be separated for a long time, but if this does happen, then you will already know what to do! How do you cope with forced “loneliness”? Share your experience with me! I would be very interested to know something about you!

Content

In the life of every person there has been a separation, when just yesterday a loved one, dear and close, leaves that day, taking a piece of the soul and closing the door to a happy family future. Indescribable pain, a feeling of emptiness, grief, despair and resentment settles in the heart. Many are trying to find the answer to the questions: how to survive a breakup with a loved one, what to do to regain faith in love and open your heart to new feelings? Psychologists recommend letting the person go, not holding on to the past, but finding positive factors in the situation.

Why do people feel bad about breakups?

Parting with a loved one is a kind of mental trauma that is not easy to survive. Psychologists attribute the following to the main reasons why people react so strongly to a breakup:

• Sincere love - when the heart completely belongs to one loved one, all thoughts are about him, it is unimaginable to imagine that he could leave. After a breakup, love does not go away in one day or a month; it will take a lot of time for feelings to burn out and cool down, so getting over a breakup is extremely difficult.
• Attachment to a person - if a couple has been together for a long time, people trusted each other, then it is extremely difficult to accept and understand that this no longer exists and will not happen again.
• Fear of being alone - after parting with a loved one, the self-esteem of the abandoned person, as a rule, drops sharply. Obsessive thoughts appear with the pretext “what if”: “What if I don’t meet anyone?”, “What if I end up alone forever?”, others. Such thoughts make you sad and aggravate the emotional process, delaying “recovery.”
• Self-flagellation is one of the main factors that force you to relive the situation of parting with your loved one again. Constant memories of happy, joyful days together, looking at photos together, listening to sad compositions - this makes you return to a past that no longer exists, which depresses your condition even more.

Advice from psychologists on how to cope with loneliness after a breakup

Every person can survive a breakup; it only takes time and a little effort. A real, healthy, sober assessment of the situation, accepting the situation as it is, realizing that the relationship is in the past, and a new stage of life is open to you, will help you cope with the problem. In order to survive a breakup with a loved one, psychologists advise taking 4 simple steps:

• Let go of the past.
• Find something positive in the breakup.
• Remove all the negativity that the separation brought into life (think positively).
• Open your heart to a new life, relationships, feelings.

Don't hold on to memories

When a person leaves, there are reasons for this: cooled feelings, new love, frequent conflict situations with a partner. It is important to understand that if a loved one has left, then you need to let him go - it will be painful, difficult, but you need to put an end to this stage of life, throw all thoughts and memories of the past out of your head. To survive a breakup, you need to clear your head of thoughts about your departed loved one, prohibit yourself from even thinking about what connects you with him.

Get rid of negative emotions

Negativity has a bad effect on your emotional, mental and physical health, so it’s worth getting rid of it. Forget about the pain that you had to endure during the breakup, about the resentment that settled in your soul and poisons you from the inside, about the hatred of the once loved one who so cruelly betrayed and trampled on your heart. Throw away everything that reminds you of your ex-partner, that causes a wave of indignation, grief, and streams of tears.

Chat with friends and family

After a breakup, it is not necessary to lead a reclusive lifestyle or sit alone. Quite the contrary - the free time that appears can be spent on loved ones, friends with whom you were not able to meet before. Don’t be afraid to talk about your feelings, the experiences that are hidden in your soul; by speaking out, you will achieve relief, and the support of your family will help you regain self-confidence.

Program yourself for happiness and new relationships

In order to survive a breakup, you need to understand that this is not only the end of a relationship, but also the beginning of a new life, in which there will be other meetings, acquaintances, and joys. Let go of sorrows and sorrows, open your heart to new feelings, relationships, believe that you can love and be loved. Tune in to a positive wave, allow yourself to enjoy every day, believe in miracles and don’t be afraid of being hit by Cupid’s arrow.

Ways to cope with heartache after a long relationship

It is possible to cope with depression and pain after a breakup with the help of various life changes, new hobbies, and activities. It is not necessary to change everything radically; sometimes small innovations can give existence new meaning and joy. Known ways to help get over a breakup:

• Change your image - dramatic changes in appearance, according to psychologists, can affect life after a breakup, quickly changing it. Changing your image may include changing your haircut or color, clothing style, or updating your entire wardrobe. In addition, if changes take place in a beauty salon, this will become an additional pleasant pastime for the girl.
• Going in for sports - visiting the gym or doing a little exercise at home will help improve your mood and get a boost of energy after parting with your loved one. This is a great way to keep yourself in shape, which helps you feel confident and attract admiring glances from members of the opposite sex.
• Shopping therapy is the best way for women to fight depression and feelings after breaking up with a loved one. Updating your wardrobe always has a beneficial effect on a girl’s condition, helps her get through difficult times, improves her mood, helps keep her busy and takes her mind off suffering. When you go shopping with your girlfriends, you will not only buy new things, but also have fun.
• Going on a trip is a great chance to see the world, get unforgettable impressions and experience amazing emotions. During the trip, you will have the opportunity not only to enjoy the beauty of picturesque nature or architectural buildings, but also to think about important things. For example, analyze your actions, evaluate why your loved one fell out of love, whose fault it is and what should be changed so that mistakes are avoided in the future and other relationships do not end in separation.
• Starting a home renovation is a great opportunity to get distracted and radically change something in your life after breaking up with your loved one. Make a small redevelopment, change the furniture that brings back memories of your former loved one, this will allow you to create your own comfort zone.
• To meet new people. People need new acquaintances like oxygen to maintain life, develop, and gain new knowledge. Arrange a reception for new acquaintances at your home, relax and have a lot of fun, which will bring back your zest for life and get over the breakup.
• Take your mind off sad thoughts: visit exhibitions, museums or theaters. Visiting cultural places provides an opportunity to gain inspiration, get closer to culture and the world of beauty, and helps relieve feelings after parting with a loved one. This is an excellent chance for spiritual development and self-development, thanks to which you will not stand in one place, but will constantly develop.
• Read positive literature - a good book can change your worldview, get a charge of positive emotions and find inspiration for a happy future. Preference should be given to books on self-education, psychology or classics, which can make you reconsider your views on life, evaluate your actions and other people in a given period. Literature can help you make plans for the future and forget about your worries after parting with your loved one.
• Buy yourself a pet - taking care of someone will help you forget about the breakup and get over this trouble. There will no longer be a feeling of loneliness, because upon returning home you will be greeted by a cute cat or a funny dog ​​that will brighten up your leisure time and help lift your spirits.

Video: how to make it easier to cope with a breakup with your loved one

Going through a painful breakup is not easy, it will take time to learn life without this relationship, the strength that will help you forget about everything. It is important to realize that you can’t return anything, no matter how much you want to. Rebuild your life in such a way, stop thinking about who was to blame - so that there is no place in it for either suffering or thoughts about the past. Perhaps in the future you will still be connected by friendly relations, but for the next few months you should completely forget about the person. Watch the video where a practicing psychologist will give useful tips on how to survive a breakup:

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