5 Ways to Help Me Through My Breakup

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Breakups can be challenging not only for you but also for the people who care about and support you. You are in too much pain to explain what you need, so they have no way of knowing the best ways to help you. To help them help you, I have created a guide to prepare and instruct people on some things they can expect to encounter as you go through your agonizing grieving process. It describes some of your feelings, reactions, and tendencies as a result of the breakup so they can better prepare for and manage some of the frustrating, challenging, even overwhelming situations that lie ahead.

Here are five key guidelines written from you to the person or people in your life you may turn to, for how to best prepare themselves and support you as you go through withdrawal from an ex.

1. Please Respect My Process

When I’ve been leveled by a breakup, distraction can seem like a way to ease the pain, at least temporarily. You might be getting tired of hearing me say, “I’m not ready,” and you just want to show me a fun night. Part of it might be that you’re sick of me being so down, and part may be that you just want to jolt me out of this state because you miss the way I was before the breakup. But no matter how much you want me to "move on," there is nothing you or anyone else can do to speed my grieving process. In trying to rush it, you might be able to distract me from my grief temporarily, but grief that is avoided or repressed doesn’t just disappear; it starts showing up at inopportune times. Please be there for me now, even though it seems endless, because this is when I need you. Do your best to allow me to grieve at my own pace.

2. I Might Make Some Bad Decisions

It's possible that I will be so distraught that I will attempt to avoid that pain through reckless behavior—and possibly even an impulsive relationship that looks to you like as much a mess as my previous one. All you can do is remind me (and yourself) that I may not have taken adequate time to grieve the loss, and remind me to think clearly about how best to proceed. Also, try to remind me that I might not think I care what I do now, but in reality, I do. I want to do everything possible to avoid pain, because it is so intolerable to be in my own skin. I might even resort to reckless methods to escape myself. Everything I am feeling and doing after my loss is a part of my unique, individual experience of being devastated. I am struggling to reinvent myself in the face of this loss and to find a way to continue to exist until I feel ready to live again.

Whether it takes six days, six months, or longer, this is my process. You don't have to like it, just know that, for whatever reason, right now I can't help acting and thinking in ways that you know the “real me” would not. Decreasing your expectations for my recovery will decrease your frustration. If you are less frustrated with me, then I won't feel as much shame for letting you down. And if I feel less shame, I will become less likely to make decisions we both know are bad.

3. You Have Your Limits, Too

Any relationship is easier to be in when you both feel good about life, each other, and yourselves at more or less the same time. It's harder when there's a person in your life who seems to need you desperately one minute and avoid you the next. That is because I’m feeling waves of fear, despair, disappointment, and shame that overwhelm me and end up leaking out all over you.

Provided that you do not feel that I am abusing you, your challenge is to accept that while my anger seems to be directed at you, it actually isn’t. If you can recognize that, try to stay as kind and compassionate as you can within your limits. It can take some pressure off you to know that listening, being there, and helping me feel understood is all you can do. You can’t change what I feel. But by “being there” you are signaling that you’re weathering the storm with me.

And most important, when you need some R&R from me, take it. Please, though, reassure me that, yes, I am driving you crazy, but that you do still care. You are taking time off because disengaging before reengaging will help you to help me again when you can.

4. As Hard As It Is, I've Gotta Find My Own Path

Of course you don't want me to contact my ex if I don't absolutely have to, no matter what reason I come up with. You know much more clearly than I that contact will set me back again. Somehow, though, I have convinced myself again that I can mend the relationship. And I am hell-bent on trying—no matter what you or anyone else says. Maybe this time I believe I am being disloyal to my ex by truly giving up on the relationship, even though it's over. Since you can predict with a fair amount of certainty just how badly this scenario will unfold, it’s tempting to offer advice and issue reminders about the last (maybe several) times I tried this. Please take one shot at reminding me how it turned out last time, point out once how it’s likely to turn out this time, and then do your best to stand down.

Advice in this situation does two things: First, it puts you in a position of having an investment in the outcome—you have dispensed valuable advice. When I do not follow it (or painfully misinterpret it) it is likely to heighten your frustration. Second, you may, without realizing it, compel me to do the opposite of what you prescribed. Why? Because I so miss the relationship and crave what it feels like, that I am looking for any reason to go rogue anyway, and you just made it easier by telling me what a bad idea it was. (Nobody said this was rational.) Maybe I do exactly the opposite of what you want because "Dammit, I am going to prove you and everybody else wrong!"

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If you remember that I have to find my own way through, in my own time, mistakes will happen, but they are not a reflection on you. You and I will both survive my epic breakup. Even though it’s clear to you, the situation remains a great fog of disbelief for me, until the day it doesn't anymore.

5. Take Care of the Details, Please?

Grief absorbs every spare moment of thought. This is true of traumatic loss through death, and can be true of a breakup as well. One difference, of course, is that when someone we love dies, there are often friends and neighbors to take care of the little things like food or other basic necessities. Consider offering the same help to me when I am grieving the loss of a relationship. There are a lot of basics I may be overlooking in trying to figure out life without my ex. For example, you may want to do a grocery run, or remind me to get my car inspected this month. Most important, know that your efforts are deeply and profoundly appreciated, even if I do not recognize them while I am all-consumed and feeling like the world has become a foreign and surreal place.

A Final Reminder

Remembering that my grieving process is not on your timeline can help you stay as patient as possible. Guiding, cajoling, and pushing will not speed up the process. As much as you might want to, there is nothing for you to do. Just being present and tolerating my pain, even though you can’t fix it, opens up a safer, less judgmental space, which allows me to feel less pressure and shame, and feel less alone in it.