This Is How You Heal After A Major Heartbreak

Therapists share what to do — and what not to do — when going through a breakup.

by Jillian Wilson
Published Feb. 16, 2024

Romantic breakups are tough. And they’re one of the rare things in life that don’t get easier the more you experience them: Your called-off engagement isn’t going to be any easier than your high school breakup, however older and wiser you might be.

Therapists say romantic breakups possess several unique qualities that make them especially challenging. “It’s hard to let go of relationships. It’s the nostalgia, the memories, the plans I had with the person, the romanticism that I had about the person,” said Denise Brady, a licensed marriage and family therapist based in California.

“Letting go is really hard for people,” Brady said. “People desire and need human connection even more than, I think, prior to the pandemic.”

Additionally, you may find that your relationship was your identity. The status of being a girlfriend, boyfriend, fiancé(e), wife or husband may have been something that was a huge part of you, and now ― sometimes suddenly ― it isn’t.

Alduan Tartt, a faith-based clinical psychologist based in Georgia, said breakups are a form of grief.

“Someone we’re emotionally connected to has left us, or we’ve left them because we realized that it had no future, or whatever the reason may be,” Tartt said. “A lot of times we think [of] grief and loss when we think [about] the death of a person. We don’t think about grief and loss when it comes to a relationship.”

All of this combines to create a tough situation where you might feel lost, upset, less confident, and unsure of what your future holds. Healing after heartbreak can feel impossible, but therapists say it’s not. In fact, there are things you can do to make the process better. Here’s some therapist-backed advice for healing:

“Believe it or not, you want to set a date for healing,” Tartt said.

This is an uncommon thought when it comes to emotional healing — it’s generally more tied to physical healing — but it’s just as important, Tartt noted.

Setting a date for recovery allows you to pace your progress and plan your recovery, he said. If you tell yourself you want to feel better in three months, you’ll allow yourself to go through a three-month healing period. And when the three months are up, you’ll be more inclined to let yourself move on.

When doing this, “you’re actually able to frame grief in terms of recovery, versus this being permanent,” Tartt said.

During your designated healing time, Tartt recommends taking part in counseling. Community support is also crucial, he said.

“The Bible says, ‘Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed,’” Tartt said. “The practical application to that is, when we’re alone, we only hear ourselves think ― but when we have wise counsel, the perspective of other people, then we can be healed, then we can have input and support as to how to move forward.”

There is no rush to get over a breakup, Brady emphasized. So if you do decide to set a date for your recovery, make sure it’s a realistic goal. It’s important that you allow yourself ample time to get over your ex, and that timeline will vary from person to person.

“Just because other people may be over their relationships quicker, take your time [and] be patient with yourself,” Brady said. “Give yourself some grace.”

In other words, don’t expect to feel totally healed after just a month, if you know that isn’t how your healing tends to go. It’s OK to need time to get over an ex, and it can be detrimental to push it along too fast.

“One of the biggest mistakes that we make is, we try to go through heartbreak or pain alone, which keeps the pain inside,” Tartt said. “We don’t have an outlet to be able to vent, which means that all of that emotional pain stays inside, which usually leads to [physical] complaints, sleep problems. It could lead to headaches, it could lead to irritable mood.”

So, as you heal, it’s important to talk with your friends, family and/or your therapist about the emotions you’re dealing with.

Not talking to someone about what you’re going through “robs you of the perspective of, first of all, hearing yourself processing it, but also, getting reliable feedback on whether you’re processing the heartbreak or not,” Tartt said.

For example, your loved ones will ideally be able to tell you if you’re putting unfair blame on yourself. But if you don’t share your thoughts with the people around you, you won’t have that feedback.

“I know it’s challenging, but sometimes you have to sit in that pain to heal from it,” Brady said. You shouldn’t try to avoid your pain by shoving it down, distracting yourself or resorting to escapism.

Instead, Brady said, you should ask yourself: “What am I feeling right now? What is my body trying to tell me? What are my emotions telling me?”

If your emotions are telling you to cry, then cry. If your body is craving community, seek that out.

It’s even necessary to sit with your pain for your future self. “You want to sit with it and heal through it so that it does not come up in other ways, [like] in your friendships, in your just regular everyday human connection with people, in your next relationship,” Brady said. “You don’t want those triggers or… that hurt to come up in other areas of your life.”

“People think they have control over their pain and their trauma,” she went on. “Oftentimes, they don’t realize how much that unhealed hurt comes up in so many areas of their lives.”

Brady recommends journaling as one way to sit with your pain. Putting thoughts on paper can help you release them, she said. Additionally, doing body scans ― noticing if your stomach is in knots, or your head hurts, or your hands are tense — can be a helpful way to understand how your body is managing the heartbreak.

According to Tartt, there are three “Ps” you should fully avoid when going through a breakup, and they’re based on the research of Dr. Martin Seligman, director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

“One is ‘personalization,’ and this is where we personalize the breakup,” Tartt explained. Beliefs like “I never get the guy,” “I always ruin things with girls” or “I’m never good enough” are examples of this kind of thought pattern.

“The problem with that is we can’t change who we are — unless we’re intentional about it — but we’re saying, ‘Because of who I am, I’m doomed,’” Tartt said. “Then we make every relationship we get into end the same way. We have to be very aware of that negative thinking.”

The second “P” is “pervasive” ― that is, the pervasive beliefs that can create negative thought patterns in relationships. These are ideas like “Men aren’t loyal” or “Women can’t commit,” Tartt said.

“And so, we generalize a relationship with one person to an entire gender, even if you’re dating a same-sex partner … We only meet people’s representatives,” Tartt said. “So you have to be aware of that pervasiveness.”

The final “P” is “permanence.” This refers to thought patterns like “This will always be. I’ll never be able to get married, I’ll never be able to pick the right partner, I’ll never win at love, I’ll never be able to have what my parents and all of my friends have,” Tartt offered as examples. “I’m just resigned to be alone.”

To combat this, Tartt recommends that you work on the things that are limiting you, whether it’s being more faithful, learning to be a better evaluator of who you date, dating more people so you can evaluate what you want, or setting better boundaries in a relationship.

And it’s important to remember that this is just one moment in time ― you can still find love in the future, Tartt said. “You have to kiss some frogs before you find Mr. or Mrs. Right.”

“Try not to look at your ex’s stories or Instagram posts, because that will get you sucked in and make you probably feel worse,” Brady said.

Most people only document the highlights on social media — nights out with friends, impressive meals, vacations — which can make it seem like their lives are perfect, or at least more exciting and glamorous than they are.

In fact, happy images and videos on your ex’s social media could lead you to believe that they’re moving on and having a good time as you sit at home heartbroken and crying, Brady said.

“I think social media can suck you in and lead to you feeling more heartbroken and [in] more pain,” she said.

“You want to be in two categories ― you either want to be happily single or you want to be happily married, right?” Tartt said. “Because there [are] two other categories we all want to avoid — unhappily single… or unhappily married.”

According to Tartt, happily single folks and happily married folks have one thing in common: They have “a robust set of people to do life with.”

“Someone to have adventures with, someone to have deep conversation, someone to go to church with,” he said. “Someone just to have fun, someone that can just enjoy some of the things that they like to do. So, therefore, they’re happy and in relationships, not just romantic relationships.”

“What I want to do is, I want to take the stress off of making people feel incomplete, or feeling like they failed, or like they did not have a full and rich life, if they did not have a romantic relationship that ends in marriage or long-term commitment,” Tartt said.

“There are plenty of people out there who are extremely happy, but they have relationships and social support in other forms,” he said. “Don’t be in a miserable marriage just to find happiness. It’s not gonna work.”

So, if you’re going through the aftermath of a breakup, focus on your social connections, the habits that make you happy, and the activities that make you feel your best. Not only will that help you heal from a tough breakup, it’ll help set you up for a fulfilling life.