Everyone seems to have gone through it at one point in their lives – the heartache that accompanies breaking up with someone you truly care for. The reasons may vary, from the classic “It’s not you, it’s me” to the painful fact that they found someone else to just drifting apart over time. Whatever the situation may be, the fact is that the time following any breakup can be one of the most difficult in any person’s life.
It is usually during this period that depression, denial, resentment, anger, regret and all the other shades of human emotions come out and manifest in your actions. You do things normally considered out of character or downright “crazy” like constantly calling the other person, begging and pleading, stalking their social media profiles and much more. In fact, according to a study reported by Science Daily, breakups can drastically affect a person’s self-concept, meaning how we perceive and project ourselves. For example, if you were an outgoing person before a breakup, you might suddenly become very passive or go to the extreme of being aggressive.
The good news about all this is that most people surprisingly come out of heartbreaks intact and move on with their lives well enough. This happens when you manage to accept what happened and in the end, stay on good terms with your ex. It may seem like a far-fetched idea, especially for those who have just come out of relationships and want nothing but to “get back” at the person who hurt them or distance themselves from the whole ordeal. But when you do manage to breakup with your significant other and remain friends, you’ll find that you’ll actually be able to live a more fulfilling, satisfying and ultimately, healthier life.
1. Spend time away from your former flame. It’s always true that time heals all wounds. This is going to require all of your willpower, but it has to be done. You need to give yourself time to recover from what happened before you can even consider friendship, especially if it has been a confusing and frustrating breakup. The temptation to text, call, IM, email, drop by your old haunts or drive by the person’s home will really be hard to resist, especially now when there are so many ways to communicate and to find out what’s going on in other people’s lives.
The key here lies in your friends and family members. Go to your close friends, siblings, parents or cousins who know all about your relationship, who have strong opinions regarding the situation or best of all, who are also friends with your former significant other. The reason for this? They will be the ones who can help you most as they know what you’ve been through and will be your strongest shield against anything you might be tempted to do.
Do everything physically possible: give them your mobile phone for a while, allow them to keep you away from your “couple places,” let them change your passwords if possible, and give them instructions not to let you give in to your urges to see or communicate with your former loved one. Have a friend with you or call someone up when you begin to feel lonely and start tripping down memory lane or when you have to go to social events where your ex will be present. The less you see the person and the less you talk to him or her, the easier it will be for you to recover and reflect on things when you’re ready.
2. Focus on yourself first. Honestly speaking, you cannot even begin to think of mending a broken relationship and turning it into friendship if you yourself are not fine. If you insist on a “breakup with your significant other and remain friends” scheme before you’re ready, you will only end up hurting yourself more while the other person gets the better end of the deal.
According to a study presented in Time by the State University of New York at Story Brook and Rutgers University that measured the pain people were said to feel after a breakup, the brain areas involved in the feelings of hurt from romantic rejection are the same as those associated with motivation, addiction, physical pain and reward. To push past the pain and get back on track, focus on what’s important: you.
Start a new hobby, learn new things by enrolling in classes, check out cultural and artistic events, try a new sport or musical instrument – now is the time to do everything you couldn’t or wouldn’t do when you were in a relationship. Get a new haircut or a makeover, earn your self-confidence back and your “mojo.” Not dwelling on the things that happened and letting yourself be distracted by things that can help you become a better person are big leaps towards healing the wounds and eventually, moving forward to become friends with your ex in the future.
3. Remember the good things about the person and the relationship. This is easier said than done. When you’re in the throes of an emotional breakdown and all you can think of are the lies or the promises broken, how can you even begin to think of all that was good? However, if you’ve done the first two steps and have given yourself sufficient time to rethink things and have made some progress towards forgiveness, recalling positive memories should not be as difficult, although it will give you a pang of regret for what was – that’s normal and you’re allowed to feel that.
An important research in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology as reported in Live Science tells us that people actually overestimate the time it takes them to get back on their feet after a breakup. The researchers tried a 9-month experiment on freshmen students in order to test this and found it to be true: all of those whose relationships ended within the time period had recovered emotionally in almost half the time they had initially predicted and on the average, recovery time was 10 weeks.
Then again, this can depend on the persons involved and on the situation. But the bottom line is that you’ll be fine sooner than you know it, and it will be possible to recall why you fell in love with the person in the first place and think of your good memories without any bitterness. Try scanning old photos, briefly visiting old spots, talking to friends and family members on a positive note. A word of caution though: keep things light and don’t dwell too long on one memory or place; keep moving, keep talking, laughing, maybe crying a bit and as time passes, it will get easier to reminisce.
4. Talk to your former significant other. This doesn’t mean you should schedule a long dinner so you can shout at each other, point fingers or dredge up old issues. If you have really given yourself enough time to heal, have found fulfillment or at least some semblance of normalcy in doing something else and can remember that this person was once a good thing in your life, you can do this too.
Say hello should you run into him or her in public places like the grocery or park and ask a question or two about how they are doing. Don’t grill them; a light and easy conversation is enough to keep the acquaintance going. Say enough to casually let the other person know that you’re doing fine and that you’re open to remaining friends then go your own way. Once in a while, if you happen to find something you think your ex might be interested in or will like, include him or her in a short, informal message to other people through public means of communication like a tweet or a group text message. Avoid too personal methods like lengthy phone calls or private emails and messages as it may send the wrong idea or it might unwittingly send you back to square one.
Eventually, if your ex is mature enough to move past things like you, and given enough time and good communication, you’re going to reach a pretty stable plateau called friendship.
5. Go on with your life. You may become friends after a breakup, but don’t expect that things will be the same, or that you become BFFs as your history will always be there. At the most, you and that person will have a relationship similar to those you have with old friends you haven’t communicated with in a while or a distant relative you only see during family events. Keep the acquaintance going. Continue to acknowledge his or her presence when you see each other, chitchat lightly for a bit, but keep in mind that you are now living separate lives. You have things going on and so does he. If the news reaches you that your former significant other is in a relationship with someone else, just smile and if it gets too much, call a friend so you have someone to talk to.
But sometimes if you’re really lucky and you and your ex both manage to put everything behind you, and you see each other more often than other exes do or have the same circle of friends, you’ll be able to remain friends in the real sense of the word. There are plenty of couples out there who have found that they are better off as friends and these can be the friendships that really last.
