I write a lot about the different ways you can experience breakups and how best to get over them.
Writing about how to deal with a breakup when you still love them is a tough one, which can leave you feeling powerless and doubting your own ability to get over it.
Here’s the thing, though – if a plane goes down, it really doesn’t matter if you are sitting in first class, business class, or right at the back of economy next to the bathrooms. That plane is done, and so is everyone on it. The same can be said for breakups.
It doesn’t matter if you were ghosted, blindsided, cheated on, or had the most ‘amicable’ breakup in the world. You are all passengers on the same plane, and you all need to do more or less the same things to overcome the breakup when you still love them.
Wherever you have found yourself today, I hope I can help you see that it is all in your power, and that despite you still loving them, this is a situation and person you are more than capable of getting over.
In this blog post, we’re going to talk about:
- How to look at the choices that got you here
- How to cut the confusion you are feeling
- How to resist the lure of unhelpful tactics and advice
- How to increase self-compassion toward yourself
- How to know if this is about the breakup and him/her, or something else
Start by getting realistic about ‘lost love’
So, you want to know how to deal with a breakup when you still love them. Firstly, there is often the sense that if you have a particular type of breakup, it can make it easier or harder to get over them.
I still stand by this. I think that whilst the pain of any relationship ending is undeniable and universally felt, we do need to exert a little bit of self-control and authority over our pain. We also need to think about how long we will let it run us – particularly in relation to how disrespected we were by their exit.
If someone you were dating or in a relationship with chose to exit without showing you any decency, emotional maturity, or kindness, then you really do have to question how long it is worth spending time being heartbroken over them.
I recently said to a friend that I regretted the ‘dead time’ I spent being heartbroken after an ex.
My story of heartbreak
For context, this guy was telling me in the morning he loved me and couldn’t wait to see me. By the same evening, he had said he was confused, asked for space, then proceeded to stop communicating with me. He then sent my belongings to me in a trash bag with an Uber driver. I never heard from him again.
I was rightfully devastated about this (and convinced I would never get over it). This led to moping for months and paying more attention to my pain and suffering at being left. I didn’t see that, actually, his cowardly behaviour was evidence of him NEVER being the right person for me. I should have used THAT to drive me forward.
‘This doesn’t apply to me,’ you say. ‘I still love them, and I don’t know HOW to deal with this breakup because I STILL love them’.
Here’s the thing: if you want to know how to deal with a breakup when you still love them and think about them every day, it’s important for you to reframe how you are looking at this breakup.
If you ever want to be free of this pain, you need to put the control and the power back into your own hands (and head) to go upwards.
Understand how attachment styles affect breakups
I always aim to put power back into your own hands with my writing and coaching. Because surely no other situation can make you feel as powerless as being broken up with by someone and still loving them).
The first way to deal with this kind of breakup is to understand yourself more.
Unpicking and understanding your own habits, behaviours and thought patterns is not about going down a pop-psychology rabbit hole. It’s about learning how to tweak and change your own behaviour to recover quicker.
You need to understand the things about yourself that put you on the ‘breakup backfoot’. Then we can look at narratives, stories, and habits we keep repeating and telling ourselves.
These are the things that keep us locked into the breakup pain. This is especially true if you are trying to deal with a breakup when you still love them.
Perhaps like you, I have read a lot about attachment theory recently. I think there is something to be said for understanding this and applying it to yourself during a breakup.
Attachment theory
The general premise of attachment theory is that there are four adult attachment styles. These are all shaped and developed in our early childhoods in response to relationships with our earliest caregivers:
- Secure Attachment
- Anxious Attachment
- Avoidant Attachment
- Fearful-Avoidant Attachment
Understanding this theory and how you sit within it can help you to understand why some people can be very aloof and unattached in their relationships, while others are clingy and need constant validation and reassurance.
Now, whilst I agree with the attachment types above and have seen all of them in action, I’m not sure I buy into the fact it’s formed within our first 7-11 months as the theory proposes.
I know people with impeccable childhoods who are riddled with all the traits of one of the attachment styles above, so I personally believe these styles can be developed as we go along in life (or through the relentless chop shop that can be dating).
What I like about this theory is that by starting off knowing where you (and your ex) sit on the list, you then experience a new level of clarity as to the ‘why’. From that point, you are then able to apply some much-needed self-compassion toward yourself for knowing why this feels so painful, and perhaps understanding a little more why your ex did what they did through their ‘style’.
How to deal with your breakup if you still love your ex
When any of my coaching clients experience a breakup, I will always recommend the four steps below. These are the most basic recovery actions:
- Take realistic stock of what happened in the relationship and the ending.
- Cut the chaos and settle on one clear reason if you’re confused as to why this ended. (Use this reason as your guiding compass when you loop back into old stories of why or how this has happened. If you don’t have a reason, make one up. ‘He was confused. End of.’)
- Seek support and rebuild your confidence with self-compassionate practices.
- Look forward and take small actions every day.
When clients ask me, ‘How to deal with a breakup when you still love them?’ I remind them that the context behind this question is everything. And that I’m going to tell them how to reframe their situation to look at the breakup, themselves and this person differently to move on faster.
1. Get clear on a choice that was made – by him or you.
Whilst breakup pain IS very real, it’s very likely NOT a tragic set of circumstances which has stopped you from being together. If you get clear on the choice, it cuts through the romanticism of the ‘lost love’. And brings you sharply into the present moment and the WHY.
I tell them that their breakup is not a tragic movie where impossible events caused this ending to happen.
Unlike these movies, and like 99% of my clients (and my own experiences) the reason you are not together now is because a choice has been made.
Read that again. You are not together right now because a choice has been made. Yes, circumstances may have felt impossible and unique to you and him. But at the end of the day, the work you are going to have to do to get over this is the same as any other breakup.
Whether it was a job, bereavement, long-distance, kids, demanding ex-partners or personal issues – if he really wanted to be with you and for neither of you to be in this position. Somehow, he would have found a way for you to be together.
I look back now on someone I was with and his situation, which felt as close to ‘tragic circumstances’ as I’d ever experienced. And I thought that locked me into my pain even further.
Now with hindsight, there was a strong element of choice. A choice HE could have made to defy the circumstances and choose me. The fact is he didn’t, yet I was so stuck on this narrative of impossible circumstances that I held myself back for so much longer than I needed to.
2. Cut your mental chaos and confusion to settle on one reason
Wondering how to deal with a breakup when you still love them can be utterly exhausting.
I would ask myself how I was going to get over this when I was SO CONFUSED as to why it had ended.
How could he have been asking me to go on holiday with his friends four months in advance? But then, he was breaking up with me the following Tuesday because he wasn’t sure he wanted to be in a relationship with me.
This type of loop went around and around in my head, and it likely is in yours too.
We always want to get the end of the relationship tied up neatly. Hence, the incessant need we have for ‘closure chats’, or the final meeting.
If I could give you one single piece of advice here, it would be this. Sometimes their behaviour can be absolutely baffling, and your friends and family will be just as confused about it. Yet, if you quieten down and watch the chaos loop, you’ll realise your question about your confusion IS your answer.
Your mental chaos and confusion over the ending should NOT be the reason you feel unable to move on.
If you don’t have a reason, make one up. Don’t let ‘confusion’ be the reason you slow yourself down. There is enough clarity in the fact that he has left you confused.
3. Replace self-help with self-compassion
One theme that seems to really saturate the breakup marketplace is the need to undertake this huge relationship and childhood inventory. As if doing so is going to ensure this will never ever happen to you again (Oh, and it’s 100% the reason your relationships keep failing too).
There’s an aggression and a franticness to this line of thinking, which I don’t like. Sometimes, you just don’t need to go into your childhood to understand why he cheated on you. And sometimes people are just shitty, and it’s just shitty luck you met them.
However, understanding yourself in a compassionate way is something I am big on. What’s the difference, you ask?
Self-compassion is a concept I came across a few years ago. And I absolutely loved it for its simplicity and powerful effects.
If you are wanting to know how to deal with a breakup when you still love them, then I’d recommend searching this concept online and finding a teacher or resource around the topic that you connect with. It’ll be a sure-fire way to heal your pain at a deeper level.
For me, this was Kristin Neff, and whilst I am not into the woo-woo, her guided talks around this topic for very, very real-life problems were immensely helpful for me. It truly felt like I was guiding myself upwards and outwards from serious heartbreak when I practised.
I’d be willing to bet that you’ll find a lot more genuine and long-term healing through tapping into this concept and practising it. Forget purchasing another breakup book or listening to an online seminar.
4. Do a relationship litmus test
When clients ask how to deal with a breakup when you still love them, I can nearly always say that those asking are in a state of total emotional overwhelm.
If you want to feel in control of your pain and start to understand how you can begin to feel better, I like to apply what I call the ‘relationship litmus test’.
Remember back to school, and you’d test how alkaline or how acidic a chemical was by dipping litmus paper in it? That piece of paper would have measurements, and you’d mark it out and understand the substance you were testing.
I do the same with breakups. A ‘how acidic or alkaline is my life?’ test, if you will.
It forces you to ask if you would be so unhappy about this breakup if your life were better.
Some examples of things you could ask yourself might be:
- ‘Would I feel so devastated about this breakup if I weren’t living alone and being broke so hard?’
- ‘Would I feel so devastated about this breakup if my friends weren’t all getting married and having babies?’
- ‘Would I feel so devastated about this breakup if my parents hadn’t divorced and I had unresolved issues around it. Namely, my need for a secure home?’
- ‘Would I feel so devastated about this breakup if I hadn’t been cheated on last year?’
Would YOU feel so devastated about this breakup if you hadn’t lost or experienced XYZ before you got into this relationship?
Get very clear on what pain belongs to him and the breakup, and what belongs to you and the things you’ve accumulated in your life journey.
Once you have got real about whether your pain from this breakup is actually about you returning to a life you don’t want, FOCUS ON THAT PART OF YOUR LIFE. That is where your power is, and that is where true change will occur.
Your call to action
It’s never easy to tell you how to deal with a breakup when you still love them. And sometimes, the pain is something you would not wish upon your worst enemy.
Yet if you have found yourself in this position, you’d be amazed at how much more power is in your own hands to recover and move on faster.
Breakups always boil down to a few simple facts. And then it’s up to us to navigate the complicated emotions and pain that belong to us only.
If you’re suspended in a world of pain, remember these key points:
- Cut the confusion and settle on one reason
- Stop romanticising the breakup by getting clear on the decisions that were made that got you here
- Get clear about your own past and factors in your life that are feeling hard beyond the breakup
- Ramp up self-compassion practices for genuine and long-lasting healing
Feeling alone and overwhelmed is something you never need to experience, because you have this community and these resources. If you want more bespoke help with your situation or circumstances, you know how to reach me.
Love Georgina x