Is It a Nice Break Up or an Ugly Goodbye?

A partnership between lovers, romantic partners, or spouses may suddenly end, usually initiated by one party and imposed on the other. Ending a relationship is often motivated by anger, depression, or boredom, alongside anticipating relief. The partner who desires to move on may be guilt-ridden about leaving. Yet guilt is a response to empathy about hurting another person and can be mistaken for a desire to continue a relationship. Granted, once we become indifferent about a present mate and the relationship, we have withdrawn our attachment.

A heartbroken partner who still cares will experience painful loss-related emotions, particularly shame, grief, and an array of secondary coping responses that may involve blaming themselves, condemning their partner, evading their emotions, or retreating. Researchers have associated romantic breakups with extreme physical and emotional distress, increased stress hormones, disrupted sleep and immune function, angry and vengeful behavior, drug and alcohol use, and exaggerated attempts to reestablish the relationship (Field, 2017). So, how can we break up nicely when dissolving a relationship can be so emotionally messy?

Retention or Replacement

Amidst a breakup, the potential loss of both tangible and intangible assets, positive benefits, or social status leads both men and women to engage in mate retention tactics (Buss, 1988; Miner et al., 2009; Starratt & Shackelford, 2012). For example, “breakup sex,” defined as sexual intercourse with an ex-romantic partner that occurs within two weeks after the termination of the relationship, is motivated by relationship maintenance, hedonism, or ambivalence and may be considered a mate retention strategy (Moran et al., 2020). Relative to women, men are more likely to indicate motives for breakup sex that pertain to hedonism and ambivalence (Moran et al., 2020). Thus, unfortunately, in heterosexual couples, breakup sex may disproportionately benefit men and may not be as fulfilling to women or as constructive as the media suggests (Moran et al., 2020).

When two humans are involved in a deep relationship, they develop what is called a psychobiological attunement, whereby each person provides both an activating and a calming influence on the other (Field, 2012). Stimulation from the partner, including touch and physical intimacy, can enhance this attunement. According to this viewpoint, the loss of a partner may result in physiological disorganization and changes in immune function (Field et al., 2007).

Some research suggests that immediately seeking a replacement for the lost partner is a strategy for those with insecurity and high attachment anxiety (Davis, 2000). Similarly, the desire to reestablish a relationship with an ex-partner may represent an attempt by anxiously attached people to navigate the self-concept confusion that occurs upon experiencing a breakup (Cope & Mattingly, 2020). However, if we consider the emotions that are present in romantic detachment, replacing a lost partner or restoring a failed romantic relationship is often an attempt to evade shame and grief.

The Shame of Breaking Up

Shame is the primary emotion that signals a relational rupture—a response to disconnection (Kaufman, 1974; Nathanson, 1992; Schore, 2012; Tomkins, 2008). Emotion theorists who have associated the sense of disconnection, indignity, self-consciousness, and alienation with the emotion of shame emphasize that the way we and others perceive the self makes a difference (Lewis, 1971; Nathanson, 1992; Tomkins, 2008). Our self-perception changes as a consequence of a breakup because shame shakes one’s self-esteem and self-respect (Czub, 2013). We may experience shame as a sickness of the soul or as an inner torment, and it can make us feel defeated, alienated, and lacking in dignity or worth (Tomkins, 2008).

When a heartbroken person experiences the shame of a partner’s infidelity, a cordial breakup is unlikely. Many unilateral breakup decisions are preceded by behaviors that have already undermined relationship fidelity or stability, such as alternative monitoring—where the initiator had been exploring other options or found another relationship they want to pursue (Ritchie et al., 2021). In such situations, a rejected partner is likely to experience jealousy, inadequacy, betrayal, or insecurity—shame responses that make it perhaps impossible to break up nicely.

Coping and defensive responses to shame can involve attacking the self (e.g., self-harm or self-denigration), anger directed at the other (e.g., attacking comments), withdrawal (e.g., refusal to communicate), or avoidance behaviors (e.g., excessive drinking or drug use) (Nathanson, 1992). Attachment insecurity, particularly anxiety, was associated with using drugs and alcohol to cope with loss (Davis et al., 2003). Commonly, attacking an ex-partner by labeling them as a narcissist or a borderline personality may be temporarily relieving since those diagnoses have become synonymous with describing someone’s personality as blameworthy and potentially negates the shame experienced about being left.

Breakup Grief

Losing a romantic partner due to a breakup differs in many ways from a loss resulting from death; however, grief attends to a heartbreak of any kind where the loved one is inaccessible. In breakups, the fact that the person is still alive can make daily memories and fantasies of a possible reunion torturous. Given all the nostalgia we accumulate during a romantic relationship, it is not unusual to continue the relationship through memories, fantasies, and even “grief dreams.”

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What happens regarding our memories of a relationship as we sleep, and how does this pertain to breakup loss? Dreams are a combination of recent and past memories, leftover elements from the day’s events, learning experiences, sensory input while we are asleep, and random images generated by the brain (Siegel, 2010; Wamsley & Stickgold, 2011; Zhao et al., 2018). A study of individuals who lost a romantic partner or spouse found that grief dreams may be a way for people to regulate emotion, maintain a continuing bond with the loved one, and help them adjust to the loss (Black et al., 2021). Yet nightmares about a lost love may represent a futile attempt of the brain to consolidate emotional events (Scarpelli et al., 2019). Therefore, we may cognitively accept the loss of a relationship, but may still process it emotionally through our dreams.

Childhood loss may influence a later response to loss in adulthood. In some situations, a romantic partner may serve as an anesthetic of sorts, or a coping device to manage earlier experiences of loss-related shame and a sense of unworthiness (Dellmann, 2018). When a partner leaves, the hidden early shame experience of being left may result in a significant grief response.

Adapting to Loss

Our past and present circumstances influence the many different ways we traverse breakups and loss in general, the nature of our emotional intimacy with the former partner, and our culture, beliefs, resilience, and available support systems. We each have a unique response. Following a breakup, we should trust that waves of emotion will pass.

Theorists refer to the idea that people in a close relationship may experience a cognitive overlapping of their self-concepts, whereby features of the other are subsumed into one’s own self-knowledge, and they may even confuse the self with the close other (Mashek et al., 2003; Swann & Bosson, 2010). Navigating the grief of breaking up may be far more complicated if we are involved in a relationship that has shaped our identity. Thus, discovering and maintaining a new consistency in one’s sense of self helps us continue to live fully. Novel solo experiences and new challenges help one reestablish a sense of self, separate from a former partner.

Endings are complex and often not pretty when the decision to break up is one-sided. Although the heartbroken may try to hide the sting of breaking up through various coping responses, adapting to breakup loss is part of life and learning. And it’s hard.

[Excerpted in part from my book, Grief Isn’t Something to Get Over: Finding a Home for Memories and Emotions After Losing a Loved One.]