Handling a break up is difficult for both men and women. There are many different ways to handle a break up, and they often depend on how serious the relationship was, how long the relationship lasted and whether wanting to break up was fairly mutual or strictly one sided. Of course it’s the break ups that are not mutual and the ones that bring the end to a serious rather than casual relationship that test our coping skills the most. I really don’t know much about how men handle break ups, but I can tell you that for women I tend to see the coping methods that I’m listing here over and over again.
The Rebounder- For some women the easiest way to forget the hurt of a relationship ending is to jump right into a new relationship. In general, it not good to jump into another serious relationship if you are still dealing with the pain of a previous relationship. This doesn’t mean that you can’t get out and date once you’ve accepted that your previous relationship is over, but taking it slow to try to avoid the mistakes of past relationships is usually better than falling too hard and too fast for a new love.
Cry it Out- Many women need to go through a proper period of grieving before they can get over a break up. Women tend to feel better after shedding tears, and many women can’t get all that sadness out of their system until they’ve had a good cry. I think that this is one coping technique that is almost exclusive to women. Most men seem to find it hard to understand that a woman who is puffy eyed and red nosed from crying it out is usually much closer to healing than a woman who is keeping all her pain bottled up. Which brings me to the next technique.
The Denier- Some women just don’t want to admit to themselves or anyone else just how bad they feel after a break up or how much they cared for the man in the first place. Many of the women I’ve seen that deny the pain that they are obviously feeling were in a relationship with men that treated them badly. There’s no reason to feel embarrassed about admitting that you feel hurt by the end of a relationship with a man that you know logically you are better off without. Love is rarely logical, and everyone has fallen for the wrong person at some point.
The Destructor- These are the women who tend to gather together everything that is from their ex or that reminds them of their ex, and get rid of it. I’ve received stories from women who have gathered all of these reminders together and have set them ablaze in the backyard as a way of coping. It may seem a little dramatic to some, but I like that the emphasis is all about moving forward rather than staying stuck in the past.
The Eater- These are the women who head to the fridge or the pantry to cure their break up blues. I can fully relate to a woman who decides that trying out every flavor of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream is a good way to ease the pain of a break up. Of course there is only so long that you can use this approach before you start feeling worse rather than better, and this brings me to my final coping method.
The 5 Day Rule- This is one that I had never heard of until a few months ago. The general idea is that you have 5 days to deal with your break up in any way that you please. During these 5 days you can wallow in self pity, eat junk food, and listen to all those songs that remind you of him while crying your eyes out. Once those 5 days are up, the self pity and unhealthy coping methods need to be put to an end with a focus on how you can move forward. Of course the end of this 5 day period does not mark the point at which you will be healed, instead it marks an end to the period of wallowing in the sorrow of a break up and the beginning of a journey towards self improvement and moving forward.
So there you have it, the most common approaches that I have seen when it comes to women handling a break up. You’ve probably seen all of these behaviors at some point, and it’s likely that you’ve used at least one of the techniques when dealing with your own difficult break up. Everyone deals with a break up in a different manner depending on their personality and the situation, and the most important thread throughout all these methods is that eventually time heals all of the break up wounds.
What do you think is the best way to handle a break up? Do you have a special technique that you have found useful? Please let me know in the comments section!
Our quest to find that perfect match usually leads us through several relationships before we find “the one.” Hopefully with each relationship we learn something about relationships and about ourselves that we can bring forward into our next relationship. Of course our quest for the perfect match does not just involve learning and self discovery, it also involves having to handle the dreaded issue of how to break up.
If we have a healthy attitude about moving on after a relationship ends, we can take the knowledge we’ve gained from that failed relationship and pour it into a new relationship. On a simpler note, sometimes the things that we are left with after a relationship are a bit more tangible and have a value beyond self growth. In this case, I’m talking about the jewelry that was given to you by an ex which is probably tucked away in a box collecting dust somewhere (the jewelry, not the ex.)
