FLORIDA, Fla — It’s something we all go through at one point or another. Unless you live in a fairytale. Whether the relationship seemed perfect or it was toxic, breakups can leave you hurt and sometimes barely even able to function.
Your friends and family mean well, but most people only have a handful of experiences with relationships or breakups and they can’t help you like a professional can.
The experts in this field call themselves breakup or relationship coaches. They specialize in helping people get back together with an ex or to maintain a healthy relationship. If need be, they also help people to move on and find something better.
Here is some sage advice from experts.
Who To Listen To:
Lee Wilson: Relationship Coach
Coach Lee is a renowned relationship/breakup coach with two decades of experience dealing with the sort of thing us mere mortals might go through just a handful of times in our lives. He has a great Youtube channel with hours of advice and comfort for those dealing with the fallout of a breakup.
He is also an instructor for TED who specializes in the scientific study of relationships. He has given interviews to various media outlets such as USA Today, The New York Times, The Today Show, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Bravo TV, Yahoo Lifestyle, Fox, CBS, MSN, Men's Health, BusinessInsider.com, Daily Mail, Metro UK, The New York Post, The Sun, Elite Daily, AskMen, Reuters, E! True Hollywood Story, and The Daily Herald, among many others.
Watch the full interview with Coach Lee below. Subjects include general dating advice, how to dump your partner respectfully, and what to do if you've been dumped.
Ken Fox: Relationship Coach
Coach Ken has spent more than 20 years training, studying, and working with couples and individuals hurt by toxic relationships, narcissistic disorder, BPD, imminent rage disorder, anti-social disorder, gaslighting, love bombing, and dark empaths. His youtube channel has dozens of videos on the more specific relationship topics involving personality disorders and out of the ordinary situations.
Watch the full interview with Coach Ken below. Subjects include navigating relationships while dealing with trauma, unfortunate attatchment styles, or personality disorders.
Now What?:
So you just got dumped, or you did the dumping. The relationship as it was, no matter how good or bad it seemed, is done.
Experts like Coach Lee and Coach Ken tell people the first step is to accept this fact, and to respect yourself and your former partner.
This can be done by not begging or pleading as the dumpee. If you have to do the dumping, meeting in person and having a few reasons you can articulate works best.
Both coaches stress that you shouldn’t leave any hope in your former partner if you have no intentions of working on the relationship or getting back together. Keeping it short, respectful, and not leaving any breadcrumbs is the ideal.
In order to put together a plan to move forward, it’s important to know what to avoid in order to maximize the potential for healing.
- Don't beg or plead
- Do not smother them with attention, grand gestures, or guilt
- DO NOT STALK- In person or on social media
- Don't try to use jealousy and don't be petty or mean
What To Do:
Crying, pushback and even some questioning are all normal during and after a breakup. Coach Lee would advise dumpees to accept and respect the dumpers’ emotions and decision. This does not mean dumpees need to agree with the decision. In fact, the coaches say it’s important to give a little pushback and let your former partner know you want to maintain the relationship and that you think you’re great together.
Don’t fight and argue, and end all contact as soon as possible following the breakup event. (For more on this, check out 19:36 in the Coach Lee interview above.)
Both sides of the breakup need time to process and decide what they really want. It’s entirely possible after some reflection that the dumper may realize their mistake.
On the other side, the one who’s been dumped may realize they are better off without their ex or that the relationship wasn’t worth saving.
- Give them space if you've been dumped
- Reach out and admit you've made a mistake if you did the dumping
- Work on yourself, learn about attatchment styles, get to the gym, read, and grow as an individual
- Watch Coach Ken's and Lee's youtube videos on repeat if needed
How To "Move On":
Nothing impedes healthy bonding and new relationships like a lingering relationship wound that isn’t allowed to heal. (For more on this, check out 22:50 in the Coach Ken interview above.)
We’ve all been there.
It’s painful. It doesn’t really matter what the circumstances were, or who was right and who was wrong. The truth is, it hurts and that the pain can be debilitating.
The coaches would advise that moving on from a relationship is about loving and working on yourself. Even if you don’t really feel strong.
This can be the hardest part. Believing that you deserve to be in a loving relationship with someone who shares your values and treats you well require that you view yourself in a positive light. Something Coach Ken can help with.
If just the thought of this seems daunting because your inner dialogue is filled with negative self-doubt, criticism, or self-loathing, you may need to enlist the help of a professional.
You can’t expect someone else to treat you better than you treat yourself.
Self-forgiveness is an important part of self-love. In hindsight, you may feel that there are things you could have done differently, but it is impossible to know what different outcomes could have been.
Blaming yourself can only bring about negative emotions and delays the healing process. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. So don’t be so hard on yourself.
What If You Still Want The Relationship?
So, you still think you two could live your happily ever after? Coach Lee would tell you that sometimes people just make mistakes. Even big mistakes. It's possible your situation is one of those cases.
The same principles apply to whether you want them back or if you don't:
- Don't beg or plead
- Don't pester or reach out to your ex for any reason
- Unless your situation requires what Coach Lee calls "strategic contact"
- Speak only to trusted family and close non-mutual friends about the situation
- Work on your own mental and physical health
- Reflect and figure out what would need to change for it to work the second time around, or for you to become a better more desireable partner
In some extreme cases, trauma or personality disorders can be a major factor in those relationships which fail for seemingly no reason.
According to Coach Ken, MOST people have some sort of unfortunate attachment style or other mental health issue that could make intimate relationships difficult.
Instead of most people being secure and healthy, the minority of people are self aware and secure. (Check out 13:19 in the Coach Ken interview above for more on this.)
While the blame for the breakup is never 100 percent on one party or the other, it’s important to not beat yourself up too badly about it.
The coaches say try to reflect and accurately judge where you were being a bad partner, but also be aware of the issues your former partner brought to the relationship.
The realization that you can only control your own actions and emotions can be comforting.
Why Did The Relationship Fail?
There are several reasons relationships fail. Reasons relationships fail include lack of trust, poor or downright bad communication, no mutual respect, a difference in priorities, or a lack of intimacy.
Coach Lee said the number one reason for feelings to fade or a relationship to fail is a loss of attraction.
This could be a drop in physical or emotional attraction.
According to Coach Lee, it’s typically not physical attraction, unless there has been a big physical change, like weight, or health and appearance maintenance falling severely.
Coach Lee said usually emotional attraction is the key factor, and it falls due to many reasons.
Such as:
- The relationship isn't 'advancing'
- Long distance
- Lack of intimacy
- Big negative physical changes
- Infidelity
Intimacy is something we all crave and need to have healthy, fulfilling relationships.
Often, it’s the little things about the relationship that we miss the most. A weekly ritual, or something like a good morning or good night text.
Intimacy is all of these and more. The relationship coaches said this is often what causes the most pain when we think back on what we’ve lost.
Stay strong. If it was easy, it wouldn’t be as rewarding. The coaches would tell you all relationships take work. There will always be high points and low points in relationships. Even in the happiest, most fulfilling relationships.
Whether you dumped your ex and now realize it’s a mistake, you want your ex back, or if you want to move on, the best thing to do is take TIME to heal, process, and make a plan.
Limerence Or The Honeymoon Period:
We all know that feeling of a new relationship. You are so in love and just want to spend every waking moment either with or thinking about the object of your affection.
Coach Lee said Limerence is being madly in love, and that while it’s not always present in every new relationship, it’s the most common time to experience it.
According to Coach Lee, “Limerence is a type of love that is borderline obsession, with sky-high emotions and intense passion. When someone is in limerence, just the sight of their loved one can cause changes in brain activity, including increased dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin levels.”
Coach Lee would also tell you that limerence always fades and can never be as intense as it was at the start. Limerence is an “immature form of love.”
It’s not meant to last forever.
Conclusion:
Breakups suck.
Romantic breakups are the most common but underrated, traumatic events in our lives. Due to the frequency and commonality of breakups, people minimize how deeply hurtful and damaging a breakup really can be.
Romantic relationships bring out intense emotions that override logic and experience.
They often tie to deep-seated feelings about our own worthiness from childhood, our parental and peer relationships, and more. When a relationship ends, even on relatively good terms, there is still an emotional reckoning taking place.
It's the end of something we may have hoped would last forever. After a breakup, there is still a feeling of rejection, something fundamental, something that says we cannot be together as before. That's a tough blow for anyone’s ego. When a breakup is unexpected or sudden, the rejection can be even more intense or traumatic.
The destruction of one’s self-esteem, the end of one's plans and hopes, and the reminder of one’s past sense of rejection or failure can all be devastating.
Self-care is crucial after a breakup. Do the work, make the changes and see how that improves your relationships moving forward. Also, if your ex does come back, you'll be ready, and it will be better than before.