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Something funny happened at work, and there is one person you really want to tell. You stare at their name in your contact list. You know that if you call, no one will answer. They’re gone.
They aren’t dead, though. They are living in a rental a few suburbs away. They have your couch, your mother’s old washing machine. They have asked for some space after the breakup.
They aren’t dead, but you are mourning.
A lot to get used to
Grief might feel like a dramatic word for missing someone who has only changed their address, but the experts give you full permission to claim it.
“A relationship breakup and the death of a close person are both losses, and any loss can be grieved,” says Professor Lauren Breen, a grief researcher and psychologist at Curtin University.
“It’s not necessarily helpful to rank losses against each other. What’s important is the individual’s experience of the loss.”
While we are absolutely not ranking losses, divorce and separation are among the life changes requiring the greatest adjustment.
You’re trying to get used to someone’s absence while also working out whether you can afford the rent alone. You’ve also sent your ex a text, and you semi-regret it. The things you usually take in your stride begin to feel difficult.
“Grief affects much more than our feelings,” says Lauren. “It can affect sleep, appetite, memory, concentration, spirituality, financial status and our social lives.”
On high alert
Stress helps explain some of these effects that Lauren mentioned. Worry can trigger your stress response, prompting the release of hormones like adrenaline and cortisol that – theoretically – help you respond to a perceived threat. During a breakup, these hormones could make you feel like you’re being hunted for sport when all you’re actually doing is watching TV in your jim jams.
Predictably, these stress hormones can also mess with normal, daily activities. Your appetite changes – you feel hungry until you sit down to eat, the sight of your sandwich suddenly repulsive. You are impossibly tired all afternoon, then awake at midnight, reconsidering something your ex said months ago.
Then there’s the business of getting through a working day. Acute stress can impair working memory and cognitive flexibility, making it harder to hold information in mind or shift between tasks and approaches.
The dog sanctuary
There’s also more to grieve than just a person’s absence.
“During a breakup, you are also grieving shared routines, the potential loss of friends who choose sides and the loss of the future you imagined you’d have with that person,” says Lauren.
At some point, you and your partner decided you would semi-retire and open a dog sanctuary. Now you can’t really remember whose idea it was. It’s all very Runaway Bride, when Julia Roberts’s character realises that she doesn’t know how she likes her eggs because she’s always eaten them the way her boyfriends do. You definitely like dogs – but do you like them enough to have 40?
Over time, shared interests, friendships and plans can become part of how you understand yourself. When the relationship ends, you may feel less certain about who you are, and this loss of ‘self-concept clarity’ is linked to greater emotional distress. Alongside the sadness of missing someone, you’re also working out who you are without them.
Clay vs Camping
A little while after the dust settles, you might start making plans of your own. You gladly dive into a new ceramics obsession, signing up for a class and investing in a cute smock. All is well. But a week later, you hate the mug you made and wish you were camping with your ex. It feels like you’re taking a few steps forward, then a dramatic step back. What gives?
“Research shows there is no single, ‘correct’ way to grieve,” says Lauren. “Coping with loss often involves going back and forth between focusing on the loss and focusing on new things in life.”
There is time spent missing the person and time spent adjusting to life without them – making plans of your own, finding someone else to live with, establishing different routines. Taking breaks from both is part of coping too. You do not have to spend every available hour contemplating the collapse of your romantic life.
There are sweet treats to eat, sunsets to watch, morning walks to take. Alongside those pleasures, the basics – eating regularly, getting enough sleep and accepting support – can help you look after yourself while you grieve. You are also permitted to wear a black veil.
The next time your heart is broken, just remember: science tells us that breakup grief can mess with your work, your hobbies, your appetite, your sleep. It has very little respect for your other commitments. Feeling ‘better’ might take a little longer than you’d prefer.
But science also says that grief doesn’t move in a straight line – there can be good days among the bad. Sometimes you might even decide you love your ceramic mug and drink a stunning oat latte from its imperfect curves.
You might still reach for your phone to text them after something funny happens at work or your dad says something unbelievable. But you will text a friend instead – maybe it still hurts, but the joke is also still funny.
