How To Get Through A Breakup Alone?

Breakups bring with them pain, trauma and distrust in the entire dating process. These unpleasant emotions augment manifold when you’re trying to figure out how to deal with a breakup alone. Every little thing reminds you of your sweetheart. Getting over someone is not easy. Breakups leave you lonely and upset. While having friends and family at such a time may help in coping with the emotional outbursts, there are ways you can help yourself even for those hours that you spend just by yourself.

It could also happen that you don’t have friends and family around when you are recovering from a heartbreak. What do you do then? We will help you deal with this very difficult phase of going through a breakup and our breakup survival tips might just help you to deal with a breakup alone.

We, humans, are herd creatures, we want people around us, we want romantic alliances and committed long-term relationships. We need people to shower love on and we ourselves need to be loved and cared for. And when we have had that beautiful relationship with someone and when it goes south we feel completely lost and dejected. Dealing with the pain and trauma of heartbreak is no cakewalk and the happiest people on earth go into a deep depression if they feel they have been rejected by someone they loved.

Scientific evidence suggests that suffering from a broken heart is even worse than physical pain. Those who have family and friends by their side are lucky, as they receive constant support to get over a breakup through love and affection. Dealing with the pain of loneliness after a breakup without any support system is very hard. You do feel lonely without friends. But we will tell you how to get over a breakup alone.

Being alone during a heartbreak with no family or friends can actually turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Being alone post-split could help you recover from the heartbreak completely. It might feel bitter and unbearably painful in the beginning, but as you progress day by day, you will experience a turnaround, leaving you feeling better than you did the day before.

You will be more in control of your life, your emotions and your reactions. Don’t believe us? Let us explore how going through a breakup alone can make you stronger than before and perhaps even inspire others to learn a thing or two from you.

How To Get Through The Breakup Of A Long-Term Relationship

Long-term relationships follow a pattern where both partners become integral to each other’s life. Speaking about why he was struggling after the breakup, Aron, a fitness expert, shared, “She was the first person I wished good morning to and the last to say good night. And now my phone just looks at me and I do not know what to do with the WhatsApp application anymore.”

Couples become a habit with each other and not having that routine is very destabilizing. Breakup hits them like a storm especially if they are the ones who have been rejected by their partner. Feeling empty after a breakup and struggling to find any sense or meaning in your life is not unusual when such a vital part of your existence has been lost.

Moving on after staying with a person for years in a committed relationship is a tough situation to be in. Adjusting to living alone after a breakup is not easy. We understand how agonizing the pain of heartbreak can be, especially once you have invested a lot of time and energy in the relationship. You were dreaming of a future with the person, maybe children and a home, perhaps the two of you even spoke about the kind of car you would buy or how many kids you would have. Then, to be alone with those memories can be very distressing.

Do not get overwhelmed by the pain. Yes, you may be struggling after the breakup right now, but this too shall pass. Where there is a will, there is a way. You will find a way to get over the breakup even if you are alone, with no one to provide you with emotional support. Accepting that the relationship is over as soon as you can is the first step toward healing.

Often, the denial about the reality of your situation is the root cause of misery and feeling a void after a breakup, triggering you to call the ex-partner or even stalk them on social media. If the ex has already moved on, then the constant images of them happy and living a life can be extremely searing to the heart. To move on with your new life, accept the truth that the relationship has lived its life.

If you are feeling lonely after a breakup with no friends, learn to love yourself. So far, you have loved the significant other and prioritized him/her over others, now nurse your wounded soul. Make yourself your top priority and stay strong after a breakup. 

To effectively deal with living alone after a breakup and not let the loss consume you, try journaling as an outlet for your feelings. You can even give the journal a name and then it can be the person you share your inner turmoil with. Yes, there will be endless tears, searing pain but then there is always healing from that pain. Funny thing, once your heart realizes the relationship is over, it starts taking steps to heal itself. There is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Related Reading: Do we always need closure?

How To Get Over A Breakup When You Still Love Each Other

Getting over someone you still love is perhaps the hardest. To be able to move on from a relationship, you need closure. And that closure can be hard to come by if you’re still emotionally invested in your ex. To stop struggling after a breakup in such a situation, you have to understand that love alone will not be enough to ensure long-term compatibility.

Think about the reasons why the two of you were not good together. What were the macro issues that kept creating trouble in your paradise? Did the two of you have different values in life? Was it about ego clashes? Did you want different things from life? Was one of you liberal and the other conservative?

One interesting thing about long-term relationships is that they introduce you to the good and the bad side of your partner. So, whether you were dumped or were the one to dump your boyfriend or girlfriend, understand that separation could be the only way to end an incompatible or toxic relationship.

Maybe the two of you were good for each other, but then things started going downhill. Maybe s/he could not understand your setbacks or challenges, perhaps you couldn’t understand theirs? If a relationship is not working out despite your best efforts, taking the call to quit is right.

But how to deal with a breakup alone? We are coming to that.

How To Survive A Breakup When You Have No Friends

You may have moved cities and have no close friends to help you deal with this crisis. There is a pattern that when people have romantic relationships, they invest a little less in their friendships. If you are stuck in a similar situation and are lonely without friends, you can get them on Skype or Whatsapp or any other video conferencing system.

Maybe you can decide to open a bottle of wine each and pour your heart out. Getting over someone is not easy but our survival guide could help you do that. This can help you deal with loneliness. Try and make new friends in the city. Trying out new gyms, taking up a new sport or hobby can be some avenues you can explore. But the most important and sure-shot way to deal with a breakup when you’re alone is becoming your own best friend.

This is a great time also to start practicing self-love. Every little thing helps. Getting a release will help you feel better about the situation you are in. Go on a ‘Date with yourself.’ Make yourself feel special by doing what you want to do. Pamper yourself, and fall in love with ‘you’ once again.

Try following your passion or a hobby; learn a new skill that will give a boost and get those much-needed feel-good endorphins flowing. Something as trivial as a bunch of fresh flowers can lift your mood too or order your favorite perfume online.

Related reading: Hope You Are Not Doing These 10 Funny Things After a Breakup…

Book yourself an appointment at your favorite salon and pamper yourself. If you look good, you are bound to feel good. You can take a short course on meditation too, to calm your inner turmoil. This would have a more soothing effect than having friends around you. It is possible to get over a breakup without friends. Alternatively, working out really helps release pent-up energy.

Use this time to build a better understanding of your motivations, desires, and expectations. Surround yourself with things that you love. It is best not to spend too much time indoors. Go out, even if for a short walk to your local park or around the block in your neighborhood. It will cheer you up. Watching the squirrels chase each other, seeing the dogs play, watching nature can all be fun and soothing. 

You will see there is more to life than just a relationship breakup. Volunteer for a cause you identify with, make a collection of your favorite movies and share the list, take up a new sport. Only you know what you want in this world. Use this awareness while handling a breakup. With these small efforts geared toward self-care, going through a breakup alone without friends would seem like a breeze.

10 Tips To Survive A Breakup All Alone Without Friends

So, now you know that surviving a breakup alone is not that difficult. Getting through this pain without anyone to depend on requires just a little shift of perspective. You will emerge stronger than ever post-split. Here are the 10 tips to survive a breakup all alone.

1. Love yourself

Feeling empty after a breakup is inevitable if you were invested in the relationship. However, not letting this feeling of emptiness consume you and drain every last ounce of energy and positivity out of you is a choice you can – and must – make to emerge from this heartbreak stronger.

Yes, this can seem even harder if circumstances force you to be by yourself after a breakup. This is when making a conscious decision to love yourself, day after day, perhaps the same way that you doted on your partner, can help lessen the pain and anguish you’re grappling with.

Make gratitude a part of life and whenever negative thoughts churn your soul, try to repeat positive self-affirmations. These help a great deal in shifting the negative outlook to positive. Listen to some cheerful songs. Remember, breakups are a temporary phase, and self-love will help you overcome this pain. You don’t need friends to get over a breakup. It’s possible to get over a breakup with no support system.

2. Acknowledge your positive attributes

A relationship can fail due to numerous factors. However, when you’re in the thick of the pain of a heartbreak, it’s easy to lose sight of the reasons that became the undoing of a relationship. If it was a long-term relationship where you saw yourself being with your partner for the rest of your life, its end can make you doubt whether you’re good enough to find someone who will stick by you through thick and thin. Many people are gripped with the fear of dying alone after a breakup.

These negative thoughts and self-doubt can make it harder to deal with a breakup when you’re alone. Instead of doubting your capabilities, remind yourself of all the achievements and good things. This will instill a feel-good factor in you and help you survive and handle the rejection better.

The best way to deal with loneliness after a breakup and the hit that your self-esteem has taken is to write down all the good things about you and focus on that. Love cooking? Stir up some amazing dishes for yourself. Are you an animal lover? Keep bird seeds at your window and see how many birds visit you all day. These seemingly small things but go a long way in bringing you contentment.

3. Identify your talents

It’s only natural that you will go through the different stages of grief after a breakup, and the fact that you don’t have your loved ones to lean on only makes coping with this whirlwind of emotions that much harder. When you feel like you are depressed and unable to move on, remind yourself that this is a phase, not the ultimate reality of your life.

You may be feeling a void after the breakup but it won’t last forever. The best way to make sure you get past it as swiftly as possible is to look within and explore your unique qualities and talents. This will provide you with a constructive outlet for channelizing your inner turmoil into something meaningful.

You could be good at cooking, can dance like a pro, sketch wonderfully, or blessed with a great fashion sense, work on it. Acknowledge your due worth and this is the most important point on our breakup survival guide.

4. Keep yourself occupied

Sonia broke up with her boyfriend of three years in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. With travel restrictions and lockdowns in force, she found herself staring at the question of how to deal with a breakup alone and not be consumed by pain. After spending a week in bed, sobbing into her pillow and watching reruns of Schitt’s Creek on Netflix, she decided it was time to grab life by the horns.

She made a detailed to-do list to keep herself productively occupied throughout the day, starting from a workout in the morning to cooking healthy home-cooked meals, clocking the requisite number of work-from-home hours, talking to friends or family in the evening, and reading before going to bed. With some effort, she was not only able to stick to her routine but also noticed that she wasn’t spending her days obsessing over her ex and the breakup.

A similar approach could help you too if you have to be by yourself after a breakup. After identifying what activities make you happy, dedicate your time to them. Staying busy goes a long way in keeping all negative emotions at bay. Do not let this breakup affect your work life. Concentrating on your career is a good thing. You have all the time in the world now, give that to your job and see the results. Find things that you enjoy, and keep yourself busy. This will be a great distraction and help you heal from within.

Related Reading: How To Get Over Someone You Love Deeply – 9 Steps To Follow

5. Enjoy the firsts in life

Weekends after a breakup can be especially hard since that’s typically the time you’d have spent with your SO, going out on dates, exploring new activities around town or just chilling at home. When you were in a relationship, weekends were the most awaited part of the week and flew by in the blink of an eye.

Now, with them gone from your life, the same two days of the week can stretch into what feels like an eternity. So, how do you make sure that these don’t turn into triggers for longing and pining for your ex, that too when you’re trying to deal with a breakup when you’re alone? By opening yourself up to new experiences and living them to the fullest.

Men and women react differently to breakups but they process the thrill of firsts exactly the same way. All of us have things in our minds that we wanted to do, but could not find either time or the will to do it. Be it singing on karaoke nights or performing at Open Mics, try out new things when you have been through a breakup. Who knows, this could be a new beginning for your flourishing talent.

6. Travel and get over the breakup

Speaking of the role of new experience in helping you overcome feeling empty after a breakup, the importance of traveling and exploring new places cannot be stressed enough. Getting a change of scene can help you make a clean break from the past and start a new chapter, without any muddled thoughts or confusion.

While you are at it, do something new and adventurous, something that will make you feel good about yourself. Try skydiving or scuba diving and learn about the blessing called life. Traveling can offer you the much-needed distance from the life you had built with your ex to get a better, more well-rounded perspective on the whole situation.

It is the best way to heal after a breakup and you can travel alone. You don’t need friends to be around to do that. Just make a Bucket List and tick off the places. You will get so engrossed in the process of researching, booking, and then traveling and exploring, that you could even forget you are nursing a broken heart.

7. Get involved in community service

When Gabe walked out of his relationship of seven years upon discovering that his girlfriend was cheating on him, he didn’t know how to deal with living alone after a breakup. Having lived with her for the past five years, he found himself at a complete loss when it came to figuring out how to separate his life and identity from hers. Every little ritual and routine reminded him of her.

That’s when he found solace in volunteering at the local animal shelter. It gave him a sense of purpose, brought him joy and took his mind off the pain of losing the one he thought was the love of his life. To get rid of the pain of loneliness after a breakup, you too could try volunteering for a cause close to your heart.

Allocate a few hours a week to it. You may spend time with elders, children or pet organizations. Their company is the perfect way to heal from a breakup alone. The realization that your pain is less than theirs will help you recover from heartbreak.

8. Exercise and sweat out your negative energy

To be by yourself after a breakup can be an emotionally draining experience. With no one to vent to, you can feel like you’re drowning in your own thoughts and inner dilemmas. That’s why it’s imperative to channelize your energies productively. What better way to do that than using the time at hand to exercise for a fitter body and a relaxed mind?

Exercising is known to affect the brain positively, by boosting the supply of oxygen and stimulating the growth of new cells. It also increases the production of serotonin. The neurotransmitter can boost both your mental and physical health. Now that’s a steal, isn’t it?

You don’t need to join the gym or take Zumba classes. You can go for walks, take up cycling or jogging, sign up for an online fitness class, practice yoga or try any other format that you like. The idea is to get the heart pumping and sweat it out for at least 30 minutes a day. Exercise will keep you mentally and physically fit.

9. Surround yourself with positivity

In a nutshell, the answer to how to deal with a breakup alone lies in not letting your thoughts and emotions overwhelm you. While this doesn’t mean pushing away or bottling up your pain, it’s imperative that you don’t let it become larger than life. Accept and acknowledge it as a phase that will pass. For that, you must surround yourself with positivity.

Steer clear of people who have a negative approach to life and are pessimistic. Surround yourself with people who have positive vibes, and let yourself be lifted by them. Take up meditation to calm your negative energy and increase your well-being. Read self-help books that encourage positive thoughts. Remember if you think positively you will attract positive vibes from the universe towards you.

10. Remember, there is hope

Don’t give up on hope. Give time for your soul to heal. Love will again knock on the doors. Just wait for the right time before you start dating again after a breakup. One broken relationship can’t be the end of your dating life. There is no denying the fact that you would feel at that moment that you would never be able to love another person.

But trust us everyone feels the same after a breakup, especially if you are dealing with a breakup alone without friends. But life moves on and the universe sends love your way again. Just be patient.

How To Not Feel Lonely After A Breakup?

Staying strong after a breakup is one of the biggest challenges one faces in this situation. Not to feel lonely is in our hands, provided we take charge of the situation and commit to it. Don’t just keep ruminating and beating yourself over ‘Why Me’, no good can come with it. Instead, take the approach ‘Now Me’ and focus on pursuing your dreams.

Take up a related skill based on what you want to do in life, take help from a mentor or guide. Become someone’s guide in things you are an expert on. Read books, volunteer for an NGO, join new courses. Head on to a favorite restaurant and order your choice of dish. Watch the latest movie. In short, make yourself busy.

There are many fun things to do after a breakup, which will make you feel less depressed. Once you start enjoying these activities, the pain will slowly subside. Spending time like this shifts the focus from destructive thinking and makes you feel positive about life and its opportunities. Dealing with depression after a breakup is not easy but if you keep your attitude right it is possible.

The way you approach loneliness after a breakup makes all the difference. Instead of suffering, use it as an opportunity to reconnect with your soul. Call it timeout with yourself, where you sit and reflect and take steps to understand and grow. 

This shift in perspective will go a long way in helping you deal not only with moving on from your breakup but will also help you understand and work towards your dreams. If you have any lonely breakup coping mechanisms, then do share it on our Bonobology blogs. Let your post-split healing help others too.

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