A breakup is a loss, and your body grieves it like one. When my marriage ended, I’d been with my ex for ten years. I met him at 23. I genuinely believed marriage meant forever, so when it ended I lost more than a partner. I lost the future I’d planned, the version of me who had it all sorted, and quite a lot of my sense of who I was.
In this post I’ll walk you through the five stages of grief as they show up after a relationship ends, what helped me move through them, and how to know when it’s time to get more support.
What are the 5 stages of grief after a breakup?
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The model comes from psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who first described it in relation to death and dying. After a breakup, most people move between the stages rather than through them in order. You might feel acceptance on Tuesday and anger again by Friday. That’s normal!
What is grief?
Grief is a response to loss. It’s the emotional suffering you feel when something is taken away from you. Grief can knock you sideways and cause you to feel overwhelming feelings of sadness, despair, shock, anger, guilt, pain, resentment, confusion, and utter disbelief. Grief can get you to question absolutely everything you know about your life and what you had previously believed to have been true. As someone who truly believed that marriage meant “forever”, the prospect of divorce got me questioning the very essence of my being and questioning the world and everyone around me.
We all have different ways of dealing with grief. For some it might be working really hard and distracting themselves, for some it’s alcohol and drugs, for some it’s shutting themselves away in a room. Grief is both a universal and personal experience. Grief can make you feel like you are totally out of control. Grief tends to, over time, become less painful and have less of a hold on us as we re-adapt to life and learn a new way of living in the world.
When a relationship ends we experience grief. It can feel as if that person has died for us. There are many different layers to this. We are not only grieving the loss of a person in our lives but also the loss of a dream, a hope, a future together. We are grieving a sense of “what could have been.” One of the most helpful things I learnt during this process was that grief is non-linear. You are going to move forwards one day, and go backwards another. You are going to be in denial one day, and anger the other. Let’s talk about the different stages of grief.
The 5 stages of grief, according to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
Denial
This can include feeling numb, carrying on as if nothing has happened, believing you will get back together. We can experience a total loss of self here doing anything and saying anything to get them back.
What it sounds like: “We just need some space.” “They’ll come back once things calm down.”
What helps: Say the facts out loud to someone you trust.
Anger
Things can feel desperately unfair, we may want to blame the other, we may even be angry at ourselves. This can feel totally overwhelming and very painful.
What it sounds like: “How could they do this after everything?” Or the quieter version, aimed at yourself: “How did I not see it?”
What helps: Move it through your body: walk, run, dance badly in the kitchen. Write the letter you’ll never send.
Bargaining
This is where we go over and over things in our heads believing if we had just said something else or acted differently we might have had a different outcome. It’s also where we believe that if we do certain things and try to control how we feel, we will feel better. It’s the time when we think that perhaps we can have a friendship so we don’t lose the person altogether.
What it sounds like: “If I’d been less needy, we’d still be together.” “Maybe we can just be friends.”
What helps: Notice every “if only” and write it down. Hold off on big decisions, including friendship with your ex, until the dust settles. If you’re still deciding whether to leave, this post on when to walk away might help.
Depression
This is our stage of sadness. We realise it’s over. We realise we are going to have to pick ourselves up and live a new life.
What it sounds like: “I’ll never feel this way about anyone again.”
What helps: Go back to basics (more on that below). Tell someone how low you feel, even if it’s just one friend.
Acceptance
You have pieced together what happened, you acknowledge the part you played in the breakup and you can accept what has happened. This is the time you learn and grow from what has happened. The pain might not totally be gone, but the pain is accepted.
What it sounds like: “That relationship taught me something I needed to learn.”
What helps: The curiosity questions further down this post. This is where the real growth starts. I wrote about what I learnt from my own divorce in 11 lessons I learnt from my divorce.
Jillian Turecki talks about 5 stages of acceptance:
The 5 Stages of Acceptance
The first stage is to accept that you do not have control over the circumstance.
The second is to accept that the relationship is over.
The third is to accept your part in the demise of your relationship
The fourth is to accept yourself in spite of it not working.
The fifth is radical acceptance of the relationship’s purpose in your life. You can see it for a lesson, a necessary part of your emotional, spiritual, and psychological path towards maturity.
How long does grief after a breakup last?
There’s no fixed timeline, and anyone who gives you a formula is guessing. How long it takes depends on how long you were together, how the relationship ended, what else is going on in your life and how much support you have.
For me, it came in waves for years. The waves got smaller and further apart, but they didn’t stop all at once. The first thing to change was how quickly I came back to myself after a bad day.
If you’re months in and still feel stuck, that’s more common than you’d think. Often it means the breakup has touched something older that needs attention (more on that below).
Go Back to Basics
When we are in the immediate aftermath of a break up we need to go back to basics and choose things that nourish us. Stay hydrated, exercise, listen to music, make your bed in the morning, brush your hair - these things might seem small but they make a huge impact. Look after yourself, take care of your body, eat well, do the things you know bring you into a good place. Moving your body is key - you move your body to get out of your head. A short walk in nature is enough. Nature is key as research shows it helps us bring perspective to our lives. (I remember sitting for hours on the beach in Bali looking out to the horizon realising how small I was! I remember this was the first time I had thought, no matter what happens everything will be ok.). If you are experiencing an overwhelm of thoughts, write them down. Free flow writing - just get it all out on paper. Spend time with people you feel safe with. Don’t be afraid to say to them “I am just looking for you to listen, I don’t need advice right now.” Reach out to a therapist / coach / mentor / role model… and if you don’t have these people in your life start to find them.
Give back
One of the best things we can do when we are going through a break up is actually shift our focus to others who might need help. It’s one of the best ways to get out of your head and build resilience. It also gives you a sense of purpose at a time when it’s very much needed. That could be something as simple as reaching out to a friend in need, volunteering, going to see someone elderly, offering to help strangers, joining a community rubbish pick up… whatever it is, look to others and see how you can be helpful to them. This gives you so much more than you can imagine. It’s a break in the endless rumination and critical thinking.
Curiosity
During the acceptance stage we can start to get curious about what actually happened and we can take responsibility for our part. Start asking yourself these questions:
What was I craving that I didn’t communicate?
How can I do things differently in my next relationship?
Why did I behave in certain ways?
How did I contribute to the break down of the relationship?
Was I defensive? Critical? Did I shut down?
Make a promise to yourself that you are going to learn the things you need to for your next relationship.
Unearthing old wounds
Some break ups can unearth older wounds. Some break ups trigger pain that we have been carrying deeply over a long time. Some break ups show us where we need to heal on a much deeper level. For example, if you are someone who always chooses partners where you feel you have to earn their love, then perhaps the wound that needs to be healed is the fact that you felt as a child that you had to earn love. Perhaps if you felt abandoned as a child, you self-sabotage your relationships for fear of abandonment. So many of our deeper wounds play out in our adult relationships.
The thing is, the more our hearts are cracked open, the bigger the opportunity to change. I now look at my divorce as a total spiritual awakening! And the beauty is, so many breakups end up being a story of transformation and triumph.
Needs
One of the most imperative things we can do is to look at how our needs are being met. One of my break ups ended up feeling really not that hard! I know this sounds harsh but one of the reasons I realised this had been less painful for me was because I had been meeting many of my own needs and I had a support network also helping me meet these needs. Our main needs can be broken down to: fun & adventure, safety & security, growth, feeling significant & important, love & connection. Meeting these needs really are the path to living a fulfilling & happy life.
When to get extra support
Grief is painful, but it shouldn’t stop you living for weeks on end. Talk to your GP, a therapist or a coach if you’re struggling to sleep or eat for weeks, can’t get through work, are drinking more to cope, or feel hopeless most days.
If you’re in the middle of this right now, you don’t have to work it out alone. I’ve coached hundreds of women through the end of a relationship and back to themselves. Find out how coaching with me works.
Free guide: In 25 Things I Wish I’d Known Sooner I share the honest lessons I learnt the hard way, including plenty about relationships and starting again. Get it free here.
Written by Sophie Dear
I coach women, teach yoga and meditation, and have been leading retreats for ten years, in the UK, Portugal and Bali. These days I live in London with my husband and our baby.