Many of us remember that first painful breakup in our teens. We feel like someone ripped our heart right out of our chest.
Do breakups get easier?
Maybe…
At some point we learn to deal with the disappointment when we’re seeing someone and it ends. It’s not always the end of the world.
And yet it can feel like it, in adulthood and all through life.
Breaking up with someone can be one of the most painful experiences in life, whether it’s after a short and passionate affair or a decade long marriage.
Why do they hurt so bad?
It’s physical and biological!
Author Dean Burnett explained the brain science behind it in his book The Idiot Brain.
He says people are “primed” to seek out and keep monogamous romantic relationships.
Now, some people will argue with that because those people like to play the field.
But for the most part, people look for “the one”. We want to fall in love.
It’s a huge high, like finding a new drug.
And in fact, it is like a drug! Burnett explains that certain features trigger drug like reactions, a thing we call attraction.
Women like facial hair on men. And men like women’s curves and long hair.
It goes much deeper than that, of course.
The pain from a breakup isn’t about losing someone that we have fun with, if it was just a fling.
Breakups are about broken hearts because we made a very strong emotional bond with another person.
Falling in love affects our brain chemistry!
When people who are in love see photos of their special person, the insula, anterior cingulate cortex, caudate nucleus, and putamen all light up.
And we all know the happy feeling we get when we see someone we have feelings for, or are in a new relationship with.
There’s dopamine and then oxytocin, often called the love hormone.
Did you know that hugging a woman gives her a boost of happy hormones? It’s actually good for her health.
So when we’re in love, we get an influx of happy and addicting hormones, and we basically get addicted.
And then if that person leaves us, they’re taking our drug away.
We have physical symptoms!
It’s why it feels like our heart is hurting so much.
It’s about a bond.
We just lost someone that we had fun with, shared things with, spent time with, and bonded to.
Even if the bond was short or not even real, as in a crush or unreturned love, we can go through the painful feelings of a breakup if that person disappears from our life.
On top of all that, a breakup is a form of rejection. And because the relationship made us so happy, it’s a very painful rejection.
We really opened ourselves up!
We were honest and laid our soul bare.
New love is like finding your soul-mate, and you think you might spend your life with this awesome new person.
So you’re losing a dream and a reality that you really wanted.
Rejection used to mean death…
It might even be biological. You see, way back when we were cavemen and then living in villages, rejection from your people could mean death.
You lost their companionship and security. You might be losing your food source and tools to survive.
So it was a horrible thing.
In present times, we still fear rejection as if it could kill us. It doesn’t, at least not physically!
How to Deal with a Broken Heart from a Breakup
So how do you deal with all of these emotions and natural reactions? Can we help all the pain we feel at a breakup?
Well, we have a physical, natural reaction, but much of life is that way.
We can still choose how we respond to the feelings. No one will tell you to “walk it off,” I think because we all understand how bad it is.
It’s okay to grieve.
Even if it was a two-week long relationship, you’re still hurting.
It doesn’t seem rational, but as we’ve now seen, it relates to our biology and brain chemicals.
Have you ever lost an opportunity or something you thought you’d get? It’s very painful even though you only had hope, and that’s all you’re losing.
So let yourself have some time to acknowledge that you lost something and need time to heal.
Turn to friends, and when you can, try to get out to do something.
Time, they say, heals all wounds. That can be true in most cases of breakups.
It’s not a “little thing” to go through, but people do make it through to the other side where they can be happy and look for love again.
Hopefully knowing that, and also what makes breakups so hard, will help you through the hard stages and to the other side.