If you’ve broken up with your partner during the last month or two, you may be feeling miserable about Valentine’s Day on Friday.

Your relationship might have been heading in this direction anyway but the Christmas and New Year period might have made it clear to one or both of you that things weren’t working out. If you’d had problems with money or housing, these would have put another strain on your relationship and most of us deal with stress and a crisis in different ways. In the first days of falling in love, money might not have seemed important but things may have become a lot more strained if one or both of you were made redundant or were furloughed more recently. Housing, illness or aged parents might also have made things more difficult.

So, it’s important to work out how you actually feel about what’s happened and at first that may be anger and grief – if that’s the case, you need time to process the whole situation. You might feel denial at first as in ‘this isn’t really happening’ and ‘I’m not going to let this happen’ but if your partner is adamant that they want to separate, eventually you’ll need to adjust to the situation and start to accept it.

Talking to a friend whom you can trust is often a good idea as well as keeping a journal to write down all your feelings about what’s happened. Counselling could also help and although you might prefer face-to-face sessions this could be online or via video call if easier or more practical.

If possible, talk to your ex about whether you’ll have a ‘clean break’ or whether you’d like to check in with one another now and again. It may be that you’ll have to talk anyway, because if you have children together, communication is vital and in the same way, if you’re dividing up property you’ll need to speak sometimes. Try to keep it calm and to the point as there’s nothing to be gained by shouting at one another and you probably won’t feel that good afterwards.

Thinking about children, keeping to some sort of routine is important but if you can keep things amiable with your ex, that will help even more. It probably won’t be easy, but having the intention to do this is a start. If you can agree between the two of you what you’ll do if things get heated, it can help as you’ll know that there’s a way of stopping things getting out of control. For instance, you could have a code word if one of you thinks that a situation is getting too heated and then you can restart the conversation later. Deep breathing during these times can help a lot!

It’s difficult to hide from your feelings and although all the emotions are painful and uncomfortable, the pain can be a catalyst for something better as it makes you look at what you want in your life in the future and what you might want from a new relationship (even if that seems an impossible idea right now!).

If you can’t afford the time and money to go to a gym, try exercising at home and use meditation as a way to get through what is undoubtedly a very difficult time. There are lots of apps like Headspace to help you meditate and reflect on what’s happened and how you’re feeling about it.

As life begins to return to some sort of normality, you will hopefully find that you’ve come to a deeper understanding of yourself and how you will go forward in the future.

Hopefully you’ve found this blog helpful and interesting – if so, I’d love it if you bought me a coffee ☕ (see tab at top of page). Thank you so much.

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