It is not uncommon for humans to experience a good deal of emotional disturbance after a romantic relationship ends. Whether we decide to end the relationship or the person we love is choosing to end the relationship, humans often suffer enormously after a romantic relationship runs its course. Friends and family may remind us that there are other fish in the sea, but a person suffering from having lost the romantic relationship may not find this truth helpful. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy philosophy can help to heal a broken heart.
When we are in the throes of a depressive episode after a relationship ends, we need to determine a suitable emotional goal. REBT suggests that rather than strive to feel good after the end of a romantic relationship, the individual seeks to feel healthy sorrow, sadness, disappointment and healthy envy. If we feel depressed, angry, hurt, or unhealthy envy, we will likely prolong our suffering and engage in harmful, self-defeating behavior. Healthy sorrow, sadness, disappointment and healthy envy will acknowledge the painful loss that has occurred in our lives. It will allow us to do more than recognize the loss. Assuming our efforts to reconcile are futile or we have no interest in the restoration of the romance, these healthy negative emotions will enable us to begin engaging with life and moving on. These healthy and appropriate negative emotions allow us to remain interested in other relationships with family and friends and not withdraw from life. We remain able to work and function reasonably well, and in time, we can love again as the sorrow, disappointment, and sadness do not produce hopelessness of future love or fear of future romantic pain.
Depression, hopelessness, anger, hurt, and unhealthy envy are self-defeating feelings associated with the end of the relationship, acknowledging the loss we have suffered. However, they tend to motivate us to do all sorts of self-defeating behaviors to soothe our pain. We might medicate ourselves with drugs and alcohol, engage in excessive eating, or become hypersexual to forget our pain or attempt to make it appear to the former lover we are moving on. These behaviors can be very self-defeating and are, therefore, inadequate solutions to the pain we are feeling.
According to REBT theory, we are more at risk of taking a significant desire and converting it into a rigid demand than when our desire is relatively less valued. Important matters are risk factors for thinking rigidly. Rigid attitudes about something significant to us, like a romance, make us vulnerable to unhealthy suffering, unhealthy negative and intense emotions when the relationship ends. If our desire or wish is only weakly to moderately held, we are more likely to hold a preference for it and then accept an accompanying loss if it occurs. Romantic relationships are usually highly valued aspects of a person’s life, and when a relationship ends, it is easy for a person to disturb themselves about their loss. Because we have strongly wanted the relationship to succeed and immensely enjoyed the pleasure we experienced with the said relationship, we are at risk of having a rigid set of ideas about the relationship continuing and an extreme set of ideas about the associated consequences of it ending. REBT theory posits that uncompromising attitudes, often referred to as demands or demandingness, tend to give rise to secondary attitudes that are extreme and serve to contribute to the unhealthy suffering we feel in the form of unhealthy feelings of depression, hopelessness, anger, hurt, and unhealthy envy.
Below you will find a sample of typical rigid and extreme attitudes that people use to upset themselves when romantic relationships end:
- Because I found this relationship so highly enjoyable, I absolutely must have it.
- Because I loved this person so much, they must love me too.
- I need this person’s love to find life meaningful.
- It is awful that this relationship has ended.
- I cannot bear the pain I feel.
- It is too hard to find another person who will make me feel like my former lover made me feel.
- Because I loved and treated them so well, they absolutely must love and treat me well.
- I do not deserve this hurtful treatment. My romantic partner must not have done this to me.
- I am lesser of a person without this relationship.
- They are a bad person for causing me this pain.
- I am lesser of a person because my lover is with someone else now.
Disabusing yourself of these self-defeating rigid and extreme ideas won’t be easy. Mother nature wanted us to date and mate, and my guess is the pain is evolution’s way of incentivizing us to form relationships, maintain relationships, and produce offspring. Disabusing yourself of these ideas will take time and work. Time alone won’t heal your wounds. You will have to challenge these pernicious ideas and work to adopt healthier ideas to counterbalance them. Two sets of important questions will help you challenge these ideas to begin the effort to mend your heart. Those questions are:
Set 1 – Functional Analysis:
Does my particular thought or attitude help me or hinder me recover over the long run from this failed relationship?
If it hinders me, what realistic thought or attitude would help me reach my goal of recovering and moving on?
Set 2 – Empirical Analysis:
Is my thinking and attitude consistent with the facts?
If it isn’t, what thought, or attitude is consistent with the facts?
When you in the aftermath of a painful breakup, the last thing you want to do is reason in a sound and helpful way. You are a fallible human. Although you may not want to think differently about the breakup, you are well-advised to push yourself to do just that. Just because you do not want to think differently or find it difficult under the circumstances to do so does not mean this is not the medicine you need to heal your heart. The medicine may not taste good, but it works, so open up and swallow. Space limitations prevent me from systematically answering the above four questions. You can do that on your own for those irrational attitudes found above, which particularly resonate with your pain. I will specify for each self-defeating attitude found above the realistic and useful alternative attitude or philosophy that you could work at adopting, which will help you accept the breakup, experience healthy negative emotions, engage with life, and move on sooner rather than later.
1. Because I found this relationship so highly enjoyable, I absolutely must have it.
Rational Alternative: Even though I found this relationship so highly enjoyable, it does not mean I absolutely have to have it. I do not live in a kind of world where what I enjoy or who I love is always available to me. In a utopian world, this would be the case, but in this world, no matter how badly I want or deserve something or love someone, I NEVER absolutely have to get what I want and desire. Life denies will deny me some of my greatest pleasures as it denies all of us. Life is hard but I am strong enough to accept this fact of life.
2. Because I loved this person so much, they must love me too.
Rational alternative: Even though I truly loved this person, it is false to conclude they must love me in return. We do not live in a world where who we love must love us back. This is a tough world where other people have a choice and will of their own, beyond our control. Accept this and heal. You do not have to like this fact of life, but you had better accept it.
3. I need this person’s love to find life meaningful.
Rational alternative: I want this person’s love, and with it, life is meaningful, but it does not mean I have to have it. Furthermore, it is not the only path to meaning in my life. Having their love is a known path to purpose and pleasure, but there are other paths if I open my mind and heart to them. It is easier to find meaning through loving this person, but sadly I do not have to have the opportunity to travel the easier path.
4. It is awful that this relationship has ended.
Rational alternative: It is very bad that this relationship has come to an end. Even though it seems like it is the end of the world, it is not the end of my world. It is very disappointing it came to this, very sad but relationships end. When they do, it is regrettable and unfortunate but not awful because things could be worse, and good can come from bad. I will move on sooner if I see that although this is bad and painful, not awful, and life goes on.
5. I cannot bear the pain I feel.
Rational alternative: The pain I feel is significantly bad and cuts to the bone but is not unbearable. I can bear it, and it is worth enduring in so far as I do not have a choice. Reminding myself that it is bearable, even if it is difficult to remind myself, helps me bear this burden. In time, the pain will subside and do so sooner if I do what is hard and cultivate a healthy attitude towards my significant loss and associated burden.
6. It is too hard to find another person who will make me feel like my former lover made me feel.
Rational alternative: Although I feel great pain now, and it seems that I will never find someone who will make me feel like my former lover made me feel, it is not necessarily impossible. Life would be so much easier if this relationship worked out for me. Sadly, it did not, and I am jumping to the conclusion it is too hard to find another person. I am making this hopeless leap because I am also holding the attitude, I must have this particular person. Hopelessness comes from demanding that I have this person rather than accepting life as it is and wishing things had worked out. It might be challenging to see that finding new love is not a hopeless endeavor, but it will be easier for me to do so if I give up my absolutistic demand that I have this person’s love. This person’s love is convenient and highly pleasurable but not an absolutistic necessity.
7. Because I loved and treated them so well, they absolutely must love and treat me well.
Rational alternative: Even when I love and treat someone exceptionally well, it never follows in this non-utopian world that they must love and treat me equally well. Sadly, the universe permits unequal treatment from the people we love. I am demanding that the game of life not be as it is. This only serves to keep me hurting myself about the hurt delivered by my lover. Hurting myself will not change how I get treated, so I will accept that people will treat me as they will even if I treat them exceptionally well. This philosophy isn’t easy to adopt but is realistic and will help me move on.
8. I do not deserve this hurtful treatment. My romantic partner must not have done this to me.
Rational alternative: The position that I do not deserve this hurtful treatment is not debatable. What I will question is this. Is it valid to hold that I absolutely must receive the kind of treatment I deserve from my romantic partner? We often do not get what we deserve in life and from others. There is no natural law that compels interpersonal reciprocity. It is a myth to believe we must get what we deserve from others. It is reasonable to want to get what I think I deserve. If I do not get what I deserve, I can choose to leave the relationship in disappointment. However, I had better not jump to I absolutely must get what I deserve. If I make this demand, I will make myself angry and bitter. I am lesser of a person without this relationship.
9. I am lesser of a person without this relationship.
Rational alternative: To define my essence, my core, my personhood as lesser without this relationship is entirely arbitrary. In an alternative way, I could arbitrarily define myself as more of a person without this relationship. Which arbitrary definition is the proper definition to adopt? It seems all definitions of my personhood are arbitrary. This means that my personhood and total value as a person cannot be validly rated or summated. Instead, I am a person without this relationship, and that is that. Losing the relationship reduces my pleasure but is not proof that my human value is reduced and that my core is lesser. I remain a fallible human who, unfortunately, is without a relationship with someone I continue to love and miss.
10. They are a bad person for causing me this pain.
Rational alternative: They are a person who despite causing my pain their action does not validly define them as a bad person. Yes, they did a wrong and hurtful thing to me as I see it, but that is what fallible humans do to one another. Condemning them may feel good and is easy to do but only fuels my pain. Rather than judge them, why not strictly stay focused on how they treated me and learn from this so perhaps I can do better in the future? Condemning their action but accepting the fallible human will help me to move on. Adopting this attitude is best for my well-being in the long run.
11. I am lesser of a person because my lover is with someone else now.
Rational alternative: Even though my beloved is with someone else now, it is not correct to conclude that makes me lesser of a person. I am a person who does not have the pleasurable love someone else may be enjoying now, but my deprivation does not transform me into a lesser person. My beloved’s choice of who now to love is not the definition of my human worth unless I foolishly convince myself of this arbitrary and invalid way of thinking. I will unconditionally accept myself even though I feel deprived and rejected because my lover has chosen to love someone else. I will find someone else to love instead of spending my time rating my core as a person and then downing myself. Downing, my total self, thinking of my core as lesser will only serve to make me withdraw from other people and potential good relationships I could have in the future.
Final Thoughts on Healing A Broken Heart
I will conclude by underscoring that the philosophical medicine REBT prescribes is damn hard to adopt and make your own when you are in the pain of a romance that has ended. Don’t blame REBT for being hard to implement. There are no quick and easy solutions to pain and suffering in this world. Although these attitudes are hard to adopt, they can be reflected upon, rehearsed, and implemented. Time alone is not the answer to the pain of a failed romance. Time, effort, and rational reasoning will help you get through it. If you love, you run the risk of hurting when the relationship ends. That is just how the game of life and romance gets played. If you cannot take the heat, stay out of the kitchen. However, I genuinely believe you can stand the pain of a failed romance. It is not easy to recover from a failed romance, but love is sweet. Dare to love again!