How Does Emotional Dependence Affect Us After A Breakup?
Relationships can be very emotionally pleasurable, but they can also become highly emotionally dependent. It’s normal, because at the end of the day we don’t go out with someone we don’t like, but with a person who seems to understand us, who synchronizes very well with our emotions.
However, not all couples last forever. When the relationship breaks down, that illusion of synchronization and trust fades as quickly as the flame of a candle does, but the smoke in the form of an emotional void from seeing the person you loved leave can be very painful and especially long-lasting. if the relationship was highly dependent.
How emotional dependence affects us after a breakup It will vary from each one, certainly, but we can anticipate that the older you are, the more painful the grief that comes afterwards will be and the more intense the feelings of sadness and demons. Let’s dig in and find out why.
How does emotional dependence affect us after the end of a relationship?
Being in a relationship can be wonderful. Feeling that you have someone with whom you empathize and synchronize almost perfectly for the most part is something that feels very good to you.
Not to fall into clichés, but when you find your better half, or something similar, there comes a time when it is difficult to consider life without them. You start planning your life with that person, you count on them for practically any big event in your life. You don’t consider the possibility that, one day, it won’t be there anymore
But couples break up, and when that happens, both parties can feel very bad. Suddenly all those life plans that we had planned to make together with our partner are truncated because the relationship has just come to an end, there is no longer the flame of love and consequently there is no longer a partner. It is normal that after the breakup we feel emotionally overwhelmed, since the idea of who our ex is now leaves a great emotional void.
It is the law of life to suffer after a breakup. It is something totally normal and, Although painful, it is a healthy process in most cases We enter a period of mourning where sadness, desolation and anger can command our emotional course, but at the end of the day they are emotions that have to be experienced in order to then begin a new stage. After the downs come the ups, and it is a matter of time before we recover, stronger and happier, and continue with our lives.
However, not everyone experiences the breakup in a healthy and mature way. The greater the emotional dependence there is in a relationship, the more likely it is that the breakup will reach traumatic levels, being experienced in a way that is very far from reality. Emotional dependence in a relationship very deeply affects our emotional state and autonomy when the breakup occurs, to the point that we can suffer from depressive symptoms itself.
Emotional dependence and emotional withdrawal syndrome
It usually happens that people with lower self-esteem establish a highly dependent relationship with their partner. Relationship takes a crucial role in your life so much so that it comes to occupy the emptiness that exists inside due to having low self-esteem levels.
In these cases, dating someone can become a feature of the person’s identity, that is, the fact of having a partner becomes something very significant in their life history, which is why they establish a strong relationship of emotional dependence. .
The problem with this is that, when the relationship ends, the breakup can bring with it various symptoms in the form of low mood, identity crisis, and also, extreme need to see ex-partner again
This last symptom, in fact, shares characteristics with those suffered by a person who is physically dependent on a drug, which is why psychologists affirm that in a breakup process there is an emotional withdrawal syndrome.
It is important to understand that everyone, in one way or another, will experience emotional withdrawal after breaking up with their partner. It is normal that, after dating someone for a long time, when this person leaves our lives He leaves us with a painful void that we only want to fill with his presence, with the genuine desire that he return to our lives. However, the healthy thing is to flow, to let that void be filled little by little with other things and let the wounds heal, and they will heal.
However, people who have established a highly emotionally dependent relationship with someone have a difficult time filling that void. It’s not just that it’s hard for them, but it’s hard for them to do their part to let time heal the wounds and make the need to see their ex-partner disappear. Your need to see him or her again is so great that obsessive and toxic behaviors may even develop, such as following your ex-partner on social media, finding out what their schedules are, or planning “casual” situations in which you meet that person and initiate a conversation.
These behaviors, which can be considered harassment, are not only harmful to the person who is the object of the obsession, but also to the person who is obsessed Emotional dependence and withdrawal syndrome make the person unable to take the initiative, try to break the cycle or try to start a new stage in their life by trying new things. She is trapped in a whirlwind of helplessness as she experiences the uncertainty of not knowing whether or not she is going to return to her ex-partner, sincerely wanting it to be so but rationally she understands, or should understand, that the relationship is broken.
The highly dependent person may be so aware of what their previous partner is doing that they are unable to continue with their studies or work and neglect their friendship and family relationships, relationships that ironically are more stable than the partner who has just left them. Your emotional dependence and the withdrawal syndrome that has arisen after the breakup It has caused him to become a shadow of himself, an emotional dependent mired in an anxious-depressive cycle
The physical and mental health of the person with high emotional dependence who is going through a breakup is seriously damaged in some cases, so much so that we can find the following symptoms:
What to do to get over the breakup?
Emotional dependence after a breakup makes it very difficult to overcome it. The appearance of the symptoms of emotional abstinence makes accepting that the relationship will no longer continue difficult, but not impossible. Notably In these cases it is always advisable to go to a specialist a psychologist specialized in breakups and relationships who will teach tools and strategies that can help you move forward.
In order to help free yourself from this emotional dependence, still alive despite the breakup, it is essential to take the following keys into consideration.
1. Accept pain and assume its impermanence
As we have mentioned, suffering some pain and some other symptoms of emotional withdrawal syndrome, within certain parameters of intensity and duration, is totally normal. However, it is necessary to understand and assume that it is something temporary, a state that we must go through as part of grieving after a breakup and that will make us stronger, more focused and balanced
We must accept the negative emotions that will come after the breakup. They are inevitable, they appear, but what we can control is the way we manage and the degree to which we allow them to limit us. Sadness, desolation, confusion… All of them are feelings that, sooner or later, we will have to go through to promote acceptance and improvement.
2. Apply zero contact
Zero contact is basic when we go through a breakup. Stopping knowing anything about that person is the best way to forget ourselves and end emotional dependence. It’s true that it’s tempting to look at that person’s social media profiles, but doing so will only stick your finger in the wound
It is essential not to have our ex-partner in the networks or our contacts, not even with the idea of continuing to be their friends in one way or another. For now, the best thing is to lose contact. It is the first step to disconnect from your life, avoiding falling into obsessive and dysfunctional dynamics.
The breakup can be the beginning of a stage that, depending on how we face it, can become the best of our lives It is essential that after a breakup we wipe the slate clean of everything that reminds us of our ex and make the effort to induce significant changes in our lives.
Something as simple as making new friends, starting to study a new language, going to the gym or any other hobby that we have never tried before can help us free our minds and break the cycle of obsession.
Whatever we do, an emotional breakup should never be seen as the end of the world, but as the end of one stage and the beginning of another, one in which we can make many good things happen, building a stronger version of ourselves.
