4 Breakup Tips For Anxious Attachers
This is an excerpt from my book, Needy No More: The Journey From Anxious to Secure Attachment, available exclusively on Amazon now.
For an anxious attacher, the completion of a romantic partnership is one of the most painful experiences we can endure. As folks who crave intimacy and value connection, feeling like those things have been ripped away from us hits at our deepest wounds of abandonment and inadequacy, rocking our world and shaking us to our core.
Breakups are a form of grief. Going from speaking to someone daily to barely interacting with that person can only be described as a form of emotional whiplash. Letting go of the camaraderie and companionship we experience with a partner—regardless of how long we were with them or whether or not the relationship had a label—is one of the most difficult parts of all. In many ways, a breakup can simultaneously feel like the loss of a best friend, the death of a loved one, and yet another failure in the string of losses that so often defines our riddled romantic life as an anxious attacher. It’s heart wrenching. It feels like a punch to the gut. It knocks the proverbial wind right out of us. It brings us to our knees.
Grief is not a straightforward experience or a singular emotion, and is often a winding road defined by many twists and turns. One moment you miss that person, wish you’d never broken up, and question what you did that pushed that person away. You second guess yourself. You ponder what you could’ve, would’ve, or should’ve done that might have prevented this outcome. You feel sad, disappointed, guilty, inadequate, and remorseful. You wonder if there’s anything you can do now to repair the relationship and welcome that person back into your heart and your life—if there’s anything the two of you can do to try again. You fantasize about them reaching out and professing their love, hoping they’ll pull through with a big romantic gesture as you ponder one of your own. The next moment, you feel angry with them for their shortcomings or how they may have mistreated you. You remember all the times they failed to meet your emotional needs. You focus on when you felt abandoned, rejected, or neglected. Frustration creeps in. So does resentment. You might even beat yourself up for what you allowed yourself to tolerate in the relationship and all the ways in which you accepted less than what you truly deserve and desire. Another moment passes and you start to doubt yourself. You feel a sense of shame creep in and take hold. You question if you were “good enough” for the other person—if you even deserved their love and affection to begin with. You imagine them meeting someone else and a queasiness seizes your stomach. Apprehension sweeps in and you grow skeptical that you’ll ever meet someone like this person, that you’ll ever find someone with whom you can connect at the depth you desire. These thoughts and emotions are all a natural part of the grieving process and steps on the road to finding acceptance of what’s come to pass.
For anxious attachers, grieving can also be a process of sobering up or experiencing withdrawal from the neurotransmitters such as cortisol, adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin that are released while in a romantic partnership. These are some of the most addictive chemicals we can experience as humans, the same ones released by substances like heroin and cocaine. The jarring absence of these chemicals is a large part of why breakups make us feel so low. We quite literally don’t feel like ourselves in this state. It feels like something is missing—because it is. Without these feel-good chemicals, we struggle. We crave. We languish.
While our bodies need time to adjust back to baseline from a chemical standpoint, there are four steps we can take to heal—to better come to terms with the breakup and jumpstart the process of moving forward. We can:
Prevent ourselves from personalizing
Learn what we can from what occurred in the relationship
Do what’s necessary to release resentment
Lean on our support system
Healing After Heartbreak: 4 Simple Steps for Anxiously Attached People to Follow Post-Breakup
1. Refrain from personalizing.
Personalizing is the most common pitfall of anyone going through a breakup, most of all an anxious attacher. But we must keep ourselves from falling into the trap of thinking that the completion of a romantic relationship is a reflection of our value or worth, because it most certainly is not. Relationships of all kinds run their course for a variety of different reasons, particularly those that are romantic in nature. Sometimes it’s because needs, values, and love languages aren’t aligned, so we wind up feeling more disconnected than connected. Other times, it’s because life just gets in the way. Your careers pull you both in different directions. Your friend groups don’t mix. You aren’t working toward a shared vision for the future. You don’t spend as much quality time together as you used to. Still other times it’s because one or both partners aren’t showing up as their full selves because they haven’t started or continued the work of letting go of the past. They haven’t processed their pain and instead are projecting it onto one another. They’re one foot in and one foot out.
Whatever the reason—or reasons—for a breakup, rarely, if ever, is it as simple as you not being “good enough” for the other person. Misalignment in the relationship isn’t necessarily a reflection of any misgivings within you. It’s too easy to take things personally when the romantic component of a relationship has been fulfilled. But taking the pitfalls of the relationship and turning them into pitfalls about ourselves isn’t useful or productive. It doesn’t help us to move on. In many ways, it keeps us emotionally tethered to the other person. The pedestal upon which we place an ex is often erected by the ideas we built in our mind about that person and what they represent to us, not about who they actually are. The more codependent we become, the higher the pedestal becomes, too, as it’s our own self-abandonment that props it up. This kind of idealization is also reinforced by our assumption of the blame and personalization of that chapter of the relationship coming to a close. This is incredibly reductive. Just because someone wasn’t willing to or capable of meeting your needs doesn’t mean that those needs aren’t worth being met. Just because that relationship didn’t continue in the same format, it doesn’t mean that you can’t continue on your search to find one that can. Their lack of willingness isn’t your lack of worth. Their misalignment of values doesn’t mean you aren’t valued. Do not take the limitations of others and make them about you. Your worth exists outside of what others think, feel, and believe—most of all outside of what someone who doesn’t want to be with you thinks, feels, and believes.
2. Learn what you can.
We aren’t defined by the mistakes we make in a relationship or whether or not it continues on; we’re defined by what we do to address those mistakes and what we allow ourselves to learn from them. While you may not have shown up perfectly, there’s always an opportunity to learn what you can—to grow more conscious and intentional for your next relationship. All relationships are mirrors. The challenges we face romantically show us very clearly anything from our past that still requires acceptance and healing, as well as the lessons we need to learn for our betterment and evolution. Breakups are an opportunity for growth. When treated as such, the dissolution of a union can show us how we can improve before we unite with another. It can also help us gain clarity about what does and doesn’t make us feel appreciated in a relationship. The rocky relationships of yore become stepping stones to more stability, more consistency, more harmony. There’s a saying in spiritual circles: “The person who triggers you most is your greatest teacher.” Never is that more accurate than when we’re contemplating our previous relationships. Never is that more prescient than when we’re grieving the future we thought we were building towards. Nevertheless, there is much to be learned about ourselves from how we show up with others. Especially when things don’t work out the way we thought they would.
I find it incredibly baffling when people say that a relationship failed. How can that be the case? When you look at the purpose of relationships as containers for our growth, evolution, and healing, you start to see a different viewpoint. Relationships don’t end, they just enter a different form. You might no longer be romantically involved with that person, but you are still actively relating with them, and vice versa. Most of all because of the relationship you have with them in your mind. Regardless of whether you stay in touch or continue on as friends, you remain connected to everyone you’ve ever regarded as important in your life. They live on in your memories. They live on in the impressions left in your nervous system. They become a part of your physiology and your energy field. This is why taking intentional action to process what happened in the relationship is so paramount. In my experience, practicing gratitude, forgiveness, and grace—both for ourselves and with our exes—is incredibly powerful for this purpose. Cleansing, too. While you might not always continue to love all of your exes, you can certainly learn to love what your experiences with them taught you. Even if those experiences were shrouded in struggle and paved with pain. Take the pearls of wisdom and appreciate the oysters that birthed them for you.
3. Release resentment.
As I remind my clients all the time, resentment is just another form of attachment. When this finally sinks in, it changes everything. This is one of the primary reasons folks like us struggle to forgive, let go, and move on. We aren’t ready to release the pain. We’re attached to it. We don’t know who we are without it. Please know that you don’t need to make an identity based on how others have treated you. Learning to actively release our inclinations to look back on our previous partners with discontent is a big part of the healing process. And what a process it is. You will likely need to practice the art of letting go numerous times. That’s normal. But your resentment is only hurting one person. And that person is you. When we realize this, we take another step forward on our path of evolution and enlightenment.
It’s also important to note that breaking up isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes, the biggest gift someone can give us is the freedom to pursue someone who can love us at the depth we desire. Sometimes, the most loving thing you can do for someone is let them go. Someone occupying time and space in your life means that they might prevent you from what is actually meant for you. And what a shame that would be. The same is true for you. If you don’t feel you’re the right person to love someone, please release them. Brené Brown says that clarity is kindness. Breakups can be that clarity, that kindness. If you so choose.
As with anything in life, a breakup is also not permanent. It might feel like it at the moment because you’re uncertain of where your path without them might lead. For some, that path brings the same people back together. I’ve heard of high school sweethearts separating in their twenties only to reunite in their fifties. I’ve heard of couples giving it another shot after 15 years spent working on themselves. While you can’t and shouldn’t wait around for someone, it’s incredibly limiting to look at a breakup as a decision meant to last forever. We can’t know that to be true. Only time will tell. Stay focused on the path in front of you and step forward as you need. If that leads you back to someone and you feel like the two of you are in a better head and heart space, give it a shot. I’ve seen crazier things happen.
4. Lean on your support system.
Grieving, healing, and integrating are social experiences, not solitary ones. When we’re processing a breakup, it’s the safety and comfort of others that reminds us that we’re not alone. It’s during these times when our support system lives up to its name, helping to prop us up and remind us of our value and our worth. Strengthening our connections with others and also with ourselves is critical during times when a romantic connection has run its course. These moments of connection help to bridge the chemical gap created in the brain and body when we’re no longer romantically involved with our former partner, releasing hits of necessary neurotransmitters that lift us up and make us feel more grounded and centered. We must rise to the occasion and embrace our responsibility to connect with ourselves and others, to better regulate our nervous system. And that occurs through both self- and co-regulation. Don’t judge or shame yourself for leaning on others during a breakup. That’s when you need them most.
Final Thoughts on Breakups for Anxious Attachers
In the wake of a breakup, it’s too easy to fall into victimhood, to play the woe is me trope, to stay stuck in a cycle of nervous system dysregulation. While we can’t change what happened with someone in the past, we can certainly revisit our frame of reference to these events in the present. And we can certainly commit to doing whatever work is necessary to be a healthier partner in the future. Both to ourselves and with others. In that way, breakups are a new beginning. A blank slate. A fresh start. The opportunity for a glow-up mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. A chance to replace resentment with peace, agony with acceptance. In that way, we get to take back our sense of agency, control, and power. We can’t go back and write a new beginning, but we can take the opportunity to create a new ending.
And what a beautiful ending it can be. If that’s what we desire.
To preview even more content from Needy No More, explore these posts:
And for more resources on healing anxious attachment, explore my other blog posts:
