We all must feel helpless in the face of a breakup, especially if a friend is experiencing it. One of the biggest steps in helping a friend deal with a breakup is realizing that you can't change or improve the situation. From this realization, it was found that most of the effort to help a friend to recover after a breakup is by listening and providing a safe place for him to mourn the end of his relationship.
Step
Method 1 of 2: Helping Your Friends in the Short Term
Step 1. Listen
Immediately after a breakup-regardless of how long the relationship lasted, six months or six years-your friend may feel confused as well as sad. He's likely to want to talk right away in the confusion, and genuine listening is one of the first and most meaningful steps you can take to show that you care.
No matter what reason someone gives for breaking up with love, we are always left with a number of questions-“What if my ways were different?” or “Can I still fix this?” Confused after being abandoned is a very logical feeling, especially if the breakup was not foreseen
Step 2. Be patient
It's always easier to treat a friend during good times, so it's only natural that during a difficult time like a friendship breakup it can be stressful and frustrating. Keep reminding yourself that it's your job as a friend to empathize and engage in this process even if it means listening to the same question or story over and over as she processes a new source of grief. Patience through the process starts quickly and lasts throughout the process.
If this helps, remember similar times when your friend helped you through a breakup or job loss. Think objectively about how patient he is with you during the more difficult moments
Step 3. Help her feel understood
Of course your friend doesn't want to feel like she's talking to a wall, so make sure you involve yourself in her story and ask questions to help her feel understood. However, try to avoid responding in the form of clichés and empty pleasantries about a breakup. The last thing your friend wants to hear is that the world is not as wide as a moringa leaf because that would only deny him his current emotional state.
- In general, you should say things that will calm him down and acknowledge that his feelings are valid. Avoid teaching her how she should be feeling, such as telling her to stay positive, and don't give advice right away unless she asks.
- For example, instead of telling him to try to be more positive, admit that his situation is unfair.
Step 4. Avoid talking about your past breakup
While you may be tempted to compare your friend's current situation with your past breakup, you should avoid this right after the breakup. We might notice that this story makes him feel like you've been through the same thing, but it's possible that you crossed the line in front of a grieving friend, taking over or making the situation your own. Give him time for this situation to be all about him.
Step 5. Don't let your friend contact his ex-girlfriend
It's common for people who have just been in love to deny that the situation is final. In the early stages, he may be tempted to contact his ex-girlfriend in a way that you know won't help. While you should block this action when your friend wants to, don't allow yourself to become too involved in the outcome.
- Chances are he has already decided to contact his ex when the topic comes up, so don't let yourself be frustrated if he doesn't follow your advice.
- Breakups awaken an irrational part of us all. Forbidding your friend from contacting their ex is like a parent forbidding a teenager from doing anything. This friend of yours may be contacting his ex just to go against common sense.
Step 6. Distract your friend in a sensible way
The emotional effect of a breakup is described by the grieving process. Grief is not only natural, it is necessary if the person is to continue living in a healthy way. You may feel compelled to take your friend out of the house right away so she can get a lot of distraction from the hurt and sadness, but you need to let her grieve instead of constantly making her ignore or forget her broken heart. Therefore, use distraction only occasionally and in a sensible manner.
While taking her shopping or watching a football game is a comforting activity to relieve the stress of the grieving process, continuing to try to expose her to external stimuli will only prolong the process or may even cause her to suppress the emotions she has to deal with
Method 2 of 2: Helping Your Friends in the Long Run
Step 1. Let your friends find their way
Everyone mourns in very different ways and during very unique periods. Don't focus on how long it takes to grieve, like the grieving period should be based on the length of the relationship or something like that. Accept that your friend has to find her own way in her own time.
This process will likely continue to test your patience, but you can't force the situation to end. This situation will be over when the person himself is ready
Step 2. Help him handle day-to-day affairs
Sadness can often feel overwhelming in a way that makes your friend avoid grocery shopping or the business we all hate even when we're not heartbroken. While you don't have to take care of him completely, offering to carry basic necessities or even help him do the laundry can mean a lot to him more than you might think.
By offering to lift even the most simple and mundane of weights, you will be helping him in a way that no one else will
Step 3. Keep having fun together
While you should allow him to work on his short-term heartbreak and sadness, don't feel like you and he couldn't have fun in the weeks or months after the breakup. Being single again can feel like losing a part of yourself or an identity for anyone, especially in the case of long-term relationships or couples living together. If you and your friend have a habit of eating out together on the same night every week or some other common practice with friends, move on to the plan as soon as he seems ready.
- This activity can revive a sense of normalcy that helps him to move on with life.
- Remember that forgetting someone is a linear process. Your friend will still have good days and bad days, even after they get back to fun activities. Resist the urge to force or coax him to get his heartbreak process back on track. He still needs a safe, non-judgmental place in your friendship.
Step 4. Watch your friend's alcohol consumption
While unwise, we all know that giving up on drinks the night or two after a breakup is perfectly normal. However, since a sudden breakup will be a life-long process, make sure that he doesn't appear to find too much solace from drugs and alcohol.
Aside from the risk of addiction, a healthy body will give rise to a healthy mind much more quickly, and no one will get enough sleep, eat, or exercise when he's been partying too much
Step 5. Focus on what can help your friend feel better
While she shouldn't avoid or suppress the pain and sadness of a breakup, those feelings often find another release in the weeks and months that follow. Channeling negative emotions into positive activities is a process that according to psychology is called sublimation. Find activities that your friend can use to distract from the pain and encourage them to do those activities.
He could exercise more, start painting or playing an instrument, or even double his efforts to get a promotion. Give lots of positive encouragement to the productive ways he uses to deal with the situation
Step 6. Let him be angry
In most grieving processes, anger comes after the phases of confusion, denial and sadness that are part of a breakup. Anger usually means your friend has accepted his ex-girlfriend's rejection and has overcome the sudden loss. Of course he should not be driven into negative or violent actions because of this anger, but anger in itself is not a step back toward bad behavior.
However, don't let your friends think that all women or men are bad or opinionated. If only one person hurts, it means that not everyone is bad
Step 7. Prevent him from wanting to rush into a new relationship
In the absence of a feeling of being loved and needed by an ex, he may seek it in other relationships that were not considered well. This is a bad idea, just as bad as suggesting too much distraction-distraction versus coping.
Try to discourage him from starting a new relationship if he seems to have that desire, but remember that you should approach him the same way he tried to contact his ex. In other words, don't get so involved that you'll be disappointed if he keeps on doing it, and don't push it so hard that you're pushing him to do it to annoy you
Tips
- Make him laugh every chance he gets. Try to have a smile on his face.
- Let him know that you are there for him; this little thing meant a lot to him at times like these.
- Don't force him to tell you what happened to you. He'll tell you when he's ready.
- Give her time to be alone if she needs to, she may need to clear her head.
- Hug him whenever he cries, and tell him that you care about him and that you are always there for him.
