Breakup Advice

It’s impossible to completely predict how any relationship will go. There are too many unforeseeable factors.

However, there are some relationship questions that we can explore to get a general idea of how healthy a relationship is. Here are some questions you might want to think about. Not only can they help you assess a relationship you’re in now, but they might help you figure out what went wrong in past relationships and what you’d like to change in future ones.

Question #1: Can we appreciate each other’s differences?

In a healthy relationship, differences are seen as complementary, not antagonistic. Of course, this idea does have limits. Some differences are non-negotiable. But in most cases, differences, which are not deal-breakers, should be viewed as strengthening, not weakening, the relationship.

Question #2: Can we communicate about disagreements without taking it too personally?

There is no relationship in which couples agree 100% about everything. They all have disagreements, sometimes even very lively ones. But can you still respect each other even during or after what may be heated discussions?

Question #3: Can we explore each other’s pasts together?

A remarkable amount of what goes on in relationship dynamics stems from our pasts, going all the way back to our childhoods and our relationships with our parents or caregivers. Are you comfortable enough to get to know your partner’s past and share yours? This is one of the most important relationship questions to ask of all because, if you can, it will put all of your present and future interactions in a new light and may help build compassion.

Question #4: Do we share the same view of the purpose of relationships?

Are relationships about loyalty? Fun? Building financial security? Emotional growth? Even if you said all of those, then which ones take priority over the others? While it’s fine, even important, to disagree on some things with your partner, one of the most important ones to have some agreement on is about what relationships mean to you in the first place.

Question #5: Have we openly discussed our desires regarding children and how we believe they should be raised?

Few things can be more tragic than when couples fail to talk about their views about children and then end up in a parenting situation for which they are not prepared. It is especially tragic because often it is the innocent children that end up paying the price because their parents failed to explore this topic before they came along. This may be one of those non-negotiable differences if you and your partner truly disagree. A world of trouble and relationship problems can be avoided by clarifying your feelings and beliefs about parenting before they become a part of daily life.

Question #6: Can we be sensitive to each other’s greatest joys and fears, even if they are not always the same?

What most inspires your partner and what do they most fear? If you don’t know, why not? Do they know what your answer to these questions would be? Can you talk about these things together? So much of our lives are driven by joy and fear. It can help to be conscious of what brings about these emotions for each other.

These are just a few of the many relationship questions worth asking. But they are also some of the most important.

What questions do you think are most important for partners to explore? Let us know. Leave a comment.

So you’ve just broken up and you’re wondering how to handle this painful period.

Here are some tips to help you make it through and come out on the other side even stronger.

1. Accept Your Feelings – There is a great quote from the psychiatrist R.D. Laing. Laing said “There is a great deal of pain in life and perhaps the only pain that can be avoided is the pain that comes from trying to avoid pain.” It’s natural to be hurt after a break up. Accept that you’re going to hurt for some time and don’t make it worse by adding more pain by trying to avoid the pain.
2. Keep Your Mind Busy When You Need a Break – If I tell you not to think of an elephant, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Probably something to do with an elephant. Similarly, if you tell yourself not to think about your ex, you will probably think about them even more. It’s almost impossible to force yourself not to think about something. But what you can do is engage in situations that make you think about something else. Read good books. Do crossword puzzles. Even play video games. Do something that actively engages your mind and it can give you a slight respite from the pain while you’re getting over a break up.
3. Use the Pain as a Guide to Learn About Yourself – The period while you’re getting over a break up can be one filled with growth that can help you in future relationships. The pain that you feel often ties into past issues and reflects deep lessons about your wounds and fears. How are you feeling exactly? Angry? Betrayed? Abandoned? Consider times you’ve felt these ways in your past. Did this break up mirror some past situations and re-open wounds you might have forgotten about? If so, this might be your chance to do some healing. You might want to read books like those in our resources section to help you process while you’re still in touch with these sensitive feelings.

4. Consider Seeing a Therapist – A great therapist can really help you come to terms with the end of the relationship, get the most out of the learning opportunities this period makes available to you and prepare yourself to become an even better person, capable of even better relationships, in the future. If you’re having an extremely difficult time dealing with the break up, by all means get the support you need. But a therapist can be beneficial even if you’re coping well, but want to do even more to reach your future potential.
5. Learn That You Can Be Alright Alone – It isn’t always easy to be alone. Some people fear it more than almost anything else. Some have actually rarely spent any time alone in their lives. It’s important to know that, even if you don’t plan to be alone often in your life, you can survive if you have to be. If you fear being alone too much, you will end up in relationships based in the fear of not having somebody there, rather than a desire to be with that particular person. So use this time after your break up to prove to yourself that you can survive by yourself. If you need the help of a therapist or even close friends, that is acceptable. By “alone” here we simply mean without being in an intimate romantic relationship for a period of time.

Breakups can be painful, but you may be surprised that, if you handle it properly, you could end up looking back at your breakup as a springboard for some of the best things that will arrive in your life.

Hope these tips help you understand how to get over a break up! Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

I’ve often heard people wonder why the person who they get the best relationship advice from is single. After all, if this person understands relationships so well, why aren’t they successfully having one?

It may sound logical that anyone who understands relationships well would be currently living out that understanding with a partner. But when you think about it more deeply, you realize that there are actually many reasons why a person, despite being single at the time, may offer a wealth of valuable insight to those dealing with a boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse or a breakup.

This isn’t to say that all single people offer great advice. Some really are single due to having poor understanding of relationships. Others are single for different reasons, but just happen not to be wise in this area. Also, there are plenty of people who have great relationships but, if asked how or why, wouldn’t be able to articulate it to anyone else.

Below are some reasons that great relationship advice can come from someone who is single:

• Teaching and doing involve different skills – There are some great coaches in sports that aren’t actually great at playing that sport. The necessary abilities are different. Someone can have a great mind for strategy, but simply not be strong enough physically to enact it themselves, for example. There have been some great NBA coaches who were very small physically. They could never have made it in the NBA as players, but do a very good job as analysts and strategists. The same logic can apply to relationships.
• Being single can allow for distance and objectivity – Sometimes when a person is not with a partner at the moment, they have an ability to see things more clearly since they are outside the dynamics of relationships looking in. This could especially be true if they’ve been in relationships before and now have experience from the inside and from the outside afterward, as well. They have now seen a relationship through all steps of the process from being single to courting to partnership to breaking up to being single again. This can allow them to have more knowledge than someone might have that has only been in a relationship and not yet gone through a breakup, for example.
• Sometimes being single is evidence of relationship wisdom – There are plenty of times in life when the wise choice is to be single, at least for some period of time. Someone who constantly jumps into relationships or stays in a relationship that is unhealthy may not be single, but that doesn’t mean that they are making wise choices or know more about relationships than the single person. If a person is single for the wrong reasons or because they are making misguided choices, then this might be a sign that they are a poor person to take advice from. But many people are single for all the right reasons.

• Singlehood may be wise for one person, while a relationship may be wise for another – Building on the previous point, everyone’s situation is different. Perhaps the single person is busy with work and school and doesn’t really have time to commit to a relationship at the moment, while the person they are advising has a less stressful life. The fact that the first person’s current situation is not conducive to a relationship right now doesn’t mean they are any less insightful when advising the second person.

  Or consider that the first person is simply less physically attractive so they are getting less opportunities coming their way. They may be wise to hold out until they meet someone that meets their standards. During this period, they may have a friend who is more physically attractive and receives more opportunities and could still offer them useful advice.

  What if a person had a traumatic childhood and has been in therapy to heal that? Remaining single for a while might be better than jumping prematurely into a relationship. And yet, especially as a result of being in therapy, they may have more insight than many of their friends who are rarely single. They might even have more insight because they took some time to be single and work with a therapist.

• Relationship knowledge doesn’t only come from romantic relationships – A lot of the skills and insight needed to have a healthy relationship are the same whether it is with a relative, a friend or a lover. All of these situations require a capacity for honesty, communication, empathy, understanding and so on. A single person, even one who has never had a romantic relationship, might still have a great grasp on these capacities. Perhaps they grew up in a household in which their parents had a very healthy loving relationship with each other, as well as with their children, so these abilities were modeled for them their entire life. This might even explain why now, for all the right reasons, they have high standards that must be met before they will get into a relationship, even as it explains why they have knowledge about relationships that their other friends – perhaps from less emotionally healthy households and constantly acting out their dysfunction in unhealthy relationships – lack.

These are just some of the reasons that single people may, despite being single, be great at giving relationship advice. There are likely even more.

So if you have a single friend that offers you great advice but you worry about whether you should trust it just because they’re single, you might want to relax. Being single doesn’t necessarily make them any less qualified to have strong insight. If the content of what they’re advising you is beneficial and valuable, use it…and consider yourself lucky to have their support.