Feeling shocked at breaking up?

Following on from my previous post about the stages of breakup, when you first come out of a relationship, whether you are the one doing the dumping or the one who has been dumped, there is always a kind of shock. For some people it is huge and for others it's a brief moment of having to shake themselves off and catch their breath.

It may sound strange that if you are the person who has done the 'dumping' that you may feel shocked, at what has happened, but if you have been unhappy for any length of time and have tried to address issues within your relationship and have decided that there is no alternative other than to end things then you will probably still feel an element of shock at the fact that you have finally done something and now what?

You may want to make sudden changes to everything and feel as though you have to get organised and busy yourself to protect yourself from feeling the effects of your decision or you may find yourself overcome with emotion and can't stop crying. Perhaps you even feel numb and find yourself loosing concentration with the simplist of things.

• Try and resist making hasty decisions about big matters at the moment and wait for the dust to settle.
  
• Keeping to a routine will help you maintain some focus at a time when you are probably finding it difficult to concentrate.
• Keep plans to a minimum and stick to going places and being with people that make you feel safe. It's easy to fill your time up and then wonder what on earth you are doing somewhere.

For more information about how to get over a breakup as quickly and as painlessly as possible check out Picking up the Pieces

The 8 stages of relationship break - up

It's always difficult when you are coming out of a relationship, especially if it is one that you have been in for a long time. Whether you are the person instigating the split or not, even when you know that splitting up is the best thing for all involved; breaking up can still be a painful and emotional time. According to research there are various stages to the grieving process and these can also be applied to relationship breakup, afterall you are not only losing your connection to the other person, but you are also letting go of all your hopes and dreams of your life with that person and this is one of the main reasons that breaking up can be so very hard to do.

Photo By carbonNYC

I am going to talk more about each stage in future posts but for now here are the 8 stages of the grieving / break-up process:

• Shock
• Denial
• Numbness
• Fear / worthlessness
• Anger
• Letting Go
• Rebuilding of Self
• Understanding and acceptance

Although there is a natural progression through each stage, it is also quite natural to 'jump' back and forth between them. It is essential at each point to explore your feelings and allow yourself to go through the natural grieving process in order to come out the other side bigger and better!