Survive your holiday breakup with these these techniques

There’s a reason so many couples succumb to the stress of the holiday season, and there’s a way to survive it too.

by: E.B. Johnson

There is, perhaps, no more devastating time to find your relationship at an end than the holiday season. Our relationships can form a critical piece of who we are, and when we lose them it can cause us to flounder and struggle on a number of different planes. When we lose a long-standing or deeply important relationship, it can cause us to lose an imperative sense of who we are and — without that — we can become lost and trapped in a number of negative patterns that keep us stuck, scared and unhappy; especially when that all comes crashing down around Christmas, Kwanza, Chanukah and the New Year.

If you’re coming off the back of a devastating breakup during the “most wonderful time of the year”, you have to reclaim your sense of self and do it with the same compassion, understanding and love that you would extend to a friend. When it comes to being newly-single during the holiday season, it’s not so much about actively healing as it is diving into the things that can keep us distracted and happy during this emotional time. Learn how to cope with your holiday breakup by cultivating acceptance and understanding.

The holiday season is stressful.

The holiday season is a stressful time and for a number of reasons. Not only do we have to meet the normal demands of our life during this time, but we also have to meet a number of excess demands on our time and energy, including those of our family, friends and work colleagues. Due to all this stress, it’s really no wonder so many couples find this time of a year an impossible one to navigate. The end of year is tough, no matter who you are, but it can be especially tough when you’re a part of a couple or serious partnership.

Most commonly, couples find themselves struggling with money and familial pressures when it comes to the holiday season. Whether partners struggle to fit in with our family and friends, or we find ourselves fighting about financial over-extension — some things just can’t survive the pressures of the end of the year, but we can survive anything with a bit of radical acceptance and understanding.

Why do so many couples break up during the holidays?

From statement makers to family conflict, there are a number of reasons our relationships hit the rocks during this festive season. The holidays aren’t easy for anyone, but they become especially challenging for couples who are already dealing with issues, or looking for a way to make a clean start. The first step in overcoming a holiday breakup is figuring out why it happened, which might encompass one (or several) or the reasons below.

Making a statement

Some partners grow far, far apart over time and that can lead to emotional distances, conflict and feelings that hurt, mangled and bent out of shape. For this reason, it’s not uncommon for some partners and spouses to use holiday breakups as a means to “twist the knife”. Knowing how devastating a holiday-season breakup can be, they use this against their partner to increase the devastation and often “prove a point” — no matter how distorted that might be.

Final triggers

Believe it or not, holiday breakups aren’t always planned. The season is stressful time, no matter who you are and no matter how you celebrate. There are more demands on your time and more demands on your person; there’s a lot going on during the holidays, and that can turn things into a sort of pressure cooker that makes it hard to overcome difficulty or conflict in the midst of all the chaos. Last-minute fights and family-dinners gone awkward can often be the last straw that lead to an unplanned breakdown and over-the-top solution.

Alleviating guilt

Because the holidays are a time filled with family, friends and reflection — it can also be a time filled with a lot of guilt or shame. When things aren’t going right at home, the season can dredge up a lot of heavier feelings that make it hard to navigate a steady, stable relationships. In some instances, one partner or the other will feel this guilt too keenly and make the decision to end the relationship, just in time for a new start in the new year.

Failure to fit

The holidays are a time that’s inherently full of family and friends, and that should also include our partners as well. From Christmas dinners to the classic morning-after-brunch — when our partners don’t quite fit in with the other people we care about in our lives, it’s hard to carry on with any sense of longterm aspirations. For some, this poor fit is not something that can be overcome and is, instead, a deal breaker.

Era-enders

When we reach holiday time, there’s a definite finality in the air. It’s the end of another year, and the start of a new one. Sometimes (as is the case this year) the holiday season even marks the end of a decade. For many partners, this feeling of an ending is also the start of a new beginning. Seeking to start a new, relationships might fall to the wayside, leading to breakups that rock us during this emotional and special time.

An emotional time

Whether we like to admit it or not, the holidays are a time that’s super-charged with emotion and feeling. Not only do we find ourselves reflecting over the year we’ve just passed, but we can also find ourselves reflecting over life in general, and the memories you’ve formed around your family and your friends. Because of the emotional complexity of this time, many couples can find it hard to stay on the same page or in-line with communication. As moods dip and tensions run high, conflict can bubble to the surface leading to relationship breakdowns.

Signs your relationship is suffering from holiday stress.

If you feel as though your relationship is already clinging to the edge, there are a number of signs that things might be coming to a holiday-head. From increased conflict to a dip in trust and desire — if any of these symptoms sound like your relationship it might be time to take a step back and reassess.

Increased hostilities

Ramped up hostilities or increased aggression and conflict can be a sign that your relationship is on the rocks. When we fail to communicate efficiently with one another, it leads to increased disconnection as well as increased conflict; on top of a disappointment of expectations that can lead to a shattering of ill-placed happiness. Outside of being a sign that you might have some problems, it’s also a sign that it might be time to go your separate ways. Something which can only be decided by you.

Leading separate lives

The holidays are a time meant for families and shared experiences, but for couples on the edge it can be a time of major disconnect. Leading completely separate lives during the holiday season, with separate calendars and seemingly no crossover by-design, can be an early warning of separation on the horizon. As partners who care for one another, we should want to spend time together — not apart — and that should extend to the holiday season.

Failing emotional health

Finding yourself depressed, anxious or otherwise unhappy in your relationship isn’t normal, and is often a sign that things are ready to come to an end. Our wellbeing is intimately tied into our romantic partnerships, and they have a big impact on how we’re feeling and how we see ourselves. Feelings of neglect or otherwise emotional misery isn’t a state anyone has to live in, nor is it a state that we should exist in every moment of the day.

Significant changes

Sudden and significant changes to your personality or that of your partners, as well as a significant changes within the relationship, are often a sign that things are shifting away from where we thought they might be. As humans, we are constantly changing and evolving, while life does the same. The things we want not aren’t always the things we want forever, and that’s reflected often in our relationships; especially during the part of the year that inherently calls for reflection.

Lacking trust

When trust starts to fail — no matter what time of the year it might be — it can be a sign of a relationship or partnership that’s in trouble. Trust the foundation on which we build our relationships, and everything from communication to vulnerability and intimacy are dependent upon it.

Cloudy futures or families

The holidays really have a way of emphasizing the things that matter in life, like family, our goals or our personal and professional dreams. For that reason, it can often cause us to look to the future, and there it’s possible to see a cloud where our partner should otherwise be. If you can no longer picture your partner as a part of your future, or if you just can’t see them fitting in with your family — it might a sign that things are on the rocks.

How to deal with a holiday breakup.

Unfortunately, it’s not always possible to prevent a holiday break-up, and sometimes it’s exactly what we really need. (Isn’t so much about healing and processing during this busy and heartfelt time — it’s more about keeping busy and keep your train of thought bright, uplifted and empowered; all things which are easier to do in this relatively positive season)

1. Keep yourself busy

Keeping yourself busy is one of the best gifts you can give yourself if you’ve found yourself stuck in the middle of a holiday breakup. As humans, our brains are funny things with a unique hard-wiring system that controls everything from how we talk to ourselves to how we deal with others. By forming new connections in your brain, you can get past your breakup — but the best way to do that is to just keep yourself busy.

Jump into activities and pastimes this season, saying “yes” to as many new opportunities as possible. Invest in your friends and your family, and let them invest time in you. Focus on your work, focus on your own life and focus on anything that interests you, makes you happy, or lets you forget about your heartbreak for a just a little while.

Going through a breakup during the holiday season is hard, but it’s possible. Rather than focusing on “healing”, center yourself around your other reasons for being and just get through it by staying busy. Slowly, over time, you’ll forget more and more about the pain inflicted by your split, and more and more you’ll come to see that there is meaning beyond the darkness. Stay busy and keep your eyes on the future that you want to build. A change of cast doesn’t mean an end to the show.

2. Ask for help

No man is an island, and the holidays are a particularly emotional time. Learning how to talk about where we’re at is often the first step when it comes to healing from a difficult breakup. When we talk about our feelings with someone we trust, it allows us to dive further into our emotions and understanding and get a better perspective on how we could make things better for ourselves.

Get comfortable talking about how you feel, and find a friend you can trust that is willing to listen to you vent. Let them know exactly how the breakup is still causing you to struggle and let them know you need a willing shoulder (and a willing ear) to listen to you on a regular basis.

Talking about our failed relationships can be hard, but it’s necessary. Speaking up about what’s going on inside facilitates healing by helping us to see the reality of the situation and our role in it. Love often comes at the cost of clarity, but an outside perspective can help us overcome that. If you’re still struggling to thrive in the wake of a relationship that hit the rocks, try reaching out and opening up about how you’re feeling.

3. Dump the memories

Our memories are powerful things and they can do things like bond us and bring forth strong emotional responses; the likes of which can completely break down our healing process. All relationships come with a slew of memories, and those memories can be both good and bad. No matter how you feel about your now-ex, the trinkets and belongings they left behind are memories — and those memories can often make it even harder to get through the holiday season.

Box up all the memories and mementos and belongings of your ex, and put them away until you’re better equipped to process in the new year. Don’t destroy anything, and don’t get happy about giving things away. Time and space have a funny way of making things look different, so put the things into storage until you’re ready to process and efficiently deal with the belongings and the healing that surely to come.

Emotions and breakups and bad things all have to be faced, but they can also be faced at a time that pre-determined by us. The holidays — with all their hustle and bustle and family obligations — aren’t a good time to deep-dive into solo healing. Save all the heavy stuff for a freer time and get yourself grounded around happy times and happy people, as well as a season that’s filled with lights, joy and other people that you love and value.

4. Dive into self-care

When we’re going through a bad heartbreak, self-care is often the first thing that goes out the window. This, unfortunately, does nothing more than make us feel even worse. Being in relationships can put us into “Others Mode”, where we start to see the needs of others over the needs of ourselves. We become hyper focused on our partners during the spread of our relationships, and when they are gone it can leave us feeling empty.

Break-ups are the perfect time to get back in touch with the authentic you; rediscovering your true needs. The things we need from our lives and our partners changes over time, but we can lose sight of that when we get stuck in the relationship rut. Having the space to focus on ourselves can reveal some surprising new truths and when we start to take care of ourselves, these truths become even more glaringly clear.

Stop saying yes to everyone else and start saying yes to yourself. Rather than looking for someone else to care for, take some time to start taking care of yourself. Get to know the person you are on the inside and do all those things you’ve been doubting or putting off. Time alone isn’t time to sulk; it’s time to bloom and get back in touch with your passions; it’s time to take care of the person you’ve worked hard to become.

5. Shift your perspective

Despite what our heads and our hearts might be telling us, there’s still beauty all around when we’re in the depths of a horrendous separation or loss. By learning how to reengage with our surroundings we can learn how to get back in touch with all the natural beauty in our lives, but that requires shifting how we see things so that we can find the silver-lining in our situation.

There is joy everywhere, but we sometimes have to look a little harder to find it. Getting back in touch with the things that we value will allow us to get back in touch with ourselves. When we learn how to be grateful for all the little gifts we receive each day, we soon find ourselves grateful for life itself again.

Learning to appreciate all the happiness that already exists in our lives can teach us a lot about ourselves and help us see the silver lining in the darkness. You can appreciate things as small as the smile of a stranger or the kindness of your barista. Beautiful acts are everywhere, but we have to open up our hearts to them. There’s no better time of year to do that than this one. Get a new start and open up your soul and your mind to new and beautiful opportunities.

6. Focus on the moment

Focus on the past or brooding over the theft of your future will only leave you miserable and feeling empty and unfulfilled. To promote true healing from the ground-up, you have to stay present in the moment and stay focused on the here and now. Staying in the moment promotes our health and healing while freeing us from the toxic hangover of our past.

When we allow ourselves to just be in the moment, we give ourselves a respite from the constant longing, guilt and shame that is often associated with breaking up; allowing us to free ourselves of the emotions related to past events and future outcomes. Focusing on the past or the future cuts you off from the possibilities all around you and leaves you unable to see the beauty and the joy of the things that already exist in your life.

When we’re not present, our attention and our performance in interrupted, and so are the life-changing decisions that occurring every second of every day. Recovering from anything — be it drugs, alcohol or heartache — takes time. It also takes focus and a conscious commitment to the here and now. We can heal and we can grow, but we can only do it in the present moment. Everything else is a waste of energy. Take it as a learning lesson and move on.

7. Accept and re-focus

You have to accept what’s happened and refocus your attention to the things that make you glad or heartfelt in this time. While it might be comforting to imagine your loved one coming back to you one day, you have to learn to look at your love from a different perspective. Just because we love someone does not mean that we need them, and it certainly doesn’t mean that they need us.

Change is an unavoidable part of life. Our jobs change. Our friends change.It’s only natural that our relationships should change too. There are no rules when it comes to the time of year, or the timing of when these things come to an end. If we want to be happy, we have to accept that things are as they are and move forward, doing what we can to secure the future we still want.

While your relationship might have started out in bliss accept that it was always bound to twist and turn and transform over time — leaving two people at the finish line that are very different from the two that started the race to begin with. Give yourself a time limit to grieve, and then get on with your holiday season. If things are over, they’re over, but life can and will go on. Embrace this never-ending game and zero-in on the people that are still making your heart sing in this joyous time.

8. Create a new tradition

One of the biggest reasons we struggle with breakups during the holiday season is their inherent entanglement with traditions. We all have an assortment of end-of-the-year traditions, and these traditions usually include our partners and spouses to the highest degree. If you’ve found yourself alone during the holiday times, you need to establish new traditions and you need to do it fast — with the people in your life who still want to be a part of it.

Replace the things you shared with your partner and start establishing some new, fun holiday traditions. Not only is this helpful, but it’s enjoyable too, allowing you to create new memories with new (and old) people in your life, during the season of rebirth and new beginnings.

You can go solo with your activities or drag along your closest friends. It doesn’t really matter. Get creative and don’t be afraid to go after the things you might have been refraining from when you found yourself in a party of two. Creating new traditions is one of the best and most exciting parts of a new breakup, when we know how to view them the right way. Deep dive into your new acceptance by creating a holiday routine that is entirely your own. You’re free now. Enjoy it. There’s no telling what’s waiting for you under the tree this year.

Putting it all together…

The holidays are a stressful time, but they can be particularly stressful when it comes to our partners and our romantic relationships. From increased family pressure, to the extreme and intense pressure of financial over-extension — there are a number of reasons our relationships hit the rocks during the holidays, and not all of them are fixable. Sometimes, it’s a matter of getting through it, rather than going beyond it, and end of the year festivities are no exception. If you’ve been dumped during the holiday season, you can get past it by just buckling down and getting on with it; that takes time, though and a bit of bull-headed determination.

Keep yourself busy and dive head-first into the holiday season, distracting yourself with whatever parties, family get togethers and work-night-out’s that you can. Don’t worry to much about healing when you have so much going on, instead focus on investing in some self-care and making yourself feel good this year. Take some time for you and reach out to those you can trust for help, if needed. The holidays are a complex time, and a breakup only makes them more difficult. Box up the memories for a more stable time, and shift your perspective so that you’re better equipped to enjoy these few rare moments you have ahead. Accept what’s happened, and attempt to re-center yourself around the things that really matter right now. Embrace your family and your friends during this trying time, and create new traditions that allow you to find the beauty in the season again. You can make it through this to beautiful tomorrow waiting on the other side. It’s going to take grit, though, and the knowledge that you alone have what it takes to thrive.