How does emotional dependency affect us after a breakup?

This is how emotional dependency affects our quality of life after the end of a relationship.

Relationships can be very emotionally pleasurable, but they can also become ones of high emotional dependency. This is normal, because at the end of the day we are not dating someone we don't like, but a person who seems to understand us, who synchronizes very well with our emotions.

However, not all couples last forever. When the relationship breaks up, that illusion of synchronization and trust vanishes as quickly as a candle flame does, but the smoke in the form of emotional emptiness from seeing the person you loved leave can be very painful and especially long-lasting if the relationship was highly dependent.

How emotional dependence affects us after a breakup will vary from each one, certainly, but we can advance that the greater it is, the more painful will be the grief that follows and the more intense the feelings of sadness and demons. Let's go deeper and find out why.

How does emotional dependence affect us after the end of a relationship?

Being in a couple can be wonderful. Feeling that you have someone with whom you have an almost perfect rapport and synchronization for the most part is something that suits you very well.

Not to fall into clichés, but when you find your better half, or something that resembles it, there comes a time when it is difficult to consider life without them. You start planning your life together with that person, you count on them for practically any big event in your life. You do not consider the possibility that, one day, he or she will no longer be with you..

But couples break up and, when that happens, both parties can feel very bad. Suddenly all those life plans that we had planned to make together with our partner are cut short because the relationship has just come to an end, there is no longer the flame of love and consequently there is no longer a partner. It is normal that after the breakup we feel emotionally overwhelmed, because the idea of who is now our ex leaves a great emotional void.

It is a law of life to suffer after a breakup. It is something totally normal and, although painful, it is a healthy process in most of the occasions.. We enter a period of mourning where sadness, desolation and anger can command our emotional course, but after all these are emotions that have to be lived to then start a new stage. After the downs come the ups, and it is only a matter of time before we recover, stronger and happier, and move on with our lives.

However, not everyone experiences the breakup in a healthy and mature way. The more emotional dependence there is in a relationship, the more likely it is that the breakup will reach traumatic levels and be experienced in a way that is far removed from reality. Emotional dependence in a relationship deeply affects our state of mind and autonomy when the breakup occurs, to the point that we may even suffer from depressive symptoms.

Emotional dependence and emotional withdrawal syndrome.

It often happens that people with lower self-esteem establish a highly dependent relationship with their partner. The relationship takes a crucial role in their lifeThe relationship takes a crucial role in their life, so much so that it comes to fill the emptiness inside them because of their low self-esteem levels.

In these cases, dating can become a feature of the person's identity, that is, the fact of having a partner becomes very significant in his or her life history, which is why he or she establishes a strong relationship of emotional dependence.

The problem with this is that, when the relationship ends, the breakup can bring with it several symptoms in the form of low mood, identity crisis and, also, extreme need to see the ex-partner again..

This last symptom, in fact, shares characteristics with those suffered by a person who has a physical dependence on a drug, which is why psychologists say that in a breakup process there is an emotional withdrawal syndrome.

It is important to understand that everyone, in one way or another, will experience emotional withdrawal syndrome after breaking up with a partner. It is normal that, after dating someone for a long time, when that person leaves our lives, they leave us with a painful emptiness that we only want to fill with their presence. leaves us with a painful emptiness that we only want to fill it with their presencewith the genuine desire for him/her to come back into our lives. However, the healthy thing to do is to go with the flow, to let that emptiness be filled little by little with other things and let the wounds heal, which will heal.

However, people who have established a relationship of high emotional dependence with someone have a hard time filling that void. It is not just that it is difficult for them, but that it is difficult for them to do their part to let time heal the wounds and make the need to see the ex-partner disappear. Their need to see her again is so great that they may even develop obsessive and toxic behaviors, such as following the ex-partner on social networks, finding out what her schedule is, or planning "casual" situations in which to meet that person and initiate a conversation.

These behaviors, which can be considered stalking, are not only harmful to the person who is the object of the obsession, but also to the person who is obsessed.. Emotional dependency and withdrawal disables the person from taking the initiative, trying to break the cycle or trying to start a new stage in life by trying new things. She is trapped in a whirlwind of helplessness as she experiences the uncertainty of not knowing whether or not she will return to the ex-partner, wanting from her Heart to do so but rationally understands, or should understand, that the relationship is broken.

The highly dependent person may be so dependent on what their former partner is doing that they are unable to continue with their studies or work and neglect their friendships and family relationships, relationships that ironically are more stable than the partner who has just left them. Her emotional dependency and the withdrawal syndrome that has arisen after the breakup has caused him/her to become a shadow of him/herself, an affective dependent in an anxious-depressive cycle..

The physical and mental health of the person with high emotional dependence who is going through a breakup is severely impaired in some cases, so much so that we can find the following symptoms:

• Anguish and anxiety
• Sadness
• Dizziness and lack of concentration
• Insomnia
• Loss of appetite
• Obsessive thoughts
• Feeling of detachment
• Disinterest in life
• Anhedonia
• Dizziness, vomiting and nausea
• Headaches
• Chest tightness

What to do to overcome the breakup?

The emotional dependence after a breakup makes it very difficult to overcome it. The appearance of the own symptomatology of the emotional abstinence does that to accept that no longer it is going to continue that relation is difficult, but not impossible. It should be noted that for these cases it is always advisable to go to a specialist, a psychologist specialized in breakups.A psychologist specialized in breakups and relationships who will teach you tools and strategies that can help you to move forward.

In order to help free yourself from this emotional dependence, still alive despite the breakup, it is essential to take into consideration the following keys.

1. Accept the pain and assume its transience.

As we have mentioned, suffering some pain and some other symptoms of emotional withdrawal syndrome, within certain parameters of intensity and duration, is completely normal. However, it is necessary to understand and assume that it is something transitory, a state that we must go through as part of the mourning after a breakup and that will make us stronger, more centered and balanced..

We must accept the negative emotions that will come after the breakup. They are inevitable, they appear, but what we can control is the way we manage them and the degree to which we allow them to limit us. Sadness, desolation, bewilderment... All of them are feelings that, sooner or later, we will have to go through in order to favor acceptance and overcoming.

2. Apply zero contact

Zero contact is basic when we go through a breakup. To stop knowing anything about that person is the best way to forget and end the emotional dependence. It is true that it is tempting to look at the profiles on social networks of that person, but doing so the only thing that is achieved is to put the finger in the wound..

It is essential not to have our ex-partner in the networks or our contacts, not even with the idea of remaining friends with him or her in one way or another. For the moment, the best thing to do is to lose contact. It is the first step to disconnect ourselves from his life, avoiding falling into obsessive and dysfunctional dynamics.

3. Starting a new stage

The breakup can be the beginning of a stage that, depending on how we face it, can become the best of our lives.. It is essential that after a breakup we wipe the slate clean of everything that reminds us of our ex and make the effort to induce significant changes in our lives.

Something as simple as making new friends, starting to study a new language, going to the gym or any other hobby we have never tried before can help us to free our minds, break the cycle of obsession.

Whatever we do, a breakup should never be seen as the end of the world, but as the end of one stage and the beginning of another, one in which we can make a lot of good things happen, building a stronger version of ourselves.