Coddling Your Heartbroken Friend Isn’t Helping Her - Page 3

You’re protective of your best friend, so when she comes to you devastated after a breakup she never saw coming (the worst kind of all) you just want to make her feel better instantly. All you’re thinking about is how do I get her to stop crying and start laughing right now.

Unfortunately, some of the tactics you turn to might just end up making this breakup harder on her in the long run. Clearly, everybody needs a little time to vent and grieve after a breakup, so give your friend that time, but don’t let her stay in the wallowing, self-pitying phase for long or she may never get over this thing (or off of your couch where she seems to live now). Here is why you aren’t helping your heartbroken friend by coddling her.

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Telling her how awful he was

Making everyone else out to be terrible is not a mature, healthy or sustainable way to feel better about oneself. Your friend and her boyfriend broke up because they were bad for each other, but not because either one was necessarily bad as an individual.

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Saying she’s perfect; he sucks

Your friend is at fault somehow. Both people in a breakup are always at fault somehow! Either by the things they did in the relationship, or by the mere fact that they chose to be together in the first place. Your friend can’t learn from her mistakes if you tell her she’s perfect.

Agreeing that men are terrible

She will go through the “I hate all men” phase. Do not indulge it or agree with her. This is just a bigger version of the “My ex was an awful person” phase, but it extends to all men. There is no way this mindset is productive.

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Indulging the Facebook stalking

She will want to look at his Facebook and judge the way he is dealing with the breakup. Whether he’s posting photos with friends partying, or not posting at all, she’ll decide he is a moron! Don’t let this stalking happen. Force her to, in front of you, delete him from social media.

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Looking over old photos with her

She’ll want to look over their photos together. She’s looking for clues that she was “never happy all along, really!” But she’ll just end up crying and realizing, “Damn—we were happy for a while there.”

Letting her eat all the ice cream she wants

There can be one night of f*ck-it eating, but after that, you have to put an end to it. If you don’t, she’ll just end up eight pounds heavier at the end of the week and still heartbroken.

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Letting her drink all the wine she wants

See above, plus the worst hangover EVER. Have you ever been heartbroken and hung over? It feels as if the world is ending.

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Letting her stay inside for a week

The more time she spends inside, the more opportunity she has to do all of the bad things on this list. So get her out, even if that means dragging her out in her robe with zit cream on her face.

Or agreeing to this crazy road trip

She will probably feel certain that this is the perfect time to do a cross-country road trip. She’ll tell you that if you’re a good friend, you’ll go with her. But she is just literally running away (well, driving away) from her feelings.

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Enabling this tattoo/haircut idea

No, she should not chop off all of her hair, dye her hair pink, get a tattoo or get a bull ring in her nose. The high of it will only last a few days until the reality sinks in that she is still heartbroken and now has a pixie cut.

Agreeing to this double date

One day, in the middle of the chaos, she’ll wake up and say, “I’m so over it! I really am! I’m ready to date and YOU have to come on this double date with me!” No you don’t, and no, she isn’t over it. She is in the denial phase; if you go on the double date she will probably get too drunk and start crying in the middle of it. Put a stop to this now.

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Buying her all the self-help books

She needs you, not an author spewing generic advice, to talk to her right now. Furthermore, the self-help cycle can be a dangerous one that causes someone to just read about life forever, but stop living it.

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Letting her talk about the breakup 24/7

She gets 20 minutes a day to talk about it—that is it. If you let her talk about it all day she will not be doing things to get over it, like spending time with friends, going outdoors, investing some time and thought into her career etc.

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Helping her throw away the gifts

For now, you can take them and hide them somewhere. Tell her you threw them out if you need to. Just know that there will come a day she feels very sad to have gotten rid of them, and you can say, “Guess what? You didn’t!”

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Supporting the fitness freak phase

She will want to pay for the most expensive trainer, the fanciest gym, and the designer workout clothes. She will purchase every juice cleanse on the market. Do not let her; she will go to two training sessions, three days at the gym, wear one of her new outfits, drink one juice, and drop it all (and waste her money).

Going with her to adopt three dogs or cats

You will have a hard time saying no to this because animals are adorable and you secretly want to borrow her pets from time to time but don’t let her do this! She doesn’t need heartbreak and the responsibility of taking care of three dogs right now.

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Indulging the partying phase

She doesn’t need to be hanging out at a club every night of the week right now and, let’s face it, neither do you! She needs sleep and she needs to not be around men groping her.

And the daredevil phase

Promise her that if she still feels the need to skydive in two months that she can do it then. But today, two days after the breakup, may not be the best time.

Helping her write him a letter

She is going to want you to listen to and edit drafts of letters to the ex. Not only will you not listen but you will also rip these up. These will either A) Elicit no response from him, which will hurt her B) Elicit an “I want you back” response, which is essentially a rabbit hole, or C) Make him file for a restraining order.