“It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.”
“You can’t die from a broken heart.”
“Don’t cling to a mistake just because you spent a long time making it.”
These are a few popular phrases in the breakup repertoire. And although you will keep breathing, a breakup can still cause a lot of damage, especially for those who take them to heart particularly hard.
But why are some people able to process the pain and embark on a new chapter with ease, while others feel physically and emotionally stuck in despair?
Mark Groves, a human connection expert, consultant, speaker, coach, and the creator of the Breakup Recovery Course, shares his insights on what causes the disparity between these two types of people.
Mark notes that many contributing factors can make some people take a breakup harder than others, including attachment style. But the biggest culprits are unresolved pain from the past and low self-worth.
So let’s dive into those.
Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it … or at least take a long time to get over it. According to Mark, “those who have an unprocessed abandonment or rejection wound” are likely to feel devastated by a breakup. “If we have not truly sat with the pain of our losses and the ways we were let down as children, a breakup can activate that wound, and become even more painful than it normally would be,” he explains. “Sometimes new grief is actually old grief left unattended.”
People with low self-worth receive their validation and value from those outside of themselves, which fluctuates depending on others’ behavior. This means that an exponential emphasis is put on what other people think and how they feel.
Attachment style can be a big clue that someone has low self-worth and will not be able to heal easily from a breakup. People with an anxious attachment style seek constant reassurance and validation from their partners because they tend to suffer from low self-worth. Therefore, they are “more likely to make the breakup about you,” Mark says. A breakup ignites and confirms the biggest fears of people with low self-worth—that they have one (or many) fatal flaws and are unlovable.
Mark tells us that self-worth is a crucial factor in being able to handle a breakup well. “One cannot confront a breakup with maturity and grace without self-worth,” he says. “Self-worth allows us to separate ourselves from the other person’s behavior and not make the breakup about ‘winning’ or ‘losing.’”
He adds that people with low self-worth suffer from a breakup longer. “When we have low self-worth, we play games. We tolerate ambivalence. We abandon ourselves. We have poor boundaries. None of this facilitates healing from the breakup, and it prolongs the pain,” he shares.
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