A breakup is always painful. It therefore seems that the answer to this question: is it possible to break without hurting, is necessarily negative. Indeed, whether the relationship was short or longer, breaking up always hurts. There is hardly any good way to break up… But, depending on the couple’s situation, this breakup will hurt for different reasons. In particular, it is essential to differentiate between what is in the order of the couple relationship, and what is in the order of feeling. The psychopractor Jean-Yves Caen also recalls an obviously essential data: that there are, or not, children within the couple.

Why does it hurt to break up? There are of course several answers to this question… And, depending on the situation of each couple, the breakup will hurt for different reasons.

First case, for Jean-Yves Caen, a psychopractor who applies a current of approach centered on the person: when there is a rupture linked to the fact that the relationship is not fluid. “Sometimes there is no communication, or communication is not possible, although the feeling of love is present“, He explains. And we can, therefore, love someone but not accept the relationship that is offered to you. And Jean-Yves Caen to add: “The evil to be linked to the breakup can then, in some people, be linked to the fact of still being in the love of the other, but without the relationship being possible.. ” And there are, in fact, cases where, despite love, the relationship is not possible.

Second scenario: for some people, the feeling of love is no longer there, mutual. So the relationship is not bad, but the feeling of love no longer allows us to stay together. “At this point, the breakup is difficult, because it is linked to the fact that an attachment has formed between the two members of the couple. The relationship is not bad but that is not enough for some people, or, in any case, for one of the two, the feeling of love is no longer a driving force.“, Relates Jean-Yves Caen. The pain will be different, often manifesting a kind of helplessness. 

An obviously essential fact will also come into play in couples: whether or not there are children. “Because that means that we have something in common, which is the fact that we have children, and that is not nothing!“, Says the expert. And when there is a break, whether we are in the first case described above or in the second, there is something heavy, because the fact of having children binds in another way. 

Parental emotional attachment is indeed something that requires staying united. Having children therefore makes the separation much more complex: the suffering of the breakup will be very different, raising a feeling of failure, but also a feeling of guilt.

And the emotional stakes are much stronger. Breakups are experienced with more guilt in fact, but also helplessness, even sometimes anger. An additional issue is added to the breakup: the discomfort is therefore very different from that of a couple who separate without having children.

For Jean-Yves Caen, the pain of the breakup is also linked to the intensity of the relationship: in close-knit couples, for example, “it’s so fusional, so intense that at the time of the breakup, the person who breaks up can find themselves in a difficult existential situation“. Finally, the person no longer exists without the other. In addition, if something very close-knit has taken place, even for a short period, six months for example, one of the two may at the time of the break-up be very stalker: he then does everything to force the other that the relationship does not end.

In addition, fusional relationships bring into play deep existential mechanisms. In such couples, people find it difficult to live for themselves, and live through each other. When the rupture occurs, the discomfort is all the deeper: because it is a dependent discomfort, a deep personal discomfort and even existential. These individuals will then feel a form of pulling pain, as if something is being torn away from them, which is part of themselves.

The individual work, the fact of consulting will be, for these couples, essential: because often, the people who live this type of fusional couple have to do in-depth work to learn to exist for oneself. Karl Rogers said that “when we are born, we all have a sense of internal evaluation, this ability to self-evaluate and self-pilot“. The more an education is centered on listening and non-judgment, the more people will develop this sense of internal self-piloting.

«In my opinion, a couple is not a place of dependence, it is not a place that must make the other existentially dependent.“, Still estimates the psychopractor, adding that on the contrary,”the couple must be a source of sharing and exchange«.

There are, moreover, couples where the feeling of love is not the spring of the couple: it is another type of feeling, which is also a feeling of love, a different form of love. It is in the order of fidelity to one another, of building together, of sharing an existential thread together. “There are as many people as there are singular couples“, Assures Jean-Yves Caen. The breakups in this type of couple are very melancholy: the pain is emotional because these couples had learned to share together.

«Even in couples who work very well, we are not immune to meeting someone, to having a crush.“, Recalls the psychopractor, before adding:”I claim that if you start from the principle that you don’t want to break up, break up is possible. ” Because according to him, what is a factor in the development of a couple is being able to welcome in oneself that a couple, like life, is impermanent. And so, “the more we are aware of this impermanence, if we also have an awareness of the other’s freedom, the more we will set up relationships that will leave freedom to the other, allow them to share things, to communicate a lot“. Therefore, couples will function well when they are aware that it can stop if each member does not feed all these things …