12 Stoic Ways in Dealing With Heartbreak

Three failed relationships with two of my past relationships cheated on me. That’s the story of my life and how many heartbreaks I’ve felt. However, what separated me from others was my Stoic’s view on life. This helped me cope with moving on, and in this post, I will answer how Stoics deal with heartbreaks.

The Stoics deal with heartbreaks by focusing on the things they can control. This means instead of being guilty and focusing on their past mistakes. Stoics see these past mistakes as learnings to be better in the future. Furthermore, Stoics don’t blame anyone for bad things such as breakups since it’s also something outside their control.

In this blog post, I am going to share 12 Stoic ways of handling a breakup. I will show you some Stoic insights that can help you cope with the sad moments of your life.

How do Stoics deal with heartbreak?

Generally speaking, Stoics deal with heartbreaks by not focusing their attention on things outside their control. One of which is remembering past mistakes, which only leads to stress. Furthermore, Stoics are resilient enough to accept reality no matter how hard it is and see it as a learning opportunity to get better in the future.

The tips I will give here are the things I did to cope with these trying times.

I know how hard moving on can be. I spent some nights blaming myself or thinking of things I should’ve done better.

However, Stoicism comforted me to get through those trying times.

Here are the 12 Stoic ways to deal with heartbreaks.

1. Stop Complaining

I understand how hard heartbreak is.

However, one of the things we should never do is to complain about it.

Not only does it make us look annoying to other people, but it also causes unnecessary stress and sadness for us.

Complaining about either your past actions or your ex-partner won’t give any benefits.

Stoics know of the dichotomy of control. It means that we shouldn’t mind things outside our control.

Our past actions and ex-partner are all things we can’t control.

No matter how much we complain, we can’t change who they are and what we did in the past.

Instead of feeling better, complaining causes stress or even guilt.

Thus, instead of complaining, start doing. Find things you did wrong, what things you can do to prevent the same problem from occurring in the future.

Focus on what you can control. This is the Stoic way of dealing with life.

2. Stop Making Things Worse

Looking at your old pictures or trying to get the person back would usually cause to make things worse.

Instead of trying to move on, people make things worse by trying to remember the past.

This does not only apply to remembering. It also applies to try what you can do to keep the failed relationships.

Most of the time, when a relationship ends, it’s already over. Of course, there is a chance that you might get back together, but it usually happens a few months or even years after not meeting each other.

Trying to get the person back by sending hundreds of messages or calls does not make it better.

Doing these makes things worse. In fact, it makes you look desperate, which people don’t like.

Trying to continuously like your ex-partner’s posts and stalking their profiles is also a bad idea.

Remember that it takes time away from the person to move on.

One common misconception is since Stoic is about trying to get your control back on life, they see chasing the person who broke up with them as something they can do.

While it is true you can do it, how the other person reacts to your efforts is not in your control.

And most likely, trying to chase back doesn’t end well. On the contrary, it makes things worse since most of your efforts will not produce results.

When I first experienced someone cheating on me, I even tried to drive long-distance to mend things. I thought my effort could solve the problem, but it was all for nothing.

3. Realize You Can’t Change What Already Happened

Don’t try to remember every mistake you or the person made in the past that resulted in the breakup.

This only causes sadness and regret, which amplifies the problem.

The only time to check your past mistakes is if you are looking for ways to improve yourself.

If your goal of remembering the past is to blame yourself by looking at your past mistakes, you are only making things worse.

You have to realize that we can’t change things that have already happened.

Instead, what is in our control is our actions in the present moment.

What would we do now to make ourselves better or, in this case, get over the breakup?

Focus on the present moment and realize that the past is the past. But, unfortunately, we can’t do anything about that except make ourselves better for our future.

4. Focus on What You Can Control

Remember that your ex-partner and your past actions are things outside your control.

Since we can’t control what the other person says or does, it is better not to mind them.

Even if the breakup is caused by your mistake, you can’t change what already happened.

Instead, focus on the present and the things you can do to make it better.

What you can control are your present actions. So how you act starting now is totally in your control.

One of the benefits of Stoicism is that it gives you some sense of control.

Stoicism empowers us to find the areas we can do something about.

By focusing on what we can control, we can have power over our actions. This boost of empowerment is necessary to get a new grip on life.

5. Stop the Guilt

Stoicism deals with guilt by understanding that changing the past is outside their control. So, instead of trying to change the past, Stoics try to learn from them and do their best to be better. That way, they find a way not to make the same mistake over again.

One of the reasons why we feel bad after the breakup is guilt.

Maybe if we do this or do that, then the person won’t leave us.

While it might be true that we made some mistakes, it is also true that we can’t change what already happened.

Guilt only leads to unnecessary stress, which is not a Stoic way of handling a breakup.

Instead, think of what you can do to this guilt. And what we can do is to change ourselves for the better.

For example, if we don’t have enough time for the person, try to have some free time for your next relationship.

If you made a terrible mistake, then do something to prevent that from happening again.

It’s the only logical thing to do. Instead of stressing ourselves because of guilt, we should find a way to prevent these mistakes from happening again.

In my life, I can say that one of the things that caused me to feel guilty in my past relationship is time.

I once became hooked to video games which caused the other person to feel not loved. Thus, she found love with her workmate.

I learned from that and now control my time on video games.

6. Realize We Have No Control Over Other People

I keep stressing this, but this is the real Stoic way of dealing with a breakup.

It is essential to realize that there are a lot of things outside our control.

This includes our ex-partner. What they are doing right now is not in our control, and we shouldn’t mind them.

I don’t even know what my exes are doing right now. I don’t know if they are happy or not.

However, it doesn’t concern me.

I have a lot of things on my plate which I can control, such as my actions towards my website, YouTube channel, and many more.

7. Ask For Help

People see Stoics as emotionless people. Thus, they see asking for help as a weakness.

However, that is not true.

If you need help, then ask for help. There are people around you who you can seek help from.

You can ask your friends, family, or people around to comfort you.

However, as I said earlier, do not make things worse. Asking your ex-partner for help is a terrible idea.

That would only look desperate.

What I like about asking for help is that you get other people’s perspectives.

It is like what you are doing right now reading this blog post. You are seeking my perspective on dealing with breakups in a Stoic way.

8. Learn from Your Regrets and Nothing More

As I said earlier, remembering your past mistakes and regrets is a bad idea if you want to move on.

Regrets are inevitable on breakups. There will always be times where you feel you didn’t give your all.

But as I said earlier, this would only make things worse. It causes us to feel bad about the situation.

Instead of making it easier to move on, remembering your mistakes makes it worse.

That’s why the only thing we need to do on these memories is to see them as learning opportunities.

If your brain starts to blame you, you are going beyond trying to learn from your mistakes.

Try to see your mistakes only as a learning opportunity, nothing more.

9. Accept the Reality

No matter how much we try, the reality is the reality.

We have to accept it no matter what.

Whatever the cause of your breakup, the truth is that the breakup already happened.

In this case, we have to accept reality no matter what it is.

It might hurt us initially, but it is the only logical way of dealing with things.

This is the Stoic way of handling things from the logical perspective.

Do not let your emotions decide what is right to do. Instead, follow the logical way, which is to accept reality.

In fact, Stoics stay away from emotions blocking rational thinking.

The Stoics call excess emotions passion. They stay away from passion since it hinders our rational thinking. This is also why people see Stoics as emotionless. But that’s not the truth. If you want to find more about this, you may find it in my other blog post here: Do Stoics feel emotion?

10. Do Not Blame Others

Sometimes, the cause of the breakup is not just your ex-partner but other people.

However, the rule that we can’t control others still applies.

We should not blame others for the things that happen in our life. In fact, most of them don’t care since they are busy with their life.

Furthermore, we should never show our frustrations to people around us.

Just because we’re in a bad mood doesn’t give us the right to be bad at others for no reason.

The Stoics call this passion. If our emotions become uncontrollable, they can harm our logical thinking.

The Stoic way of handling breakups is to take matters into your hands. Do not blame others, especially the people who have no idea what’s happening in your life.

11. Time is the Ultimate Solution to Moving On

Many of the tips here help you get through breakups in a rational and Stoic way.

However, the way to move on is the same for all, no matter who we are.

It is always time.

With time away from our exes, we can all move on.

Remember that it just takes time.

The Stoic way of dealing with breakups helps you prevent the same mistakes from happening again. With that, you would always have better relationships after this breakup.

This leads us to the last thing, which is to love again.

12. Love Again

Now, let’s handle things from a logical perspective.

With billions of people worldwide, there is a high chance that you will find another love.

It’s life. People come and go. So do relationships.

Once you’ve already moved on through time, it might be time to try again.

So, a breakup is not the end. Life has ups and downs.

Just because someone did something wrong to you doesn’t mean that everyone is like that. We are all different.

Give people some chance. Give yourself a chance to love again.

The Stoics value and accepts love. They aren’t emotionless people. If you want to know about love and Stoicism, you may visit this blog post: Do Stoics Feel Love?

However, do not try to use dating apps right after breakups to moving on. As I said earlier, don’t make things worse.

This is how a Stoic deals with breakups. It also debunked a common misconception of Stoicism which is being emotionless.

Moving on like a Stoic is not about being emotionless. Stoics are not emotionless. They just know how to use emotions logically.

What’s Next? The fact that you’ve read this article means you’re interested in Stoicism. However, do you know how popular and how fast Stoicism became popular? You can find the data in my other blog post. Here is the link: Why is Stoicism so Popular?