Breakup and Divorce Recovery Resources

Find helpful resources for healing after a breakup or divorce, including a quiz, books, blog posts, journal prompts, apps, podcasts, specific podcast episodes, and TED or TEDx Talks.

Quiz

Books

Blog Posts

• Best 20 Anxious Attachment Breakup Tips
• When Your Ex Moves On First: How to Cope?
• “I Lost Myself In That Relationship”—How to Rebuild Your Identity?
• How to Stop Ruminating on an Ex?
• Why We Romanticize Past Relationships? Top 8 Reasons
• How to Cope with Divorce Regrets?
• Best 17 Tips On How to Move on From a Divorce You Didn’t Want
• The Psychology Behind Cheating And Lying
• Why Relationships Rarely End Because of Just One Thing
• How to Heal After Falling for the Wrong Person Too Quickly?
• Top 6 Types of Breakups That Get Back Together
• Confidence After a Breakup: How to Rebuild Your Self-Image?
• 10 Positive Lessons You Can Take From a Breakup

Breakup Journal Prompts

1. How do you feel right now? Where do you feel it in your body? Is it better or worse than yesterday?

2. What can you do to soothe yourself today?

3. What do you need right now? How can you show up for yourself more?

4. How can you distance yourself – physically and mentally – from your ex while you heal?

5. What things do you miss from the relationship (e.g. your ex’s company)? How can you replace the things you miss (e.g. meeting with friends more)?

Breakup Recovery Apps

• No Contact: Breakup Recovery
  Click here
  A breakup-focused app built around maintaining no contact. It includes a no-contact counter, reminders of why the relationship ended, journaling, tools for handling the urge to message an ex, daily check-ins, and breakup-recovery education.

Breakup Recovery Podcasts

• How to Get Over Your Ex — Breakup Coach Dorothy
  Click here
  Focuses specifically on getting through a breakup rather than simply waiting for time to make things better. Episodes cover obsessive thoughts about an ex, rejection, jealousy, attachment, rebuilding confidence, creating a life after the relationship, and changing the thoughts that keep someone emotionally stuck.
• Back to Happy: The Breakup Recovery Podcast — Angie Day
  Click here
  A breakup and divorce recovery podcast covering heartbreak, attachment patterns, closure, emotional recovery, rebuilding identity, and moving forward after a relationship ends.

Specific Breakup Recovery Podcast Episodes

• Why Breakups Hurt So Much: Attachment, Grief, and Healing — The Angry Therapist Podcast
  Click here
  John Kim explains why a breakup can feel similar to a major loss, how attachment and reward systems contribute to longing for an ex, and why people may also grieve their identity and the future they expected to have with that person.
• How to Heal After a Breakup When You’re Anxious — The Sabrina Zohar Show
  Click here
  Focuses on anxious attachment after a breakup, including rumination, repeatedly checking an ex’s social media, chasing reassurance, feeling withdrawal-like longing, self-blame, and getting caught in repeated thought loops.
• The Fearful-Avoidant Breakup Style — Back to Happy
  Click here
  Explores the push-pull reactions that can happen after a breakup when someone simultaneously wants closeness and fears it. The episode looks at conflicting thoughts, sudden shifts between longing and rejection, and identifying the beliefs driving those reactions.
• Why People Cheat—and Can Relationships Recover? — Speaking of Psychology
  Click here
  Psychologist Dr. Galena Rhoades discusses infidelity, commitment, trust, relationship stability, and what can happen after betrayal. It is particularly relevant for people whose breakup followed cheating or another major breach of trust.

TED & TEDx Talks About Breakup Recovery

• How to Fix a Broken Heart — Guy Winch
  Click here
  Psychologist Guy Winch explains why heartbreak can produce intense emotional pain and why some natural reactions after a breakup can actually keep someone stuck. He discusses idealizing an ex, repeatedly searching for explanations, filling the gaps left by the relationship, and actively challenging thoughts that keep the attachment alive.
• How to Get Over the End of a Relationship — Antonio Pascual-Leone
  Click here
  Clinical psychologist Antonio Pascual-Leone explains why unresolved feelings can leave someone feeling stuck after a relationship ends. He presents a three-step process for identifying and working through the emotions that remain after the breakup.
• Can We Not Let Our Breakups Break Us — Tasha Jackson
  Click here
  Psychotherapist Tasha Jackson discusses heartbreak as a genuine form of loss and looks at how people can process the end of a relationship rather than minimizing it or rushing to appear “over it.”
• Can We Choose to Fall Out of Love? — Dessa
  Click here
  Rapper and writer Dessa explores the brain science of romantic attachment and describes working with a neuroscientist while trying to understand and reduce her lingering attachment to an ex.
• Why Broken Hearts Hurt — and What Heals Them — Yoram Yovell
  Click here
  Neuroscientist Yoram Yovell explains connections between emotional and physical pain and looks at what happens in the brain during love, separation, and loss.