If you’ve ever gone through a breakup, you’ve likely received the brutal advice of going “no contact” with your ex. But does this rule actually help us? And if so, how?

“No contact” is a rule many people follow post-breakup. Basically, it’s exactly as it sounds: you cut off all contact with your ex, in an attempt to get over them. That might look like muting or blocking them on social media, not responding to calls or texts, and basically pretending they’re dead to you—not to punish them, but to give yourself time away from them so you can heal.

Creating this space—both physical and emotional—from your ex-partner allows you to move on without constantly factoring them into your decisions and your future. Naturally, after a breakup, we are still wired to think about that person constantly. No matter how long you dated them for, they were once a regular part of your everyday life. You likely spoke with them each morning and night, scheduled multiple hangouts throughout the week if you lived close, attended outings together, and relied on each other for support and love. 

Just because you can logically tell yourself the relationship is over doesn’t mean your mind and body will process it right away. In fact, it will continue to search for ways to connect with that person and salvage some sort of contact with them, even if it’s just happening in your brain.

If you don’t allow yourself distance from your ex (including cutting off texts and phone calls), you might have a harder time accepting the breakup and fully allowing yourself to move on.

Just because something is good for you doesn’t mean it’s easy. Oftentimes, going no contact feels like enduring severe emotional withdrawals from the person you love and the connection you shared. Especially when there’s sex and intimacy involved, this can cause extreme, sometimes unbearable pain and mourning.

However, this cold-turkey approach will accelerate the process and allow you to fully grieve the loss without living in a state of hopeful limbo. 

Take it from me: I attempted to stay in touch with an ex a few years back, telling myself I was strong enough to move on while still being able to touch base with him occasionally. However, subconsciously, I was still holding out hope. Every time he would ask to see me or message me a song he thought I’d like, I would fall right back into a downward spiral. All my progress and healing seemingly vanished. He knew that—and he took advantage of that, with no intention of ever rekindling. And within a few weeks, he began dating someone else.

I was devastated. If only I had cut off contact when we originally broke up…I would have been able to prepare for his moving on and perhaps even done so myself. But no, I wanted to stay in touch. I made excuses, telling myself, “But he still loves me! He even said so!” “We can still support each other.” “Maybe one day…”

It feels good to fuel yourself with false hope—momentarily, at least. That reassurance can only last so long.

Staying in contact with an ex can worsen the breakup and delay any progress you could have made during it. If you decide, instead, to temporarily cut off communication with your ex, you get to rediscover who you are without them. How exciting, if you really think about it? 

Oftentimes, in relationships, we inevitably sacrifice certain parts of ourselves to salvage the connection. Maybe we don’t see friends or travel as often, or perhaps we push our hobbies aside to make more time for our lovers. 

Being single and dedicating all your free time to yourself and your wants, needs, and desires will allow you to blossom and glow in ways you didn’t even know were possible. 

Of course, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to breakups. You should always trust yourself and do what you’re comfortable with (within legal limits, obviously…). If you want to maintain some contact, that’s your prerogative. 

However, if you want to rip the band-aid off and start healing, you might want to consider the no-contact rule. This doesn’t have to last forever; it’s just until you can find your grounding without them again.

With all that in mind, the research team says your best bets in the midst of a rough breakup are to unfriend, untag, block, and try Facebook’s Take A Break feature. And if necessary, hopping off social media entirely “for a while until you’re in a better place,” Pinter adds, will help too.

Q:

I went through a really bad breakup earlier this year from someone who constantly made me feel bad about myself, lied to me, etc etc. I don’t need to get to into it because I’m processing it plenty in therapy and I know where I stand with her. Which is that we’re not on good terms! I would prefer to never see or speak with her again. She claims to want the same. We live in different parts of a pretty large city so this should be easy to do.

And yet. She keeps showing up at all my go-to places. In particular, she has been hanging out at my absolute favorite bar in town. It isn’t a queer bar technically but it’s mostly queer people who hang there. There are other queer spots to go to though. ((AND honestly I feel like I’M a big part of what turned it into such a queer place to begin with! I’m a longtime regular and I started bringing my friends there. They started bringing people, etc.)) I introduced my ex to it. She’d never set foot in it before. Now she’s showing up all the time and also seemingly bringing DATES there which bums me out. Not from jealousy clearly. Just from wanting to tell these women she’s on dates with to run even though I know it’s also none of my business.

I’m just so angry. Any decent person would let me have “custody” of the bar. When I see her there I end up leaving. It’s like I’m letting her win. I hate it! I want to ask her to just give me this one thing and stop coming to one of my favorite places in the world but I feel like that could backfire or like it also just isn’t who I am. Ultimatums and big demands are her bag not mine. Do I have to give up this place I love so much? That seems so unfair!

A:

You’re right, a lot of this seems unfair! I hate “losing places” in a breakup, though I can concede that a lot of the places I lost access to in my last big breakup belonged more to my ex than to me. I’ve never had to stop being a regular at a place I discovered first because of an ex. The exact situation you’ve described sounds like my personal nightmare! I get very attached to places! Especially de facto queer spaces!

Given where you’re at with your ex in terms of not wanting to speak or see each other, I don’t think this is going to be resolved by a conversation, especially if the relationship was as volatile as you describe. I respect your desire for firm boundaries with her. I also can’t fully know her motivations for continuing to go to this bar, but it’s possible she’s indeed courting drama and trying to get a rise out of you. So engaging could be exactly what she wants and also allow her to continue to have some sort of hold over you. I doubt she’d be surprised to learn how upset you are by her presence there. She knows it’s your spot, and she knows how you feel about her.

Unfortunately what this all comes down to is the fact that you can’t really change or control someone else’s behavior. But you can change or work towards changing your own behavior and in particular the way you react. There are certain situations where I’d say yeah you should just protect your peace by not going to the place your ex keeps showing up in. But in this instance, that indeed would be too big of a loss! You’re used to this place being a safe space for you, and even if you’re in a big city with plenty of other queer bars, this one is special to you, and having that sense of community and belonging somewhere is actually so important.

So, how can you get to a place where you get to keep going to this bar even if your ex shows up? One step may just be time. Maybe you do have to take a little bit of time off from going there. Not forever! Just for a little bit! While you’re still healing from the breakup, going to therapy, maybe talking about THIS in therapy. Time can help so much. Then you can try going back and see how you feel. You can also recruit your friends to help make it easier to navigate sharing the space with your ex. You could have a friend arrive a few minutes before you to give you a heads up about whether your ex is there or not so as not to be surprised by her presence. It’s not a perfect solution, sure, because your ex could always show up after you. But maybe you also have a friend sit facing the door to give you the heads up when that happens. Sometimes it can be easier to regulate our stress and reactions when we’re not totally blindsided. That little heads up from a friend is small but could make it so you have a second to check in with yourself before laying eyes on your ex.

It also seems possible to me that if you were to take a break from going or get to a place where you don’t have to immediately leave when your ex shows up then your ex might indeed stop showing up at the bar so much. She could be doing it all precisely for the reaction from you (or in hopes you’ll try to say something). If you stay but don’t engage, you take that away from her. I’m not sure how big the bar is, but are there different spaces in it? Like a patio or different rooms? Don’t stay if you feel like it causing you too much anxiety or anger, but if you can get to a place where you’re able to control some of your response to her presence, you might be able to take away some of her power here. Talk to your friends if you haven’t already. They can put themselves between you and your ex, distract you as needed, and remind you that there are still good people who love you in this space and she can’t change that.

I think you’ll get your bar back. I think it’ll just take time and for the wounds to feel less fresh. In the meantime, don’t feel bad for getting worked up about all this. A breakup is so disorienting and shattering on many levels, changing our contexts and associations with places. It sucks to feel like a place that used to provide you comfort is now a place of heightened emotions. You’re not letting her win; you’re trying to take care of yourself by removing yourself from a place when her presence makes you feel bad. It’s not wrong to leave when she shows up, but I do think it’s obviously hurting you to do so given how much you love this place. So if you can tip the scales a bit in order to be able to sit with some discomfort and quite literally reclaim your space, I do think that’ll also de-incentivize her to show up. If you were to stay, maybe she’d be the uncomfortable one.

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Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya is the managing editor of Autostraddle and a lesbian writer of essays, fiction, and pop culture criticism living in Orlando. She is the former managing editor of TriQuarterly, and her short stories appear in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Joyland, Catapult, The Offing, The Rumpus, Cake Zine, and more. Some of her pop culture writing can be found at The A.V. Club, Vulture, The Cut, and others. When she is not writing, editing, or reading, she is probably playing tennis. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram and learn more about her work on her website.

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