3 Types of Breakups I See in My Office
Last week, I witnessed another quiet tragedy in my office. A couple I’ve been seeing for a few months decided to part ways. It was our final session.
I knew their story inside out, and honestly, I agreed with their decision. Because here’s something most people don’t realize: couples therapy isn’t always about reconciliation — sometimes, it’s about helping people separate well.
Sometimes, continuing to “work on the relationship” becomes more harmful than healing.
After years of practice, I’ve noticed that breakups tend to fall into three recurring categories. These aren't the only categories, of course — but they're the ones I encounter most often in my practice.
1. The Emotional Crisis Breakup
“I love you… but I’m not okay.”
This is the kind of breakup that happens when someone is overwhelmed by an internal emotional tornado. It’s not a lack of love that ends the relationship — it’s the inability to regulate overwhelming emotions while staying in it. Ending the relationship feels like the only way to restore inner peace.
Example:
Alex and Leila were deeply in love. They shared a similar vision for the future, were both ambitious, kind-hearted, and generous with each other. But every conflict turned volcanic. Alex would shut down completely when overwhelmed, while Leila, anxious and afraid of disconnection, would press harder for answers. Their arguments followed the same painful cycle: silence, panic, escalation.
They weren’t cruel. They weren’t incompatible in values. But they triggered each other’s deepest attachment wounds on a near-weekly basis — without even realizing it. Neither of them was aware of how their attachment styles were shaping their reactions, only that being together often felt like emotional whiplash.
After one particularly intense episode that left them both drained for days, they came to the painful conclusion that staying together might be doing more harm than good.
My take:
This one hurts. It’s often avoidable. Many couples stuck in this dynamic could have made it work — if they had better emotional regulation, relationship skills, and a foundational understanding of emotional growth and relational psychology. These are things you can learn, either on your own or (ideally) with a professional.
2. The Emotional Burnout Breakup
“I’ve given all I had. I have nothing left.”
This breakup looks like the crisis one, but it's been simmering for years. Here, people break up not because the problem is new or unbearable — but because they’ve carried it for so long, with such little return on investment, that they’ve simply burned out. The hope is gone. The tank is empty.
When I sense this, I ask bluntly:
“Is one of you seriously considering a breakup?”
If the answer is yes, I follow up:
“Can you guarantee that for the next 3 to 6 months, you’ll stay in this relationship while we work together?”
And if the answer is “I can’t guarantee that” — well, as sad as it may sound, but to me a lack of commitment to the process is often a clear indicator that the relationship is already on life support.
Example:
Céline and René hadn’t had sex in five years (not as uncommon as you think). Céline dealt with pain during intercourse and chronic stress (first due to uni, then her new career when she graduated), and the sexual connection slowly disappeared. They still traveled together, shared hobbies, and were truly companions — but the intimacy was gone.
René, who I could tell was a good dude, was still showing up to sessions. But he wasn’t really engaging. He didn’t do the exercises. He wasn’t introspecting. I could tell — he had already checked out. He just hadn’t admitted it yet.
Céline, sensing the urgency, started working overtime on her part of the problem. But there’s only so much healing you can do in four weeks after five years of avoidance. René eventually said it: he felt like he was wasting his best years as a sexual being. He wasn’t cruel — just honest.
He said, ‘I love her and I want what’s best for her — but we’ve had this problem for so long, I honestly can’t picture a future where it’s ever truly resolved.’
My take:
These breakups are brutal. I sit with these couples in their rawest, most human moments. I hold space for confessions that never made it past the kitchen table.
And yes, I often think — if only they had come sooner.
3. The “I Care About You, But I’m Not In Love Anymore” Breakup
“We’re not fighting. I just don’t feel it.”
We could also call this the ‘Fell outta love’ breakup. Not every breakup is dramatic. Sometimes, it’s a quiet drift.
One day, you realize you haven’t looked at your partner with longing in months. You still care about them. You still want good things for them. But the romantic charge — that magnetic pull that once made you want to reach for their hand without thinking — is gone.
It’s not that they did something wrong. It’s just that something inside you shifted.
Example:
Sarah and Matthew had been together for nearly a decade. They had two young kids, a mortgage, and a life that looked — from the outside — like a solid, functional partnership. And in many ways, it was. They co-parented well, divided household tasks fairly, and rarely fought. But underneath that well-oiled routine, something quieter had been eroding.
Sarah found herself daydreaming about other lives. Not other men, necessarily — just other versions of herself. Versions where she felt more alive, more connected to her own body, more creatively or emotionally fulfilled. Matthew was steady, reliable, and kind. But she no longer felt desire, no longer felt the pull to touch him or be touched. When he kissed her, it felt like checking a box.
They both pushed those feelings down for a long time — years, even. Because they had children. Because they had responsibilities. Because “breaking up” at this stage felt selfish, or maybe impossible. But eventually, the emotional numbness became too loud to ignore.
Matt, for his part, had sensed the distance. He loved Sarah and still cared about their life together, but admitted he hadn’t felt truly desired by her in years. And as much as he tried to make peace with that, it had worn him down, too.
My note:
In an example this Sarah and Matthew, this is often the hardest kind of breakup to explain — to friends, to family, even to yourself. Because it doesn’t look like something’s broken. But deep down, both people feel the disconnection.
Love, in its healthiest form, requires emotional vitality — not just commitment or kindness.
You can care for someone and still know that your romantic story with them has reached its final chapter. And ending it doesn’t mean it wasn’t real. It just means the love has changed shape — and so must the relationship.
Another example of a couple that didn’t last nearly as long as Sarah and Matthew that could fit in this type of breakup would be me and Nikos — the Greek guy from Chapter 2 of my upcoming book, the one I was in a long-distance relationship with. We had been dating for less than a year when, one week, I just… fell out of love.
It didn’t come out of nowhere. It was more like an accumulation of small red flags — data points, really. Like the time he said he thought two gay dads was “weird.” Or how he thought feminism wasn’t needed anymore. Or that charming moment when he casually wished that the U.S., Germany, or “any other strong country” would bomb Turkey, because of historical tensions with Greece.
It was a slow, steady parade of nonsense — and eventually, my heart dipped out of the relationship before I did. In the end, he was simply the predictable product of being a typical Southern European man, and being a hot Greek guy only got him so far, so I simply fell out of love.
What I Teach My Clients (and What I Write About in My Book)
In Chapter 2 of my book (coming out October 20, 2025), I unpack my working definition of love — and why feeling it has never been enough to make a relationship last. In fact, when couples break up, I can almost always trace it back to a breakdown in one part of this equation:
Love = Emotions + Decisions + Actions
Let’s break that down:
Emotions are the easy part. You don’t need to do anything to feel love — it just happens. It’s instinctual, hormonal, unpredictable. It’s also why so many people confuse intensity with compatibility.
Decisions are the turning point. You have to choose each other — not necessarily forever, but deliberately. Saying “I choose you” means closing the mental tabs on other possibilities and being willing to invest in this one.
Actions are the hardest. They require you to show up, consistently — in small ways (taking out the trash) and big ways (doing therapy, reading books, apologizing when you don’t feel like it).
When couples sit across from me, unraveling, I often ask:
Which part of the equation is missing?
If you're in a relationship right now, try asking yourself:
Am I still choosing this person?
What are my actions actually communicating?
And do they align with the love I say I feel?
Final Thoughts:
Breakups aren't failures. Sometimes, they're acts of emotional maturity.
Sometimes, choosing to leave is choosing love — the love of self, the love of peace, or the love of a future that no longer fits within the current relationship.
If you find yourself in one of these stories — whether as Leila, René, or the one who simply doesn’t feel it anymore — know that you’re not alone. And that, wherever you are in the equation, there’s help, there’s healing, and yes — there’s life after love.
Rooting for your growth, always,
-kanica xox