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The stages of grief after a breakup are usually the five Kübler-Ross names (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance) applied to the end of a relationship instead of a death. They are a way of naming feelings, not a route everyone follows in order. In a four-week daily diary study of young adults after a breakup, researchers tracked love or longing for the ex-partner, sadness and anger every day, and the three turned out to be separate but linked feelings that people reported side by side, day after day (Sbarra and Ferrer, Emotion, 2006).
Calling it grief is not an exaggeration. The Canadian Mental Health Association says people grieve after "any important loss" that affects their life, and gives the loss of a relationship as an example (CMHA, Grieving). If you would like support while you work through it, TEO offers counselling after a breakup, online, in six provinces.
If the end of this relationship has left you thinking about suicide, or believing the people around you would be better off without you, the 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline is there day and night: call or text 9-8-8.
If an ex-partner has threatened you, or anyone is in danger right now, call 911. Lines for each province, including support for people affected by violence, are on our resources page.
Many breakup guides borrow the five names Elisabeth Kübler-Ross made famous. Here is how each one can show up when the loss is a partner rather than a death:
A federal guide written for separating parents, the Department of Justice Canada's Making Plans, uses the same five stages in Section 1, "What you may be feeling". It says you may go through all of them or only some, and not necessarily in the order it lists them (Justice Canada, Making Plans, Section 1).
Real days are messier than a list. The Canadian Mental Health Association describes grief as very personal, with thoughts and feelings that can seem at odds with each other: someone can feel very depressed about a loss and accept it at the same time (CMHA). After a breakup, that might mean knowing the relationship was wrong for you and still crying over it.
Kübler-Ross first described these responses in people who were dying. By 1974, the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation reports, she was applying them to "anyone else who is in the process of losing something very important" (EKR Foundation). Our article on the six stages of grief traces the rest of that history and what grief researchers have made of it.
Breakup lists online run to seven, nine, ten or more stages; none of the studies cited here tested any list as a fixed order.
Not reliably. The diary study mentioned at the top of this article asked young adults to report their love or longing for the ex-partner, their sadness and their anger every day for four weeks. Sbarra and Ferrer found that the three could be told apart as separate moods that were still connected to one another (Sbarra and Ferrer, 2006). They also looked at how the feelings moved from one day to the next, such as whether a feeling carried over or turned up alongside another, and those day-to-day patterns differed with how well people were adjusting to the separation and with their attachment style.
The federal guide for separating parents makes a similar point in plainer words: you may move back and forth between the stages (Justice Canada).
So a hard day after a better week does not put you back at the start. If the feelings run on separate tracks, a wave of anger can arrive after a calm stretch without cancelling out what you have already worked through.
None of the studies cited here ranks the stages by difficulty. What they do describe is which circumstances went along with heavier or longer-lasting distress.
David Sbarra collected daily emotion ratings for four weeks from 58 young adults whose serious romantic relationship, not a marriage, had recently ended (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2006). Greater love for the ex-partner, anger and attachment preoccupation were linked to a lower probability that sadness eased within the study period. Accepting that the relationship had ended helped explain why more securely attached people's sadness eased.
Attachment preoccupation sits close to what is often called anxious attachment. If that pull toward the other person is familiar, our page on anxious attachment explains how counselling can work with it.
Field and colleagues studied 192 university students who had recently gone through the breakup of a romantic relationship, and split them into high- and low-distress groups using a breakup distress scale (Adolescence, 2009). Compared with the low-distress group, the high-distress group reported less time since the breakup, had not initiated it, found it sudden and unexpected, and felt rejected and betrayed. They also scored higher on scales for intrusive thoughts and for sleep disturbance.
If thoughts about the breakup keep circling back, our article on how to stop overthinking has a simple paper method for loops like these. When betrayal is part of the story, such as an affair, our page on infidelity counselling covers that work.
Most of the studies cited in this article were done with young adults or university students, so they may not reflect a long marriage ending in midlife.
Often, yes, though on a different clock. The federal guide for separating parents says you and your former partner will likely go through the stages at different times, and that "Usually, the partner who decides to end the relationship goes through them sooner" because that person started grieving earlier (Justice Canada).
That can explain a painful mismatch. The person who ended it may have done much of their mourning quietly, before saying a word, and can seem calm or even ready to move on while the person who heard the news is only starting. That federal guide for separating parents lists feelings that range from anger, guilt, shame and loneliness to "relief, excitement, hope and even happiness", and notes that you may swing from one emotion to another.
In the research cited here, being the one who was left went with a harder time: in the study of 192 university students, the high-distress group was the one that had not initiated the breakup (Field and colleagues, 2009). Neither position is easy. One person may feel blindsided; the other may feel they have no right to be sad about a decision they made.
Couples tend to share friends and activities, and over time even their sense of self can overlap, as Slotter, Gardner and Finkel describe in a paper titled "Who am I without you?" (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2010). Across three studies, they found that after a breakup the content of people's self-concept changed and their self-concept clarity dropped, meaning their sense of who they are became less clear. Lower clarity, in particular, uniquely predicted emotional distress after the breakup.
So asking "who am I now?" is not proof that you have lost yourself for good. It reflects how much of ordinary life was arranged around two people. It can be easier to start small than to answer it all at once: what you feel like eating tonight, which friend you would like to see this week, one thing you stopped doing during the relationship that you miss.
It may, though the evidence comes from a survey, not an experiment. Tara Marshall analyzed data from 464 participants about their Facebook contact with a former partner (Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 2012). Surveillance of the ex-partner's Facebook page was linked to more distress over the breakup, more negative feelings and longing for the ex-partner, and lower personal growth. These results held after controlling for offline contact, personality and characteristics of the relationship and the breakup.
Staying Facebook friends was a different picture: compared with people who were no longer Facebook friends with their ex, those who were reported less negative feeling and longing, but also lower personal growth.
This was a correlational survey, so it shows links rather than causes; people who are struggling more may also look more. If you catch yourself checking their page, muting or unfollowing them for a while is a quiet option that does not require announcing anything.
The feelings are often the same ones. The federal guide written for separating parents puts it in one line: "Separation is the loss of an important relationship" (Justice Canada). What can make a divorce heavier is how much is attached to it: a shared home, money, family on both sides and, for parents, daily life with children, often with legal decisions to make while you are still grieving.
Children grieve as well. Section 2 of that federal guide for separating parents, "What your children may be feeling", says children can feel loss when their parents separate or divorce, and notes that young children often show that grief through their behaviour (Justice Canada, Making Plans, Section 2).
Safety comes before any of this. If you or your children have been abused or feel unsafe around the other parent, the federal guide for separating parents says to put safety first, and that you may need to create a safety plan. Support lines for each province, including victim services, are listed on our resources page. If you miss someone who also hurt you, that pull may make more sense after reading our article on trauma bonding.
For the practical side, whether that is deciding to separate, getting through the separation itself or learning to co-parent with someone you are still angry with, see our page on separation and divorce counselling. This article does not give legal or parenting-time advice; a family lawyer or your province's family justice services can help with those questions.
There is no fixed length. The federal guide for separating parents notes that most people who go through a separation or divorce say these feelings fade with time. It also says the first year after a separation is often the hardest, because so much changes and so many decisions have to be made, and that, according to some experts, adjusting to a separation or divorce can take two or three years (Justice Canada). Those are rough guides, not a deadline.
The research cited here hints at why the pace varies. In the university study, distress was higher when less time had passed since the breakup (Field and colleagues). In the four-week diary study, sadness was less likely to ease within the study period for people who felt more love for the ex-partner, more anger or more attachment preoccupation; anger, for its part, was more likely to ease for more securely attached people, and less likely while sadness was still strong (Sbarra, 2006).
It also does not always fade in a straight line. The Canadian Mental Health Association notes that the intensity of grief can change a lot over time, and that holidays often bring up strong feelings (CMHA). After a breakup, an anniversary, a mutual friend's wedding or a song in a shop can do the same, even when you thought you were past it.
Sadness after a breakup is expected; depression is something more. The federal guide for separating parents says it is very common to feel depressed after a separation or divorce, and lists signs that include sleeping too much or not at all, gaining or losing weight, difficulty concentrating or making decisions, feeling hopeless, and constant negative thoughts, including thoughts of suicide (Justice Canada).
Getting support may make sense if:
The federal guide for separating parents also names people you can ask for help: a mental health professional, a counsellor, your doctor, an Elder or a religious adviser. Whether low mood after a breakup has become depression is a question for your family doctor or a nurse practitioner, because TEO's counsellors do not make diagnoses.
If you are in crisis at any hour, call or text 9-8-8. If anyone's life is in danger right now, call 911.
TEO Counselling has no office: every session takes place online, for clients in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Newfoundland and Labrador. No referral is needed to start.
Rola Shbib, RSW (Ontario) #866715, works one-to-one with individuals in all six provinces, and her honours degree is in thanatology, which studies death, dying and loss. Mohamad Shabib, MACP, CCC, who wrote this article, offers sessions in English or Arabic across all six provinces. For clients who live in British Columbia, Alison Shaji, RCC, is a third option.
One 60-minute individual session costs $150. The first conversation is a free 15-minute consultation on a video call or a scheduled phone call, where you can ask questions and say which counsellor you would like to see. Our page on counselling after a breakup sets out what sessions can focus on.
Texting (519) 760-5211 is for booking and fit questions only, since it is not a crisis line.
We checked every source linked in this article in October 2026. What you have read is general information about grief after a breakup or divorce: it cannot diagnose anything, and it is not a crisis service. For urgent help, call or text 9-8-8, or call 911 if someone is in danger.
Lists vary with whoever wrote them. Five-stage versions reuse the Kübler-Ross names, and longer lists add other feelings or phases to reach seven, nine or more. The Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation says her own chart in On Death and Dying (1969) drew ten overlapping bands of response, running from shock to hope. None of the studies cited in this article tested any of these lists as an order people move through.
The research cited here says little about it. In one study of 192 university students, women had higher scores than men on a breakup distress scale. No study cited in this article shows women and men moving through the stages in a different order, and one student sample cannot tell you how any individual will grieve.
Not from the research cited here. Rules of thumb about 21 days or three weeks circulate online, but none of the studies in this article tested them. In Sbarra's four-week diary study, whether sadness eased during the study was linked to how much love people still felt for their ex-partner, how angry they were and how preoccupied their attachment was. Four weeks was simply how long that study ran, not a deadline for recovery.
Yes. A federal guide for separating parents from the Department of Justice Canada lists relief, excitement, hope and even happiness among the feelings people can have after a separation, alongside anger, guilt and loneliness. The Canadian Mental Health Association also notes that many people feel relief or peace at times after a loss. Feeling lighter does not mean the relationship meant nothing, and relief can sit next to sadness on the same day.
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