She sat down, turned her phone face-down on the arm of the couch, and said, “My mother already asked if I’m bringing anyone to Thanksgiving.” It was the second week of October. Her husband had moved out in June, a few days after she found the second phone.
She wasn’t asking me how to save her marriage. That part was over. She was asking something harder: how to stop feeling like a failure for being alone in a season that seems engineered for two.
At The Relationship Center of Hampton Roads, we’re best known for couples work. But this fall our individual caseload tells a different story. More single adults are coming to us after a significant relationship ended — through betrayal, divorce, death, or the quiet cruelty of being ghosted — and the calendar is adding pressure they don’t need. If that’s you, this post is for you.
If You’re Searching for Answers at 2 a.m.
These are the questions people tell me they typed into their phones before they ever called us. Short answers first; the rest of this post goes deeper.
“Why can’t I stop thinking about my ex who cheated on me?” Because betrayal registers as a threat, not just a loss. Your brain keeps replaying it to prevent a repeat. That’s treatable, and it does quiet down.
“Why do I feel like it was my fault they cheated?” Self-blame is one of the most common reactions to infidelity, and research links it to the riskiest coping. Their choice was theirs.
“How do I get closure after being ghosted?” You probably won’t get it from them. Closure after ghosting is something you build yourself, usually with help.
“Why does my chest physically hurt after a breakup?” Brain imaging shows romantic rejection activates regions involved in physical pain. The ache is real.
“How do I face the holidays alone after divorce?” With a plan, one prepared sentence, and permission to skip what hurts. Details below.
“Will I ever trust anyone again?” Yes. Most people rebuild trust in themselves first, and trust in others follows.
Why Do I Feel Pressure to Be in a Relationship by the Holidays?
The belief runs something like this: if you’re not with someone by Thanksgiving, you’ve failed the year. Dating apps lean into it. So does every commercial with two people in matching sweaters. People even have a name for the rush to pair up before the weather turns — “cuffing season.”
The calendar tells a different story. When information designers David McCandless and Lee Byron analyzed 10,000 Facebook status updates mentioning a breakup, one of the biggest spikes landed in the two weeks before Christmas (Information Is Beautiful, via FlowingData). Christmas Day itself was the quietest day of the year, which is either decency or exhaustion.
In other words, the season that tells you to couple up is also one of the most common times couples come apart. The pressure you feel is cultural, not a clock. Nothing about your healing has to be finished by December 25.
Why Does Being Cheated On or Abandoned Hurt This Much?
Betrayal and abandonment are harder to move through than ordinary sadness because they injure two things at once: your attachment and your judgment. You lost the person. You also lost confidence that you can read people, including the one you trusted most.
That pain is not metaphorical. In a 2011 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, psychologist Ethan Kross and colleagues had people who’d recently gone through an unwanted breakup look at a photo of their ex while in an fMRI scanner. The brain regions that lit up overlapped with those that process physical pain — the same areas active when participants were exposed to a painful hot stimulus on the arm (University of Michigan). When clients tell me their chest actually hurts, I believe them.
Betrayal adds another layer. In a study of 232 young adults recently cheated on, Rosie Shrout and Daniel Weigel found that greater distress was linked to more risky behavior — drinking, unprotected sex, disordered eating — and that people who blamed themselves for the infidelity were the most likely to spiral (PsyPost, on the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships study). That matches what I see in my office. The betrayed partner is very often the one doing the most self-prosecution.
If you’ve been replaying every conversation looking for what you missed, that isn’t weakness. It’s a nervous system trying to make sure it never gets blindsided again. It just needs help standing down.
Is It Normal to Grieve a Divorce, Affair, or Ghosting Like a Death?
Every significant relationship loss leaves an empty chair at the table. But the wound underneath differs, and so does the work.
Death brings grief that most people recognize and, at least at first, make room for. The harder part often comes later, when the casseroles stop and everyone assumes you’re “doing better” by the second holiday season.
Divorce is grief with logistics. You’re mourning a future while splitting a sofa, a calendar, and sometimes a set of friends. People congratulate you for getting out at the same moment you’re lying awake missing them.
Betrayal rewrites the past. Clients tell me the worst part isn’t losing the relationship; it’s discovering the relationship they thought they had didn’t exist. Every memory gets an asterisk.
Ghosting offers no ending at all. Gili Freedman and colleagues, publishing in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, found that about 25% of adults surveyed had been ghosted by a romantic partner (Psychology Today). It’s common, and it’s disorienting, because the mind can’t close a story that was never told. Ghosted clients often grieve the person and the explanation separately.
You may be carrying more than one of these. A death can surface an old abandonment. A divorce can reopen a childhood in which a parent simply wasn’t there. Untangling which grief is which is a big part of what we do in individual work.
Should I Start Dating Again Before the Holidays?
The conventional wisdom says rebounds are doomed. The research is less tidy. In two studies published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Claudia Brumbaugh (Queens College, CUNY) and R. Chris Fraley (University of Illinois) found that people who’d started a new relationship after a breakup felt more confident in their desirability and more resolved about their ex (abstract). The authors themselves concluded rebounds may be more beneficial than their reputation suggests.
That’s a correlation, not a prescription. It doesn’t tell us whether the new relationship helped, or whether people who were already doing better were simply more likely to date.
In my chair, the timing matters less than the motive. Moving toward someone because you’re genuinely curious about them is one thing. Moving away from an empty apartment, a family dinner, or a question you don’t want to answer is another. After betrayal in particular, I watch for people choosing the partner who feels safest to the injured part of them — often someone who asks for nothing, reveals nothing, and so can’t hurt them. That’s not a relationship. That’s a bunker with a plus-one.
If you’re dating this season, go ahead. Just know which direction you’re running.
Can a Therapist Help Me Heal After Betrayal or a Breakup?
People sometimes ask why a single person would come to a relationship center. Because a relationship ending is a relational injury, and relational injuries heal best with clinicians who understand attachment. You don’t stop being a relational person when you stop being in a couple.
I’ve worked with couples and families in private practice since 1999, and I’ve sat with a great many people on the other side of a breakup or a betrayal. Our clinicians draw on several approaches, chosen for what the loss actually did to you:
- Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), adapted for individuals, to understand the attachment wound and why this loss landed where it did.
- Internal Family Systems (IFS), for the part of you that’s furious, the part that still misses them, and the part that’s sure it was your fault — so they stop fighting each other.
- EMDR and Brainspotting, when the discovery of an affair or a sudden abandonment has lodged like a trauma, with intrusive images, startle, or a body that won’t settle.
- Relational Life Therapy (RLT), for honest work on the patterns you want to leave behind before the next relationship, not after it.
The goal isn’t to get you “over” someone by a particular date. It’s to help you trust your own judgment again, so that when you do choose a partner, you’re choosing from a steady place rather than a wounded one.
How Do I Get Through the Holidays After a Breakup or Divorce?
You don’t need a holiday plan that proves you’re fine. You need one that protects the work you’re doing.
Prepare your one sentence. Someone will ask. “We separated this year, and I’m taking good care of myself” is complete. You owe no one the story of the second phone over pie.
Decide in advance which traditions to keep. Some rituals will steady you. Others belonged to the relationship and will feel like walking into a room where the furniture’s been moved. You’re allowed to skip, change, or invent.
Watch the 10 p.m. window. Late evenings after gatherings are when people check an ex’s social media, reread old texts, or reach out to the person who ghosted them. Put the phone in another room before you need to.
Notice self-blame and name it. Given what Shrout and Weigel found, self-blame isn’t just painful — it’s the thing that pushes people toward the drink, the binge, or the 1 a.m. text. When you catch yourself prosecuting your own case, say so out loud. It loses some of its power.
Spend time with people who knew you before. Old friends remember who you were before this relationship. That’s useful information right now.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I see a relationship therapist if I’m single? Yes. At The Relationship Center of Hampton Roads, individual therapy for people navigating divorce, betrayal, bereavement, or ghosting is a core part of our work. Relationship loss is an attachment injury, and attachment-trained clinicians are well suited to treat it.
Why does betrayal feel like trauma? Discovering a betrayal can produce intrusive images, hypervigilance, and disrupted sleep — symptoms that look a lot like trauma responses. It also undermines trust in your own judgment. Approaches like EMDR, Brainspotting, and IFS help the nervous system settle so you can process what happened.
Why are the holidays so hard after a breakup? The season is built around couples and family rituals, so the absence is visible everywhere. It’s also one of the most common times relationships end; Facebook status data analyzed by David McCandless and Lee Byron showed a breakup spike in the two weeks before Christmas.
How long does it take to recover from being cheated on or ghosted? There’s no fixed timeline. Recovery depends on the length of the relationship, prior losses, how the ending happened, and the support you have. In my experience, people heal faster when they stop blaming themselves and get help processing the shock rather than outrunning it.
Is it bad to date right after a breakup? Not necessarily. Research by Brumbaugh and Fraley found people in new relationships after a breakup reported more confidence and resolution. The more useful question is whether you’re moving toward someone or away from your pain.
Why do I keep checking my ex’s social media? Checking is the nervous system’s attempt to get information and control after a loss that felt out of control. It brings short relief and longer pain. Therapy helps you tolerate not knowing, which is what eventually lets the urge fade.
Do I need therapy, or will this pass on its own? Consider reaching out if, months later, you’re still not sleeping, can’t concentrate at work, are drinking more, or keep replaying the betrayal. Those are signs the loss has become stuck, not a sign you’re weak.
Where can I find a therapist for betrayal or breakup recovery in Williamsburg, Norfolk, or Northern Virginia? In person in Williamsburg, East Beach (Norfolk), Waterside (Norfolk), and Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, and Orchard Park, New York, plus telehealth across Virginia, New York, and Washington, DC.
You Get to Arrive at the Holidays Exactly as You Are
The woman from the beginning of this post went to Thanksgiving. She brought a pie, used her one sentence twice, and left before dessert. She told me later it was the first time in months she’d made a decision based on what she needed rather than how it would look. That’s not a small thing. That’s the beginning of trusting yourself again.
If you’re reading this from the far side of a betrayal, a divorce, a death, or a silence you never got to answer, you don’t need a date for the party. You might want someone in your corner while you find your footing. Our clinicians at The Relationship Center of Hampton Roads work with individuals in person across Hampton Roads, Northern Virginia, and Western New York, and by telehealth throughout Virginia, New York, and DC. When you’re ready, the door is open. Schedule an Appointment.
Victoria Holroyd, PhD, LPC, LMHC, NCC is the founder and Clinical Director of The Relationship Center of Hampton Roads. She has worked with couples and families in private practice since 1999, specializing in infidelity recovery, grey divorce, and relational trauma. A former professor in the Graduate School of Counseling and Educational Psychology at the University at Buffalo and past president of NARACES, she is trained in EFT, Gottman Method, Imago, PACT, RLT, IFS, EMDR, and Brainspotting, and has been featured on NPR.
Sources
- Kross, E., Berman, M. G., Mischel, W., Smith, E. E., & Wager, T. D. (2011). Social rejection shares somatosensory representations with physical pain. PNAS, 108(15), 6270–6275. University of Michigan summary
- Shrout, M. R., & Weigel, D. J. Infidelity’s aftermath: Appraisals, mental health, and health-compromising behaviors following a partner’s infidelity. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. PsyPost summary
- Freedman, G., et al. Ghosting and destiny: Implicit theories of relationships predict beliefs about ghosting. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Psychology Today summary
- Brumbaugh, C. C., & Fraley, R. C. (2015). Too fast, too soon? An empirical investigation into rebound relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 32(1), 99–118. Abstract
- McCandless, D., & Byron, L. Facebook breakup status visualization. FlowingData
