Summarize:

Everyone grieves in a completely different manner and over a completely unique time period. Don’t focus on how long the grieving period should take based on the length of the relationship or anything else like that. Accept that your friend will need to find his or her own way and in his or her own time. This process is likely to continue testing your patience, but you simply cannot force the situation to click. It’ll click when the person is ready for it to. Grief often feels all-encompassing in a way that may make your friend put off going grocery shopping or keeping up with other errands that we all hate to do even when we’re not getting over a breakup. While you shouldn’t mother your friend completely, offering to pick up some basic necessities or even help with the laundry can mean more to the person than you might think. By offering briefly to take something even so simple and mundane off your friend’s plate, you will help in a way most others won’t even offer. While you should allow the friend to work through the pain and sadness in the short term, don’t feel as though you cannot have fun together in the weeks and months after the breakup. Especially in cases of long-term relationships and cohabitation, being single again can feel a bit to anyone as though they’ve lost part of themselves or their identity. If you and the friend had standing dinner plans on the same night every week or other common friend rituals, resume them as soon as the friend seems ready.  These gestures can reestablish a sense of normalcy that helps the friend move on. Remember that getting over someone isn’t a perfectly linear process. Even after resuming fun routines, your friend will still have good and bad days. Resist the urge to push or cajole to get the process back on track. The friend is still seeking a safe, nonjudgmental place in your friendship.  This may be the perfect time for you to try out a new adventure together. Sign up for a new experience, like a hot balloon ride, or leave town for the weekend. While not advisable, we all know it’s perfectly normal give in to a night or two of too much to drink after a breakup. However, as the immediate breakup turns into the long process of moving on, ensure that your friend doesn’t appear to be finding too much solace in drugs or alcohol. In addition to the risks of dependence, a healthy body will help lead to a healthy mind much more quickly, and no one sleeps, eats, or exercises enough when they party too often. Though your friend should not avoid or repress the pain and sadness of the breakup, those feelings often find other outlets in the weeks and months that follow. Channeling negative emotions into positive activities is a process referred to as sublimation. Find out the activities your friend is using to sublimate the hurt feelings and encourage them. The person might be exercising more, taking up painting or an instrument, or even doubling down on working toward a promotion. Offer your friend plenty of positive reinforcement for the productive ways in which he or she has managed the situation. In most people’s grieving process, anger comes after the confusion, denial, and sadness involved with a breakup. Anger usually means your friend has accepted the rejection and moved past the immediate loss. While your friend obviously shouldn’t be driven to negative or violent action based on his or her anger, being mad alone is not a sign of backsliding. However, discourage your friend from thinking that all women or men are evil or fickle. Not everyone is evil when just one person hurts you. In the absence of being loved and needed by the ex, your friend may seek it in another, ill-advised relationship.. This is a terrible idea for the same reason that offering your friend too many distractions is a terrible idea—distraction versus dealing. Try to dissuade the person from jumping into another relationship if it looks that way, but remember to approach it the same way you approached the person trying to contact the ex. In other words, don’t get so invested that you’ll be upset if the person does it anyway, and don’t forbid it so harshly that you tempt them to do it to spite you.
Allow your friend to find his or her own path. Help with day-to-day details. Keep having fun together. Watch the person’s alcohol consumption. Focus on what helps your friend feel better. Let the friend get angry. Dissuade the person from rushing into another relationship.