How Do I Support My Heartbroken Son?

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Reena Ninan:
Episode 165, How Do I Support My Heartbroken Son?

Well, it’s April. For parents who don’t have high school seniors, what is going on in the world of high school seniors right now with college?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
College stuff is getting nailed down, Reena. Kids are making choices. The future is coming into focus for kids who are planning to go to college and it’s a rich and spicy time and family life and also with kids.

Reena Ninan:
You know what’s interesting, Lisa, since we’ve started this podcast, which was in 2020 every year, I feel like the college process is different because Covid factored into it, than getting out of Covid and there’s always something. So I am thinking of these parents who have high school seniors and cannot imagine ever being at that point, which you were just a couple years ago.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Oh, I was, and I will get you through it, Reena.

Reena Ninan:
I know you’ll, you always get us through the teen years. You’re the one. I want to read this letter because this also has to deal with transition and senior year. Dear Dr. Lisa and Reena, my 17-year-old high school son, a high school senior, just had a really hard breakup with this girlfriend. They’ve been together since they were sophomores and she told him that she doesn’t want to try to keep dating when they’re in college.
So she feels it’s best to break up now. He’s absolutely heartbroken. He mopes around the house. I can hear him crying in his room and sometimes he just loses himself in video games. Seeing him in so much pain is breaking my heart. But when I try to get him to talk to me about it, he just shuts me out. I think he still talks to his ex-girlfriend sometimes and they have many of the same friends. I know he misses her terribly, but I don’t think being in contact with her is helping. What, if anything, can I do for him?
Oh, Lisa first love. Oh, you feel it? Don’t you feel it?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah, it’s this sweet boy. I really feel it and I’ve really seen it, Reena, and it is a lot of pain. It is a lot of pain.

Reena Ninan:
Walk us through this. This first heartbreak when you have a high schooler or college student who’s going through heartbreak. What do parents need to keep in mind?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It really hurts. It really, really hurts. And I think Reena, this is where I love having practice for so long because I’ve watched kids in these intense relationships. So these kids have been together since sophomore year. Marriages rarely have the intensity that these longer term adolescent relationships do.

Reena Ninan:
Why is that?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, there’s lots of reasons. First of all, I think because it’s got all the juice in charge of adolescent emotionality. Second of all, if you think in timescale, I always use the seven times multiplier for teenagers a year. That’s like dog years for teenagers. A year of adult life is like seven years for a teenager.

Reena Ninan:
That’s good.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So, when I hear that kids have been together five months, six months, seven months, or certainly these kids two years, Ree na, that’s like a 10 year marriage. I mean these are very, very deep relationships. And then the other thing, and this is so different from when we were teenagers, they are in constant contact.

Reena Ninan:
That’s so true.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
They wake up, they text each other. Good morning, they go to bed with their phones next to each other, sleeping, talking to each other as they fall asleep. They also, I mean they’ll see each other in school all day if they go to school. But it’s also really, really common that when they’re not together, they have their phones on FaceTime and just open. So they’ll be like puttering around their own rooms or doing their homework. They are in almost 24/7 contact with one another when they’re in these relationships in a way that was not technologically possible for us as adolescents. And so when these relationships end, the chasm that is left is huge.

Reena Ninan:
And isn’t it hard because his Mom’s saying they have so many mutual friends together, which is usually the case.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It is usually the case. Right. So this poor boy is this giant walking open wound. He didn’t want this. And he’s seeing her all the time. They’re together all the time. And then Reena, I will even tell you again, we had it so good, we had no idea how we had it so good. Even if she goes to another school, right? They’re looking at each other’s activity online.

Reena Ninan:
Oh, they can see each other unless they unfollow, right?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yes. Unless they unfollow, which then of course looks really rude or harsh. I mean it has all these other implications. So, I end up taking care of kids who have broken up, they want to be done with it, but they’re watching their ex hang out with other people, date other people. It’s like Reena, it’s so painful. There’s wounds upon wounds for these poor kiddos. And then there’s just buckets and buckets of salt getting poured in them sometimes often as a result of what is technologically available to them.

Reena Ninan:
So, I want you to weigh in on the love component here. Do you think based on your experience and what you’ve seen over two decades should kids break up before college?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay, here’s what I’ve learned in my time, Reena. There are three crappy options. There’s no good option. There’s three crappy options for these high school romances to choose among. Okay? So one is doing what this couple is trying to do. Well, he’s not wanting it, but of saying, you know what? We’re not going to try to stay together through college. Let’s end now so we can kind of heal, move on, focus on our friends, whatever the rationale is. Okay, clearly, I’m sure it’s definitely crappy for him. It doesn’t seem like, I doubt it’s perfect for the girl either. Again, these are really intense relationships that would not otherwise end. So that’s crappy option number one. Crappy option number two is let’s try to stay together. This sometimes work people end up getting married.

Reena Ninan:
True.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
But, it has the asterisk on it of like it’s kind of hard to go to college and be a hundred percent invested in college. If 90% of your heart is deeply in love with somebody at another college, some other place or back home.

Reena Ninan:
You’re saying it can really be distracting the distance.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah, it’s not ideal. It’s not ideal. The third crappy option, which I see a lot of kids attempt and is really hard is let’s end the romance. We’re not going to continue our romance in college, but we’re incredibly close. We take up a huge part of each other’s lives. We count on each other tremendously. So let’s just be friends and they try to downshift. I’m thinking about a car from the gear of romance into the gear of friendship, which isn’t very easy to do. I mean I think you can be friends.

Reena Ninan:
Once gone that way. It’s just hard to hit reverse and go back is what you’re saying.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Exactly. And maybe you’ve had this in your life over time. There are guys who I dated who I am now friends with, but you need an interval, I find, right where you’re not in contact.

Reena Ninan:
You’re saying when youre coming out of an intense relationship. You can’t just throw yourself into another intense relationship.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Or into a friendship and just have it operate smoothly. Maybe if you don’t see the guy for a couple years and then you guys decide to be friends or you know.

Reena Ninan:
This is a lot to think about when you’re in your teens, Lisa, this is a lot to think about.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Oh, I know.

Reena Ninan:
And part of me won’t just saying, gee guys, just enjoy it until August and then hit the breaks and see where it goes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah.

Reena Ninan:
But you’re saying these are all crappy options.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
They have no good choices. And I’ve actually found over years of practicing that it’s reassuring weirdly to just say that to kids. Like, here are your options, none ideal. What’s the most appealing of the bad options? And what do and can you and the kid you’re dating come to agreement on or try to find some resolution around? But Reena, I promise you these are top to bottom messy. There is no clean and easy way out of these relationships.

Reena Ninan:
But I like what you’re saying because when kids go through heartbreak, I feel as parents we’re just watching them do it and you just feel so helpless and your heart is just in a blender is what it feels like. But you’re saying, and this is what I love about what you say to us often is talking to them even these are three crappy options. Being upfront about it, saying this is what, because sometimes when you’re so in love, you’re not thinking rationally.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I think that’s true. And so the gift adults can give teenagers is perspective. The nature of being a teenager, especially in a very emotionally intense moment is that you lose perspective. That’s the neurological reality, right? So the rule of adults is to be like, okay, I have seen this before. Let me tell you as big as and bad as this feels, this is part of an array of things that does happen to humans, and here’s the way that this can unfold. And of course you feel lousy, and there’s no version of this where you’re going to feel great. That kind of loving, 30,000 foot-ish look at it is important. Side by side with that, taking so seriously how painful it is to them. I think that it’s very easy in these moments to be like it’s just high school, kind of what you said, it’s just high school. You should be having a great time. And it was very helpful to me to start to think about caring for teenagers and hearing about the details of their interactions with their partners. I remember sitting in my office thinking, I’m not in touch with my husband half as much as these kids are in touch with their partners and really recognizing the depth and intensity that these relationships can achieve.

Reena Ninan:
So, how do you approach this, Lisa, when you know they’re suffering so much, what helps to make teens feel better when they’re going through heartbreak?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So we can put this into two buckets. One is offering things that will help them feel better, and the other is helping them not do the things that are making them feel worse so we can hit it from two sides. So this poor boy is in so much pain, doesn’t want to talk at least with his mom who wrote the letter, but she can see he’s suffering. I think one thing we should not underestimate is the fact that we can comfort our kids and it doesn’t have to involve them talking with us or sharing what’s on their minds. So the kinds of things that can give a kid a bump is to be like, you know what? We’re getting takeout from your favorite restaurant.

Reena Ninan:
And you think takeout could help? Something as simple as going out to a place that they like and bringing it in.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yes, which you’re asking the right question. Like, really?! This kid’s heart is broken and you’re offering takeout? Okay, but here’s the way to think about it, Reena, for teenagers, everything is more intense. All emotions are more intense.

Reena Ninan:
Why is that? Remind us again psychologically.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Oh, it’s so interesting,

Reena Ninan:
But maybe we don’t understand what’s happening in the brain.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah, no, it’s so interesting. So, the reason for it is that in adolescence, the brain is restructuring and becoming more efficient and more powerful, and it restructures in the order in which it developed, which is from the ancient regions back, sort of above the neck to the sophisticated regions, the more modern regions behind the forehead, the ancient regions house, our feelings, the sophisticated regions house, our perspective maintaining systems in a teenager, even a 17-year-old, but they’re starting to gain more frontal lobe activity. Their emotion centers have been fully upgraded, but their perspective maintaining systems have not been fully upgraded. So when they feel a feeling, it comes through full blast. Whereas in you and me and all other people over age 25, 26, it’s a little bit modulated by experience, perspective, distance, a fully active frontal lobe. This poor boy is feeling the exquisite pain of having been dumped.
But interestingly take out, which again, I mean not to minimize, but things like that go way further for teens than they do for you and me.

Reena Ninan:
Why is that?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Because the pleasures are greater just as the pains are greater, right? So I’m not saying it’s the solution to this boy’s problem, but I am saying we sometimes as adults blow past comforts that we could offer because they seem so small to us, but they might actually be quite meaningful to the teenager.
I remember in the pandemic, my older daughter was a high school sophomore and it was like at one of the terrible points of the just going on in miserable pandemic and she was like, “Oh, I hate this.” She’s like, “I need to go vibe.” And she got herself some tea and a candle and she was like, “Yes.” It was like blissful. And I was like, are you kidding me? I could have all the tea, I could have all the candles.

Reena Ninan:
Absolutely right.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I would hate this as much as, so I would say number one, try to just comfort this sweet boy. Bring him the dog, make him his favorite foods, have him come watch a show he loves, be sweet to him. He doesn’t have to talk. If he doesn’t want to talk, it may not help him feel better. Distractions can be really helpful. So I would say do that.

Reena Ninan:
See, because I would be the parent doing all the wrong things, like wanting to talk through his feelings, come into the room and just sometimes they don’t want to really acknowledge you or acknowledge that you are acknowledging the pain. So this is some of those creature comforts.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Creature comforts, and I think perspective – saying things like, “Hey, I know this is incredibly painful. I know you will get through this. I know you will look back on this as a hard time that happened. It’s not going to feel this way forever.” You know, those kinds of simple phrases. If you were a teenager, I mean Reena, do you remember getting upset as a teenager, right? You’re like, this goes down a hundred miles and it goes a hundred miles in all directions and it’s forever.

Reena Ninan:
And I feel like you feel it for decades to come. There are moments that you just all remember from high school or middle school.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yup. Comes back, has a lot of intensity. But in those moments, if some nice middle aged person who you trust is like, “Listen, you’re going to get to the other side of this.” That goes far. So, those are under the category of things we can do that can help. Then there’s the category of things that kids sometimes do that are not helping. So, one thing is if this boy is looking at old photos or looking at new photos online of this girl and just making that whole thing feel worse, a loving adult might say, is this helping you? Do you want to a break?

Reena Ninan:
“Is this helping you?”
But that’s actually good because the mom’s writing in this letter, “I really think he should cut it off. There should be no contact.” And I can see why she says that. But what do you think is giving them advice when they are so longing for this person, just cut it off, unfollow them. Does that help?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It can, especially if they don’t have to see the kid, right? I mean, not having to confront the person all the time. But this boy is in a situation where he has some options. He doesn’t have to look at her online photos of her having fun with all these other kids and maybe that other boy or whatever. But she may sit at his lunch table or be in his math class. I mean, there’s going to be a degree of exposure. The place that is tricky, and I’ve seen this a lot, Reena, and it’s very gendered, but it’s a pattern I’ve really recognized, especially in these very, very intense love relationships. The pattern I’ve seen over and over again in heterosexual versions of this is that for the boy, the girl is the person he’s ever been the closest with outside of his family.
Boys as a group are not always great. This is getting better, but not always great at sharing intimacies. But I’ve seen it happen again and again where it’s with his girlfriend that this boy really bears his soul. Then it ends. She may be in pain, but she has 10 girlfriends that she talks like this all the time about talks intimately with all the time. Whereas the boy can be sort of left on an island because the person he used to talk about his deepest feelings is now his ex. And so sometimes what I have seen is that the boy keeps reaching out for support to the ex because she’s the one person who’s had this kind of intimate support for him. So that is the part, if we’re going to really nestle into the details of this, where I would want adults to be on the lookout.
And this of course can happen across all genders and any configuration, but sometimes when kids have been either dumped or a relationship ends, they’ll keep reaching out to their ex for support about it when we want to actually try to reroute those support needs to help them get past the relationship. So maybe to other friends, I mean maybe to a clinician if needed, but though I would be very cautious that will make a kid feel like they’re broken when they’re not. So we want to think that through, but watch for kids doing this, it makes it really hard to move on.

Reena Ninan:
So Lisa, go back for a second to that thing that you mentioned about feeling broken.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah, thank you. So this is something I’m always really mindful of when recommending psychotherapy for teenagers, and it’s something I know we’ve talked about, which is teenagers can worry that there’s something in their words really wrong with them. Like finger quotes really wrong with them and especially when they’re feeling the height of these kinds of feelings. And I’ve seen it in my work where sometimes if a person’s like, well, you know what? You need you to talk to a psychologist. They’re like my worst reaction realized.

Reena Ninan:
From teens, something is wrong with me now saying…

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Now I got to go talk to a doctor. This is bad. So if a parent feels that that is warranted and it may be, then I think the question is the way to say it is something like, you deserve more support than you have or you deserve somebody who doesn’t have any skin in this game for support, but something that couches a clinician as a form of support, not somebody who you go to because there’s something wrong with you is the way teenagers say it.

Reena Ninan:
That is great because I think so many parents struggle to get their kids into therapy for this very reason that you mentioned. That is so great to remind us about that.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Just how it lands for them. Yeah.

Reena Ninan:
I’d like this sort of reconnection because they might not realize it, but do you find talking to them about this, saying exactly what you said, that this is sort of the first girl that you’ve opened your heart to and you might want to feel like you need to go back because you have that security blanket. Does it help as a parent talking to them to make them aware of what they’re doing to maybe change their behavior?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I think it could, but I think when you put it that way, let’s get more specific about how one might say it. Because what you might say is something like, “of course you are reaching out to” and then fill in the blank, her, him, whoever were with, “because you were so close, it may give you some relief to be in contact, but I think in the end it looks like it’s making you feel worse.” Just share what you’re seeing, “Who else can support you, who else can you talk to?” So that can be a place that can get maybe some, we’re not looking for grand solutions, there are none. We’re looking for adjustments that may give kids enough relief that they can kind of keep moving forward and get better. I think the other thing to watch for here or to remember here is the value of distraction.
That sometimes when kids are upset about something, they do what we call ruminate. And when we look at the big broad data, girls are more likely to do this than boys just by nature of how we’ve socialized them. But where they just won’t let it go, won’t let it go, won’t let it go. Thinking, thinking, thinking. And the more they think about it, the worse they feel. It actually makes me think about in this letter where the mom talks about him losing himself in video games. I’m like, you know what? Great. If that’s how he can get his mind to take a break from grieving this relationship, he deserves that break.

Reena Ninan:
I’m curious, you touched a little bit on gender. Do you find in the research, in your experience that do boys and girls process intense heartbreak different?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I doubt it feels different to them. What I am confident about, again in these very heterosexual contexts is that what they’re allowed to express is very, very different in their social communities. Reena, I have this vivid memory of years ago, I went and guest taught a developmental psychology class for a friend of mine over at a local university, and it was sophomores, college sophomores, and there were these two really cool guys sitting. It was like a lovely small little class sitting near the front and they were, you could just tell they were sort of big men on campus kind of guys, and they were lovely, they were charming, and we got talking about gendered relationships and they were very forthcoming. It’s a wonderful class and a wonderful college, about how guys give each other such a hard time if they express longing, if they express a devoted interest to a particular, in this case girl and what they’ll be like, oh, you’re whipped, which is the expression they’ll use.
Or Oh, among guys, there can be this pressure to be a player who doesn’t have his heart attached and is just out having a whole bunch of fun. But Reena then there was this moment, and this is why I love ’em so much, I love college kids, I love teenagers. They both had these giant water bottles. I think they were also athletes and that water bottles were on their desks and they were being very open about like, no, no, no, it’s not okay. We give each other a hard time if there’s an expression of longing. But then one guy I think without even being conscious of it, wrapped his arm around his water bottle and kind of leaned his head into it and said, “But really we all do kind of want, girlfriends.” It was so sweet. And I was like, isn’t that interesting? They can voice both sides of it. So my worry for boys, and again, all of this falls apart, all these broad gender generalizations fall apart when you look at any one kid, is that they have all the same deep, powerful longings and feelings, but they’re not necessarily in social environments that allow those, support those, are gentle about those. And that’s often why I feel like I’ve seen guys going back to their ex-girlfriend to try to get the support they need, which just only entrenches their pain in some terrible ways.

Reena Ninan:
Is it possible for heartbreak to be prevented?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Nope.

Reena Ninan:
There’s no way around it. It’s part of adolescence, it’s part of life. You’ve got to just go through it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It’s part of life. But you’re asking a question I think any parent in these shoes would have, which is like, how could we have gotten a way around this? How could this not have happened? And you can even picture parents, and I’ve seen parents who when they see their kid getting deep into stuff are like, don’t go there. Don’t go there. This is your time to be light and easy. You’re really into this depth and intensity you don’t need right now. You know what, Reena, this is life. This is the pain that comes with life. And the only thing I think we can offer by way of comfort to ourselves and to our kids, and again, this is something I’ve just learned by doing and watching, we can only feel as good as we can feel bad. Our emotions like the intensity that we feel to have real joys and delights and pleasures, you also have to be available to having real pains and real heartbreak. And we can’t put a damper over the negative emotions only. If you put a damper over emotions, it goes over everything. So this is just part of life, but it takes us back to the thing that matters the most, which is not the presence or absence of pain, but how it gets handled, right? So if this boy is weeping, if this boy is hanging out with the dog, if this boy is watching old TV shows, if he’s maybe talking to some friends, maybe can let his parents offer some comfort, this is as good as it gets. If he’s trashing his ex online, if he’s smoking tons of weed, if he’s being a total bear to live with, then we worry.

Reena Ninan:
That is great. Just knowing that sometimes this is as good as it can get in this moment and it’s not a perfect situation. And also that you can’t shield them. We do so much of protecting our kids’ safety, video games, social media, everything that I am like I am just exhausted of all the things I have to think at as a parent to shield my kid. And then you feel love so intensely we all understand what that feels like to be rejected, right?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah.

Reena Ninan:
So you want to think of something, oh geez, if I had just done that, they would’ve handled this relationship a little bit better.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Because we hate to see our kids in pain. It’s true. Full stop. It’s the worst thing as a parent. And so of course our minds go there.

Reena Ninan:
Well, I just feel it. I think these are emotions that you say happen in your teen years that are just amplified. And I feel like even at 45, I still remember and feel those emotions decades later.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yep. They leave a mark. They do leave a mark

Reena Ninan:
A mark. Really do. So what do you have for us, Lisa, for Parenting To Go?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
One thing that I have found to be really, really valuable about teenagers having intense relationships while they’re still home with us is that they learn a lot and we learn a lot about the kinds of relationships they’re having.
And so let’s assume this has been actually up till this very painful point, a really good healthy relationship between this boy and this girl. One thing that a parent could do in this moment is to say, “Look, I know this did not end the way you wanted it to end, and maybe you didn’t want it to end, but here’s what I can say. You now know what it feels like to have somebody who is trustworthy and close and how good that feels. And you know what it feels like to be treated well and to treat someone well. This one didn’t last, but it has given you a blueprint for the kind of relationships you’re going to be looking for going forward.” You can also say the opposite. Sometimes kids find themselves in relationships that hopefully end because they’re not healthy relationships. And again, with some time and some distance, it can be a really good basis of conversation about like, “Okay, what did you learn in this relationship? What are you going to be watching out for going forward?” These early relationships give us information about what works and what doesn’t. And I think sometimes having a loving adult talk with kids about what they learned, good or bad, can help them make really, really smart choices going forward.

Reena Ninan:
The conversations really matter, and you’ve always said to us, it really makes a difference in the life of teens.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Absolutely.

Reena Ninan:
Thank you, Lisa. I just dunno why, but romance and sex as a parent talking to my child makes me very squeamish. So I’m glad to have some fortification and Lisa language to work in there from you.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I’m glad to offer it.

Reena Ninan:
And next week, Lisa, we’re going to actually talk about a topic that a lot of kids also deal with is bullying. What should you do if you know your child is being bullied and it might not necessarily be on school grounds? We’ll have that next week. I’ll see you next week.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I’ll see you next week.