Every kind of breakup, handled separately

The ending shapes the healing

Recovering from a breakup where he sat you down and explained himself is a completely different task from recovering from a breakup where he disappeared mid-conversation and you found out through a mutual friend. Same grief, different injury — and generic advice fails both, because it's written as if the how doesn't matter.

These guides take the specific ending you lived through and build from there. A blindsided woman doesn't need closure scripts first; she needs help metabolizing shock and self-doubt. A woman left after infidelity doesn't need to work on letting go gently; she needs to stop replaying the discovery. A slow fade needs a different map from a mutual end. Each guide names the specific lies that ending tends to plant — "I should have seen it coming," "I wasn't enough" — and takes them apart.

If you're not sure which one describes your ending, read the one that made your stomach drop when you read the title. That's usually the right door in. And whatever the type, the first week looks similar: food, sleep, telling one person the truth, and not making any permanent decisions. The guides diverge after that.

• Named endings

  Ghosted, blindsided, slow fade, mutual, after infidelity, long-distance collapse. Find the shape of yours.

• The lies each ending plants

  Every type of ending generates its own specific self-blame. Each guide names it and answers it directly.

• Type-specific first steps

  The plan for a ghosting doesn't open with "write him a letter." Each guide's week one fits what actually happened.

• Shared foundations

  Whatever the ending, sleep, support, and zero big decisions in week one are universal. The guides all agree on that.