After my friend’s breakup, his ex and I stopped being friends – and it hurt more than I expected

Years ago, when my friend told me he had called off his engagement, I felt relieved. For months, I had suspected that the relationship wasn’t right for him.

The thing is, I was also disappointed. Despite my hunch, I had wanted, quite badly, to be wrong. While the couple may not always have been kind to each other, they were, as individuals, wonderful people.

Over the course of their relationship, I got close to my friend’s fiancee. Close enough that we created memories and shared experiences of our own, independent of the person who introduced us in the first place.

So while I understood the breakup, I couldn’t help but think: What was going to happen to my friendship with her now that they were no longer together?

I kept all these feelings to myself as I listened to my friend unpack his heartbreak.

I also reached out to his ex. However, her response was lukewarm.

A few weeks after their breakup, I found out she had blocked me on nearly all social media platforms.

The realisation stung. Even though I was not the one going through the pain of separation, I was still experiencing a sense of loss. 

Dr Kimberly Chew, principal clinical psychologist at AO Psychology, explained that when a relationship ends, the loss is not only felt by the couple involved.

The breakup is the primary loss. Then, there is secondary loss, or “breakup by association”, felt by the people around them.

“When someone close to us goes through a breakup, we may end up losing someone who was emotionally significant to us, even if we were not the primary partner,” Dr Chew said. “This can mean losing a friend or an in-law simply because the relationship that linked you no longer exists.”

Not everyone experiences this kind of loss in the same way, Dr Chew added.

“People who feel it more deeply are often those who place strong value on relationships and continuity. They tend to form close bonds, care deeply about shared histories, and feel the impact when those connections are disrupted.

“Others may be less affected, not because they care less, but because they experience relationships in more separate or compartmentalised ways.”

THE COMPLICATED FEELINGS AFTER A SECONDARY LOSS

Back when my friend broke the news that he had called off his engagement, I tried not to make it about me. But dismissing my emotions meant that they hit even harder when I finally acknowledged them. 

“Losing secondary relationships does not mean the grief is lighter, as these connections are often genuine and deeply meaningful, built through shared memories and experiences,” Dr Chew said. “When they disappear, what we grieve is not just closeness, but the sudden absence of a real bond that mattered to us, too.”

What I didn’t realise at that time was that I wasn’t grieving their breakup. I was grieving the sudden loss of the friendship I shared with his ex. 

When I found out that she had blocked me, it was as if our friendship ended the moment the breakup happened.  

What hurt was thinking about all the moments that belonged solely to us. The walks by the Rail Corridor. The hikes at Kent Ridge Park. The excitement over Coldplay. The coffee chats after exhausting work days. The memes we sent each other on Instagram. Very few of these memories had anything to do with her ex.

There was also the grief of realising that our friendship had no more future. No more anticipated double dates or outings we always talked about doing together.

Still, I understood why she ended our friendship. While we had become friends, I wasn’t completely neutral. I was her ex’s friend – first.

I had known him for years before he even entered their relationship. We volunteer with the same organisation, collaborate on different projects, and share many mutual friends. Due to these reasons, we still see each other regularly.

Even when I tried to remain impartial, there was an unspoken and automatic alliance shaped by history and proximity.

It would therefore make sense – and likely feel less painful – for his ex to create distance from me, even if we shared a friendship independent of him. I am, after all, an inescapable reminder of him.

But understanding her decision did not alleviate my sadness at being cut out of her life – the life of a friend who genuinely mattered to me.

The loss was, in many ways, beyond my control. And that hurt, too.

THE LOSS MAY SEEM INSIGNIFICANT, BUT IT’S NOT

In his book Disenfranchised Grief, American mental health counsellor and grief expert Dr Kenneth Doka describes the titular term as a type of loss that is not always recognised or validated by society.

Dr Chew explained it further: “Disenfranchised grief is when you can’t openly mourn or receive support, whether it’s due to the nature of the relationship lost – such as a sibling-in-law or a former friend – or the nature of the loss itself.

“When grief is minimised or dismissed by cultural norms, people can end up feeling isolated and doubting their own feelings, which makes healing harder.”

The same year I lost a friend after their breakup, I also lost my sister-in-law.

She and my brother-in-law divorced, and in the process, my close friendship with her, by association, also ended.  

At times, I even believed I wasn’t allowed to feel what I felt.

When I tried to express my sadness, some people responded with confusion: Why are you sad? You didn’t go through the divorce. You didn’t go through any breakup.

Experiencing these two secondary losses so close together compounded my confusion and sadness. So I held back my grief at losing these precious friendships.

It was also difficult because my sadness needed to stay quiet, tucked away, because the loss didn’t seem significant enough to acknowledge out loud.

Over time, that silence made the grief heavier. I felt the lump in my throat when my former sister-in-law was mentioned. I felt my chest tighten whenever I came across an old text message from my friend, the ex-fiancee.

These emotions affected me so greatly that I realised something was definitely not right, and I had to do something about how I was feeling.

“The lack of control over how a relationship ends can feel distressing,” Dr Chew said. “It can leave individuals feeling disoriented, unsure of what to do or how they got there.”

HEALING AND CLOSURE IS IMPORTANT FOR YOU, TOO

“Acknowledging these quieter forms of grief is an important part of healing, because unrecognised loss tends to linger,” Dr Chew said.

“Beyond naming it, acceptance means allowing two things to be true at once: that these relationships mattered deeply, and that they could not continue.”

It was only months after the breakup and the divorce that I realised how much pain I was still carrying.

I missed my friend. And I missed my former sister-in-law. The grief would come often in small, ordinary ways. When something funny happened at work, and I knew my friend would get it. When I walked past malls where my sister-in-law and I used to visit together. When I thought about the respective futures I had assumed we would share.

I knew it would be unwise, in my position, to pursue either relationship. Not because I didn’t care to, but because it would have come at a cost to them and to the different parties involved in their relationships, such as my family, and eventually, me.

So I had to find a way to close the chapter on these relationships on my own.

For me, closure did not come in the form of a final conversation or a clear ending with the people I lost. It came in learning not to check if I was still blocked, in resisting the urge to send messages I would never get a reply to, in smiling at old photos or remembering former inside jokes.

Perhaps one day, when the wounds aren’t as raw and fresh, and in better circumstances, we may even be friends again.

For now, it’s in my prayers, out of the love I have, that they find something or someone better for them, even if that means they’re no longer in my life.

I acknowledge my loss and grief without needing it to be understood by everyone. At the same time, I accept what happened.

In doing both, I allow myself to mourn what I lost, be happy for the connections I had, and move on on my own terms.