How Therapy/EMDR Can Help You Move On From a Toxic Relationship (Complex Grief)

“I should have left three years ago but I didn’t.”

“I’m pissed off with myself that I keep thinking about her even though she wasn’t good for me.”

“I know logically that he was bad for me… but I still love him.”

If that feels uncomfortably familiar, you’re not alone. I hear this all the time in my therapy room—people who know a relationship was wrong for them, and yet can’t seem to let it go.

If you’re reading this article, you might well recognise yourself. Many of the clients I work with who struggle to move on are people who have a lot going for them—attractive, intelligent, competent, and successful in many areas of their life.

They acknowledge, often with frustration, the disconnect between what they know and what they feel. Even though on paper they understand why the relationship wasn’t good for them, they cannot let it go.

Months go by. They are still ruminating. Still yearning. Still fantasising about what they could have done differently to make the relationship better.

Why You Can’t Move On From a Relationship You Know Was Wrong

At the end of a relationship—even one that was unstable or unhealthy—there is a natural grieving period.

Even if it was bad, we grieve the loss of the dream. The hope we had when we first met them. Perhaps there was an intense and quick bond which sparked hormones, feelings, and fantasies about the meaning of the bond and where it might go.

However, when the grieving process seems stuck—when we keep looping back to the same thoughts and questions, when we are unable to function in everyday life, when we have disproportionate reactions to triggers or strong somatic responses—we may be dealing with complex grief.

Complex grief can be experienced as ruminating, obsessing, and an inability to accept the ending. It can involve blaming ourselves for the ending or obsessing about what we could have done differently. It can look like not being able to function properly—struggling to socialise, exercise, or practice self-care for months or even longer.

It can also show up in the body. Headaches, stomach aches, chest pain. Suppressed emotion often finds a way to express itself.

So why do some of us struggle to let go of a relationship that we know was wrong?

Attachment Trauma: What’s Actually Keeping You Stuck

Finding it difficult to get over a bad relationship is rarely just about the relationship itself.

The dynamics of it—the way we and the other person related—often hook into past relational dynamics, attachment wounds, and core beliefs that originated in our early relationships with caregivers.

The relationship is what we can see on the surface. Underneath are deeper layers that we may not have been aware of until the relationship activated them.

Many clients come to me having never really questioned how their early attachment experiences still impact them. Or they have, but they believe they have already “dealt with it.”

Then the relationship comes along.

And then it ends.

And it can feel like a train wreck.

Why It Feels So Hard to Let Go: Trauma Bonds and Emotional Addiction

Part of why it’s so hard to let go is because something about the relationship feels familiar.

Perhaps we experienced a parent as loving and attentive at times, and then withdrawn, critical, or unpredictable at others. When it was good, it was good. And when it wasn’t, it really wasn’t.

That pattern can feel oddly familiar in adult relationships.

When it was good with your partner, it may have felt very good. And that taps into something old.

Then it shifts.

And you find yourself trying to get back to how it was.

The intermittent nature of it—good, then not good—strengthens the attachment. It keeps the system hooked, waiting for the next return to “good.”

In Gestalt therapy we talk about unfinished business—a natural pull towards completion.

A child who didn’t receive consistent love, safety, or attention doesn’t just stop needing it. That need remains active.

So in adult relationships, we can find ourselves trying to get from a partner what we didn’t get earlier. Not consciously, but at the level of the nervous system.

Trying to finally be chosen. Finally be seen. Finally feel safe.

Why Insight Isn’t Enough to Break the Pattern

We can understand all of this.

We can see the pattern clearly.

And still find ourselves pulled back into the same thoughts, the same urges, the same emotional reactions.

Because the part of us driving this is not operating from logic.

It is a younger part of the system, informed by earlier experiences. It doesn’t register that you are an adult now, or that this person is not your parent.

How Attachment-Informed EMDR Helps You Move On

EMDR works by using the attachment to the partner as a bridge back into earlier experiences where similar feelings were first encoded.

Rather than just talking about it, you are supported to connect with the emotional and somatic experience directly—where it lives in the body.

With bilateral stimulation (eye movements, tapping, or auditory tones), you stay with the experience long enough for it to process.

Emotions move when they are allowed to. When they are not, they tend to loop.

Once the original attachment pain has been accessed and processed, we move into the re-do—giving the nervous system a different experience. This might involve bringing in what was missing at the time: protection, validation, care, or boundaries.

What Changes When Attachment Trauma Is Processed

As this work unfolds, the intensity of the pull towards the ex often begins to shift.

There is more space between the thought and the action.

You might still have the urge to check their social media, but you can notice the urge, stay with it, and choose not to act on it.

The relationship starts to lose some of its emotional charge.

You’re Not Weak — Your Nervous System Is Trying to Protect You

Through therapy, clients often begin to feel less critical of themselves.

The part that keeps going back, or keeps thinking about the ex, is usually trying to get something—attention, love, safety—that once felt out of reach.

When that is recognised, something begins to soften.

An intervention I sometimes use in EMDR is a split screen.

On one side of the screen is the ex-partner. On the other side is a parent or caregiver.

With bilateral stimulation, I ask: what is the same and what is different?

This can help separate out what belongs to the present relationship and what belongs to the past.

What You Can Do (Alongside or Before EMDR)

As well as EMDR, there are things you can try to reduce rumination and loosen the grip of the attachment.

Urge surfing
Instead of acting on the urge (to text, check, replay), notice it as a wave. Track it in your body. Stay with it and see what happens if you don’t act on it immediately.

Tapping (bilateral stimulation at home)
You can gently tap left and right on your knees or shoulders while thinking about the feeling or the urge. This can help shift it out of a loop.

Interrupting rumination
At a certain point, the thinking is not helping. You may need to interrupt it deliberately—by moving your body, changing your environment, or bringing your attention to something sensory.

Naming the part
Instead of “I want them back,” try “a part of me wants them back.” This can create a bit of distance.

Reality anchoring
Write down what the relationship was actually like, not just the highlights. When your mind starts to idealise, come back to that.

Reducing exposure
Checking their social media keeps the system activated. It’s much harder to settle when you are repeatedly re-triggering yourself.

How to Finally Move On From a Relationship That Hurt You

Moving on is less about forcing yourself to let go, and more about understanding why it has been so hard to do so.

For many people, the intensity of the attachment makes more sense when it is seen in the context of earlier experiences and unmet needs.

Working at that level—whether through EMDR or other therapeutic approaches—can shift something that talking alone often doesn’t.