When you have a deep emotional attachment to someone how do you let go?

When a relationship ends, romantic or otherwise, people experience the same emotional responses that you would when grieving. People associate grief with death but it also occurs when you lose contact to someone, when goals change suddenly, when suddenly you catch yourself thinking about what could have or should have been. And just like with grief, you have to allow yourself time to process the loss. You have to be honest with yourself about what you are feeling and remind yourself that when grief is involved the only control you have is of yourself. You can take care of yourself, you can self soothe, you can direct your mind and energy to other things, etc. When grief is involved there is not much you can do about the loss to make it hurt less or be less. You can only assess how you feel, you can validate yourself and you can normalize emotional responses to loss. But most importantly you can reassure yourself that this too shall pass. 

If you begin to see your emotional responses as synonymous with the weather, you will begin to understand that just like the weather, sometimes your emotions will create a storm, a natural catastrophe that passes through and destroys everything in its path. Or quite opposite it can be sunny, shiny, warm, peaceful and inviting.

Learning to watch and accept your emotional weather will teach you to prepare for it as best as you can and will highlight just how much flexibility you have in how you respond and prepare for it. Instead of fighting against or even avoiding your emotions you could choose to take on entirely different responses to them. You could choose, for example, to just watch the emotional weather slowly pass and dissipate on its own. Or you could choose to respond by acting on your own values and beliefs, the things that really matter to you, instead of being angry or withdrawn. You might choose to express your needs and feelings on the situation, seek support when it is needed, learn more about why the situation is triggering you, set limits and boundaries to shield yourself, negotiate an agreeable solution, and a host of other possible responses.