With years of delayed self-discovery, a smaller dating pool and the weight of social expectations, queer breakups can feel particularly heavy

I was 12 when I had my first crush on a woman, too young to really understand how I felt. It took another five years – and an eye-opening obsession with Orange is the New Black – before I admitted I was queer. Then followed months of self-doubt, denial and fear; even after I’d “come out”, it took several lacklustre relationships with men before I plucked up the courage to ask a woman out. 

It’s a similar story for many queer people. Years of confusion mean we don’t always have the privilege to explore our sexuality until we’re older, so queer relationships are often long awaited. In addition, the LGBTQ+ community make up fewer than 10 per cent of 16-34 year olds – so basically, we’re fishing in a much smaller pond (as if modern dating wasn’t hard enough). 

Statistically speaking, queer people experience more familial rejection, more mental illness and more discrimination. All of this mean that when two queer people begin dating, there’s often a degree of ‘trauma bonding’ mixed in with the first flush of romance. It is easy to become each other’s support system and best friend as well as romantic partner – hence the U-Haul lesbian stereotype of moving in with a partner too quickly. All of these things can make queer heartbreak particularly challenging.

I can almost hear the indignation of heterosexual couples as I write this: “But straight breakups are devastating too!” Of course they are; all breakups warrant a few weeks in bed with the two sexiest men alive: Ben and Jerry. But thanks to our heteronormative world (the assumption that man + woman = the norm) queer breakups are especially devastating. So if you find yourself downing bottles of Merlot over a raging fire, post-queer breakup, or watching their old love letters turn to ash, then you’re in good company.

Meily is a doctor from Brazil, who recently got engaged to her girlfriend, yet her queer journey prior to this has been shaped by heartbreak. She met her ex, Ruby, in college when they were on the same volleyball team. Meily was dating someone else at the time, but that relationship had ended by the beginning of the year: “It was my first heartbreak, and Ruby supported me through it. It was like that for a month, and then there was this party in college. We kissed, and it was weird because I was still suffering, but at the same time, it felt good.”

Three months into the relationship, Covid hit. “It was really intense. I moved in with Ruby pretty quickly, and we were not only living together but spending every single minute with each other.” 

Once Meily graduated, she moved back home to Sao Paulo – six hours away from the college where her girlfriend was still studying. The distance was a stark contrast to their previous intimacy, and she recalls feeling isolated, splitting her time between work and her parents’ home while Ruby lived the college dream. “She started to suggest opening our relationship. At first I said no, but then I said yes because I thought it was the only way to keep her – it made me very anxious.” Meily went to visit her, and it was a “honeymoon weekend”, but at the end, she realised, “we’re really breaking up”.

I can almost hear the indignation of heterosexual couples as I write this: “But straight breakups are devastating too!”

“I think the fact that Ruby broke up with me and got together with a guy brought up a lot of insecurities. Her family was very conservative, and they would never approve of a lesbian relationship. She had already said to me, ‘I would only tell my parents about us if we’re getting married’. I wasn’t sure if our breakup was because I wasn’t a boy,” Meily says.

Jack, a student from the UK, felt similar doubts when his ex, Tom, dated a girl following their breakup. “[Tom] went on to hook up with some other guys and each time, he’d say things like “this is weird” or “I don’t really like them” and then he went on to briefly date a girl – that did make me feel insecure.”

They also met at university; Tom didn’t know he, himself, was interested in men at all, and Jack thought Tom was just being friendly when he stayed over in his room one night. “The next day, Tom proceeded to declare to all of our friends that we were going out. So I sat him down outside his room in the corridor and went, ‘you don’t want to date me and we’re not dating’.”

This assertion lasted until just before the Christmas break: “I saw him sitting in the kitchen by himself, with one singular headphone in because he’d lost the other one, and I thought he just looked really sad. I went in and shared one of those McDonald’s Christmas mince pies with him, and then he kept bringing mince pies to my room. And he just slowly moved in without me realising. Through persistence alone, we ended up going out.”

For two terms, they shared the single bed of his university room – not the picture of romance – before Jack realised they weren’t getting along anymore. After three failed attempts to break up and a period of being in an open relationship, they finally parted ways.

“For many years, I had my mum telling me that I was completely unlovable [because I was trans]; no one would ever be interested in me because I didn’t fit into any of the boxes of what people want, and that played in my head quite a lot,” says Jack. “[As a queer person] you give a very vulnerable part of yourself to someone and when you break up with them they’re left knowing about all of that. Pretty much every break up I’ve had felt like losing a safe space.”

He also felt that starting new queer relationships was more challenging, because the predefined “roles” that straight couples have – societal expectations about how a man and woman should interact – don’t exist. There’s always a question of who the “girl” in the relationship will be.

Benoit Bertrand-Delfau, an existential psychotherapist specialising in gender and sexuality says: “Queer people do a lot of unspoken bargaining with themselves, thinking it’s okay to be gay or lesbian provided I’m in a long term relationship that’s going to mirror what a straight couple would be. When the relationship ends, it’s a double loss: this specific relationship, but also the happily ever after that they desperately cling to.”

He added that coming to terms with being queer is an extreme form of isolation. It becomes easy to idealise your first queer relationship and use that person as a support system. When it ends, “you feel extremely depleted,” perhaps lacking the same support system that straight people have.

So queer heartbreak isn’t inherently harder, but it might come with extra baggage. So, play the sad songs, burn the love letters, and don’t feel guilty for downing a bottle of Merlot. Remember, you’re not alone. Ben and Jerry have always got your back.

Names have been changed for privacy.