My boyfriend and I just ended it. We had fun together and sex was great, but we're bad for each other. He's emotionally withholding, and I want love and openness in a relationship. Breaking up was the right thing, but I miss him horribly. Are there any hacks to make a breakup less devastating?

--Miserable

You say it yourself: "We're bad for each other." Staying together on these terms is like being lactose intolerant and going on a fondue cleanse.

Unfortunately, understanding this probably doesn't make amputating your partner any less devastating. But research by psychologist Lauren C. Howe suggests your perspective on the breakup matters: whether you see the breakup as an indictment or an opportunity.

Howe finds that emotional recovery after a breakup comes out of treating it "as a learning experience ... embracing rejections as opportunities for growth." Contrast this thinking -- seeing a breakup as opportunity for self-improvement -- with seeing a breakup as "self-defining," a sort of confirmation of some ugly "core truth" about oneself. Howe explains that this belief can cause the breakup to have a lingering impact, making people fear rejection and even "feel haunted by their past."

In other words, using your breakup as a conduit to the sort of relationship you want should dial down its negative effects. Focus on what you've learned and figure out what you need to do differently, like, say, quickly identifying and weeding out men who can't give you the openness and affection you're looking for. This, in turn, should help you land a man whose emotional expressiveness suggests his location on the Great Chain of Being is not directly above pictures of a cinder block and moss.

For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.