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- People who strongly believe in destiny are more likely to do unhealthy things after a breakup, like checking up on their ex.
- If you believe your ex was your soulmate, you’ll really want to stay in touch, which makes it harder to get over them.
- Seeing messages that focus on growth can briefly make you think less about destiny and reduce how much you contact your ex after a breakup.
- Growth beliefs help you heal emotionally faster by making you see breakups as chances to grow as a person.
- Breakup recovery plans that look at your beliefs might help stop long-term emotional pain.
What Are Destiny and Growth Beliefs?
What we believe about love—if it’s something magical that finds us or something that grows over time—can affect everything from how happy we are in a relationship to how we deal with a breakup. The two main ideas here are destiny beliefs and growth beliefs.
Destiny Beliefs
Destiny beliefs are about the idea that romantic connections are set in stone, meant to be, or fated. People with destiny beliefs often think they will find “the one”—a perfect partner out there waiting for them. If the relationship ends, this view says it was never supposed to work out anyway.
Signs of destiny belief
- Thinking there’s only one person who is truly right for you
- Feeling that good relationships are easy and natural
- Believing chemistry is fixed and can’t change
This way of thinking can bring really high highs and really low lows. Finding someone who feels right can feel amazing, like it was meant to be. But when things go wrong, it can also feel like a huge mistake—or worse, like you’ve lost your only chance at real love.
Growth Beliefs
Growth beliefs, on the other hand, suggest that love grows over time. Compatibility isn’t something you’re born with; it’s something that builds up. From this point of view, problems in relationships aren’t signs of being wrong for each other or bad luck—they’re chances to get closer and learn more about each other.
Key parts of growth beliefs
- Seeing love as something that grows as you share experiences
- Believing that trying hard and talking openly are key to a strong connection
- Accepting that arguments can make a relationship stronger, not destroy it
Growth beliefs encourage being flexible and strong, and they also highlight how much we matter in our relationships—which can be helpful during and after a breakup.
What Is Post-Breakup Contact and Tracking (PRCT)?
After a relationship ends, a fight often starts in your head and heart—one part wants you to move on, and another quietly pushes you to look back. This inner fight often shows up in actions called Post-Relationship Contact and Tracking (PRCT).
PRCT includes
- Checking your ex’s social media
- Looking through old pictures or messages
- Reaching out to “just see how they are” or to return things
- Going to places your ex might be, on purpose or without realizing it
These actions aren’t always planned, and they’re not always bad. Sometimes they come from missing someone, sometimes from habit. But they can be emotionally harmful if they go on for too long. PRCT can keep your heart hurting, get in the way of moving on, and slow down your breakup recovery.
A key sign that PRCT has become unhealthy is when it makes the pain last longer instead of making it better, or when it becomes something you have to do all the time instead of just sometimes.
How Destiny Beliefs Shape Post-Breakup Behavior
Why do some people move on quickly, while others keep checking their ex’s Instagram for months or years? One reason is destiny beliefs.
A study from 2024 in Personal Relationships found that people with stronger destiny beliefs were much more likely to do PRCT things like contact an ex, watch them online, or try to meet them in person (Thompson et al., 2024). These actions weren’t by chance—they came from the inner belief that the lost love was meant to be.
Why does this happen? If you think in terms of destiny, the end of a relationship isn’t just a failed romance—it feels like something is fundamentally wrong. It feels like the universe messed up or like you lost your one real shot at happiness. This confusing feeling pushes people to try to fix what they think should be.
On the other hand, people with stronger growth beliefs were less likely to do PRCT things. Instead of obsessing over what could have been, they were more likely to focus on what they learned from the relationship and how they could use those lessons in the future.
When Soulmate Thinking Makes Pain Worse
The research looked even closer and asked people if they thought their ex was “the one.” Those who said yes showed even more PRCT behaviors, which points to a really painful mental trap: you not only believe in soulmates, but you think you found yours—and lost them.
This belief starts a mental loop: “If this person was meant for me, why didn’t it work?” That question can easily become a never-ending cycle of thinking, longing, and trying to get back together. It messes up closure; the breakup doesn’t feel final, even if it is.
Even worse, people might start to think of the past as better than it was, ignoring problems and only focusing on times of strong feelings or connection. This makes the past seem better than it was, which gets in the way of remembering things as they really were—and keeps PRCT going and healing delayed.
Can People Change These Beliefs?
If your breakup recovery is being hurt by deep-seated destiny beliefs, you might wonder: can this way of thinking even change? The good news is, it seems like yes—at least for a while.
In two more experiments, Thompson and her team gave people short articles that talked about romantic love in terms of either destiny or growth. The results were hopeful: those who read growth-themed articles said they were less likely to contact or track their exes, even if their basic beliefs hadn’t completely changed.
Also, a third study that checked things before and after found that reading about growth-oriented thinking not only changed what people intended to do, but also slightly lowered destiny beliefs. This drop might not last forever, but it shows that these beliefs can be changed, at least a little.
This opens up exciting new possibilities for therapy, especially cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which already works with belief systems to change emotions. Short activities—like reading, journaling, or worksheets—could start the process of changing beliefs, helping people make better choices.
How Therapists Can Use This Insight
Therapists who help people going through breakups often focus on dealing with emotions and setting limits—but this research suggests there’s another thing to look at: beliefs about love.
Finding out if a client has destiny beliefs could give important background for their post-breakup behavior. For example
- Are they sure they’ve lost “the one”?
- Do they think love should be easy?
- Do they expect relationships to either be perfect or not work at all?
Using these insights, therapists can guide clients through talking therapy or changing their thinking to create more balanced ideas about relationships. Tools might include
- Seeing past relationships as parts of a longer life story
- Finding examples that go against destiny beliefs in real life (like couples who grew together)
- Challenging black-and-white thinking with other possibilities
Helping clients think in more flexible, growth-focused ways could really reduce PRCT behaviors and help them handle their emotions in a healthier way.
Why Are Destiny Beliefs So Common?
It’s not surprising that destiny beliefs feel so normal—our culture is full of romantic ideas about fate. From Disney movies to rom-coms, love is often shown as magical, lucky, and planned out in advance. Phrases like “meant to be,” “love at first sight,” and “finding your soulmate” aren’t just catchy—they’re strong ideas.
Many of us take in these messages as we grow up and believe them without question. So, breaking up doesn’t just end a relationship; it questions a whole set of beliefs about how love should work.
Knowing how society shapes our beliefs can help us loosen their hold. It lets us choose and shape beliefs that are better for our emotional well-being.
Growth Beliefs as Your Emotional Safety Net
When you’re heartbroken, growth beliefs act like emotional cushions.
By seeing a breakup as a normal part of life, people with growth beliefs can deal with heartbreak as part of growing as a person instead of as a failure. Instead of dwelling on things, they think about what happened. Instead of getting caught in a negative cycle, they look at themselves.
Some real benefits of growth beliefs
- Better acceptance of arguments and imperfections
- Less likely to hold on to a relationship that didn’t work
- Better ways of coping when things are hard
Maybe most importantly, growth beliefs support looking to the future: “What can I learn from this to make the next relationship better?”
What’s Next for Research on Breakups?
The next step in breakup psychology might be understanding belief fatigue—especially for people who have growth beliefs. Ongoing research by Thompson and others is looking at whether people with strong growth beliefs get worn out from always trying to “make things work” in relationships, while those with destiny beliefs might give up sooner when there’s conflict.
These details could help us give better relationship advice, couple’s therapy, and even dating tips
- When do growth beliefs become trying too hard?
- Can destiny beliefs sometimes protect people from staying in bad situations for too long?
Answering these questions could lead to not only better ways to recover from breakups, but also healthier relationships in general.
How You Can Start Healing Today
You don’t have to completely change your beliefs overnight to start feeling better. Here are a few science-backed ways to gently reduce PRCT behaviors and help recovery
Change How You Think
- Write in a journal using questions that promote growth, like:
- What did I learn about myself in this relationship?
- How has this breakup made me stronger or more aware of myself?
- Rewrite your breakup story as a story of growth, not loss.
Create Real Limits
- Unfollow or mute your ex on social media to check less often.
- Stay away from places that bring up sad feelings.
- Tell a trusted friend or therapist what you’re trying to do so they can support you.
Practice Separating Thoughts from Reality
- When a thought like “What if they were the one?” comes up, name it as a thought, not a fact.
- Try mindfulness to help you stay in the present and stop going over and over things in your head.
Be Open to New Ideas
- Read books or articles that talk about love in terms of growth.
- Think about whether your beliefs are helping you heal—or holding you back.
- Tell yourself: beliefs can be changed.
By training your brain to see love as something that grows, not a set destination, you might find that divorce, separation, or rejection isn’t the end. It’s a new way of seeing things.
Citations
Thompson, A. E., Gooch, K., Willhite, R. M., & O’Sullivan, L. F. (2024). We Were Meant to be: Do Implicit Theories of Relationships and Perceived Partner Fit Help Explain Post-Relationship Contact and Tracking Behaviors Following a Breakup? Personal Relationships. https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12591
