Heartbreak Is a Good Enough Reason to Call In Sick
Mary*, 28, was on vacation with her boyfriend when she found out he had been cheating on her for months (and promptly dumped him). It was a huge international trip she’d told all her coworkers at her finance job about, which made it all the more painful when, upon jumping straight back into work after coming home, she had to field standard small talk about her time off. It only worsened the pain she’d already worked to conceal just to find the strength to come into the office. “It can be really difficult to navigate water-cooler small talk. You don't want to open the door for everyone to know what you're going through, but at the same time, you want to express how you feel, and the office isn't a safe space to do that,” she says. “If I’d taken leave to process the heartbreak, I could’ve had a bit more distance from the event, and I wouldn’t have had to sit there and pretend like everything was really good.”View full post on XMary’s jarring first day back at work epitomizes the shaky emotional ground many of us walk when we’re thrust back into our everyday hustle without taking time to process a breakup. With well-defined boundaries and compartmentalization skills, work life and home life can exist in two separate universes. But heartbreak has a way of blurring that line and dominating your every thought.View full post on TikTokThe concept of taking time to recover has become the subject of the internet’s latest intergenerational debate. A business manager posted an email their heartbroken Gen Z employee sent, requesting 10 days off to handle their post-breakup pain. It’s been critiqued as a classic example of Gen Z’s “overly sensitive” workplace boundaries. “If you have a bad breakup, what happens if your pet passes away?” Whoopi Goldberg questioned during a segment about the matter on The View. “Isn’t that what the weekend is for? Do what you have to do at work, go home, and then sit on the couch.”View full post on XFar be it from me to question the preferred emotional-regulation tactics of EGOT winner Whoopi Goldberg, but I firmly believe that a life change as significant as a breakup warrants a couple of days away from harsh office lights, Slack threads, and water-cooler talk—which can all feel insignificant and less deserving of your time and effort in the wake of a split. Every dead relationship must be mourned in some capacity, and while there’s case-by-case variation (you might not need half your yearly allotted PTO to get over a quick but devastating three-month situationship), both relationship and career experts recommend dedicating time to feel your pain in full.Why you need to take "heartbreak leave"A relationship’s end has a considerable impact on brain function (which anyone who’s experienced the hellscape that is week one post-breakup can attest to). “The brain doesn't just feel sad. It actually processes the loss much like physical pain, activating the anterior cingulate cortex, the same neural region that lights up when you stub your toe or burn your hand,” says psychologist Dr. Sydney Ceruto. “That's not a metaphor; that's your limbic system treating the end of a relationship as a genuine threat to survival.” "When high-performers try to push through heartbreak without addressing the underlying neural disruption, their stress-response patterns compound,” she warns. “They make poor decisions. Relationships at work suffer. Performance spirals.” There’s a scientific reason you need a day or two of self-pitying rotting. “When you take strategic time off, dopamine baselines reset, and the prefrontal cortex regains executive control.”Related StoryThe Self-Indulgent Art of the Post-Breakup Letter“It benefits the employee and the employer in the long run,” adds Claire Walsh, PR director at ZipRecruiter. “For the employee, taking time off to recover mentally and emotionally means they come back recharged and focused. Rather than working through a difficult time and potentially experiencing burnout or delivering subpar work, taking time off ensures essential processing and protects the quality of your work.”How to (professionally) ask for that time offAs we advocate for protecting your mental health and giving yourself time to grieve in private, the reality is there’s only so much PTO to go around. And the sad, corporate truth is that as companies offer limited paid maternity leave options and enact stricter return-to-office policies, the idea of a heartbreak-leave-friendly workplace seems unlikely.So, while the Gen Z professional behind that now-viral email was candid about the reason for their request, career professionals suggest you to be less specific when asking for this particular type of day off.The key to the perfect heartbreak leave request is to “Acknowledge, recap, and validate,” says Claire. “Acknowledge that this unexpected situation is making it difficult for you to work as usual. That’s the nature of breakups, illness, and loss—there isn’t any advance notice. Then, briefly recap where you’re at with your priority projects and what might need attention while you’re out. That showcases your ability to be forward-thinking and a team player, even in tough moments,” she advises.“Lastly, validate your request by providing the specifics—how many days you need, when your leave starts, and when you’ll return. Frame your ask as ‘personal leave’ or ‘mental health leave’—this helps your manager view it as a need rather than a request.”It is human to need some time to process losing a partner, and even more human to want to do that processing off the clock. Though not yet widely normalized (and thus something internet jurors and daytime talk show hosts still feel comfortable mocking), heartbreak leave sets you up for a smoother recovery in the long run. No one benefits from buried feelings. Not even your employer.*Name has been changed.Related StoriesBeware the SituationswitchWhy You Need a Post-Breakup BestieIf you liked this story, you’ll LOVE “Love, Willa,” Cosmo’s relationships newsletter. 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