Elena Montemurro

How Each Zodiac Experiences Heartbreak (And Tries To Hide It)

ARIES

You aim to come out on top in everything you do in life—love is no exception. It aches when you feel your partner pulling away. If the tension has been building for a while, you will leave before you are left. Having someone fall out of love with you or break up with you is a huge blow to your ego. When someone hurts you, you mask your emotional pain with anger. You let your temper get the best of you. You don’t hold back from telling your ex everything that’s on your mind, no matter how cruel. You’ll burn the bridge with them just to have the last word. You hate-talk them to others. You won’t admit it, but your heart is shattered into pieces. You refuse to sulk, so you devote your energy to other things. Letting your impulsivity get the best of you, you do something drastic and dramatic to feel better—to feel new. The reality is that you won’t heal until you learn to confront your feelings. 

TAURUS

Heartbreak for you is a shock to your entire being. You’re a creature of habit whose entire life feels unmoored by change. But it’s more than this. When you make the decision to enter a relationship with someone, you do so only after placing serious thought into it. You committed because you could see yourself building a stable life with this person. You’re looking for a life-long partner. Love is forever to you. A breakup almost feels like losing your biggest investment. You’re beside yourself with anguish. You don’t hide your heartache—you just hide. You need time to process and heal your emotional wound. Those closest to you don’t hear from you as you hole yourself up in your bedroom with curtains drawn. You play your favorite movies, light candles, and rely on takeout for sustenance. You go dark on social media, turn inward, and allow yourself to wallow. While sitting with our feelings is the healthy thing to do, sometimes too much of it can be quite toxic. Get back out there, Taurus, even if it’s just for some fresh air.  

GEMINI

Gemini, experiencing heartbreak for you is a wild roller coaster you just wish would stop. You’re unpredictable after a breakup, with all your personas on full display. You oscillate between heartsickness and white-hot rage running through your veins. Those mood swings of yours can be dangerous when someone has hurt you. You don’t want anyone to see you at what you perceive to be your worst, so you don’t allow yourself to wallow in sadness for too long. You do things like subtweet your ex into oblivion, host parties and meet new people. To mask your pain, you do your best to stay booked and busy. To the outside world, you’re moving on quickly, but it’s all an illusion. You just want to keep up appearances. You go out on the prowl for anything to fill the void—text your ex, have shallow hookups and dalliances, drink until you forget your own name. You’re good at hiding your true emotions from others, but you can’t run from yourself. Even in all your distractions, you find yourself thinking of your ex. You need to allow yourself time alone to come to terms with your heartache.

CANCER

You’re that teary-eyed, heartbroken romcom character under a big fuzzy blanket surrounded by bottles of wine and tubs of ice cream. You feel heartbreak with every fiber of your being, so much that it paralyzes you. You don’t enter serious relationships lightly and only do so when someone makes you feel safe. Losing someone you love feels like losing the place you call home. It’s extremely difficult for you to accept it’s over, Cancer. The only way for you to gain any comfort is by trying to delude yourself into believing that you don’t want your ex anymore, so you vilify them in your eyes and those of others. You go no-contact and rid yourself of every memento from the relationship. All those warm feelings of love turn into bitterness. It’s the only thing that can motivate you to stop crying and looking at old pictures. Hate doesn’t heal, Cancer. In order to truly move on, you have to honor the relationship for what it meant to you.

LEO

Heartbreak usually takes you by complete surprise. You’re someone who is typically intuitive when it comes to matters of the heart. When someone breaks up with you or hurts you, you don’t see it coming. Chances are that, like your fellow fire sign Aries, you’d leave before getting left. You’re usually so self-assured and confident, but heartache makes you doubt yourself. It’s quite an ego adjustment. You shame spiral, Leo. You also feel an indescribable devastating anguish. Associated with the fifth house, you govern the heart—you’re enchanted by romance. You enter relationships dramatically and will leave them just the same. No matter how hurt you are, you refuse to feel humiliated. You hide your pain by spilling the tea to anyone who will listen and trashing your ex. You become vindictive and petty. You hit the party scene, flirt with their friends, and post thirst traps on social media. You start dating quickly after to nurse your ego back into health. Having a broken heart isn’t a weakness, Leo. It’s a brave and beautiful thing to have risked it all for love. 

VIRGO

You fall into a deep depression when you’re brokenhearted. Romantic relationships are deeply meaningful to you. You come with built-in protective walls—you don’t let others in easily. You almost blame yourself for pushing your fears aside and trusting your ex. You dissect every aspect of where it could have gone wrong. Love for you is driven by the notion of an ideal partnership, so when it doesn’t work out it’s devastating. It feels like wasted potential. It takes you a long time to move on and get back to normal. When you’re grief-stricken with the end of a romance, the only way for you to deal is to completely shut off all affection and emotion. You become numb. This is just you trying to hide from yourself. If you’re not careful, hiding from your heartache can make you become cold and cynical when it comes to love. 

LIBRA

As the sign of partnership who also happens to be ruled by Venus, you’re a devoted lover and partner. You feel at your absolute best when you’re in a relationship. In fact, you tend to self-identify in them, so heartbreak makes you feel lost. You don’t want anyone to know, so you hide it the best way you know how—by quickly moving on. You’ll do everything and anything to avoid thinking about your ex. Running away from your pain means seeking external validation. You go on a shopping spree and update your whole entire wardrobe—credit card debt be damned. You get a new haircut or hair color that they’d never recognize you in. You quickly get back on dating apps and start meeting new potential suitors. You go out as much as you can and flirt with strangers. All you do is run and hide. Sometimes this means jumping back into a new monogamous relationship too quickly. Until you learn how to find happiness and affirmation from within, you’ll never truly mend your heart. 

SCORPIO

Heartbreak seriously triggers your control issues. When you feel heartache, it’s an overwhelming sense of despair. You feel as if you cannot go on. You convince yourself that this person was it for you and that you will never love or be loved by anybody else. You’re left with a great sense of abandonment and loss after the demise of a relationship. Then, other feelings start kicking in—feeling jilted being the biggest of all. You start getting angry. You find comfort in your rage and use it to mask your pain. You hide how grief-stricken you truly are by choosing to get even with the person who wronged you. Whether it means sleeping with their best friend or slowly ruining their lives from afar, you become obsessed with the idea of hurting them back. Your love transforms into hate, Scorpio. You go completely dark. This only elongates your healing process, Scorpio. To truly heal, you have to sit with all your emotions, no matter how overwhelming and scary. 

SAGITTARIUS 

Yes, it’s true that you value your independence and freedom, and sure, you’ve been known to be a player, but you honor commitment. When you enter a relationship, you’re a devoted and loyal partner. You’ve broken your fair share of hearts in the past, but you don’t have much experience in dealing with this kind of pain. So, you deny just how inconsolably sad you truly feel. You don’t want to admit it to yourself, and you certainly don’t want to admit it to others. You act like you’re completely fine—better than fine. You say that this is the best possible thing that could have happened to you and you focus on reinventing yourself. You do this through a makeover, travel, and new experiences. Sometimes this means partaking in risky behavior that momentarily makes you feel good. Until you slow down and confront your feelings, you won’t get the closure and healing you need. 

CAPRICORN

Many don’t know this, but you have one of the softest hearts of the zodiac—and you tend to be extremely careful with it. This is why you don’t enter a relationship unless you’re absolutely sure that it can be for the long haul. You’re looking for something stable and for someone who will make you feel emotionally secure. Your world falls apart when someone breaks your heart. Because you view heartache as a sign of weakness, you don’t allow yourself to rely on loved ones for support. You run away and hide from your pain by diving headfirst into your career and pursuits. You start working extra hours to land that promotion. You start new projects. You do anything to keep yourself so busy that you don’t have time to think about your ex. You exhaust yourself with chores and exercise. You don’t slow down, Cap. Instead of viewing your relationship as a failure, you should view it as a lesson. Let it evolve you. Let that person teach you what you want and don’t want from love. You risk carrying baggage into your next relationship if you don’t sort through your feelings properly. 

AQUARIUS

You’re not exactly the most conventional when it comes to romantic relationships. You prefer to have your freedom and space. It’s rare that you emotionally attach yourself to another person. Your heart isn’t something that’s easy to win, so when it’s broken it feels as though you’re missing a part of yourself. You feel a deep heartache. You self-medicate, whether it’s through sad playlists, drugs, or alcohol. You hide by isolating. When you do see your friends, you act cool and collected, pretending to be over the relationship. This is how you begin to self-compartmentalize. It’s all an act, Aquarius, and you know it. Your house of cards will eventually fall. The best thing that you can do for yourself is to not shy away from your emotions and open up to others. 

PISCES

Oh, sweet Pisces. You’re a hopeless romantic with grand ideas of love. You want the fairytale—it’s what you’ve been dreaming of your whole life. When you lose a significant other, you come to believe that you have lost your soulmate—the one. You convince yourself that you won’t find love again. You get so overwhelmed by feelings of grief and sorrow. Heartbreak feels like a death to you. The only way that you know how to deal is to hide from the world for a little while. You hide to heal. You journal and write poetry, trying to sort out your feelings, which is a beautiful and healthy thing to do. However, you need to let your friends in. Allow those who love you to be there for you. This isn’t something you have to go through on your own. If you hole up for too long, you’ll drown in the nostalgia and have an even harder time moving on.