First, don’t beat yourself up. Love isn’t always logical. Your ex may have been objectively terrible. It’s still perfectly normal to miss them, and your relationship. Being stuck isn’t a failure on your part, but isn’t it time to move on? This advice should help you start that process.
Process Your Feelings
It may feel as if you’ve been doing this already, but have you really? When it comes to difficult emotions, many of us follow a pattern like this:
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Negative emotion hits
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Yuck! This sucks!
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Seek out comfort or distraction
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Feel temporary relief from uncomfortable feeling
Alternatively, you may be someone who rationalizes your emotions. In any case, none of these things are processing your feelings. Until you do that, you won’t be able to move on.
When you process your emotions you allow yourself to sit with and experience whatever it is that you are feeling. You don’t judge yourself or try to “think your way through them”. This can be painful and uncomfortable. Just remember that whatever ugly feelings you have right now are temporary.
You might try mindfulness meditation for this. It’s been shown to improve emotion processing. Many people also find journaling to be helpful. Whatever you choose, it’s worth the effort and temporary pain to be able to move forward.
Cut Them Off
Yes, completely off! This may be a temporary thing. It may be a permanent thing. For now, it needs to be the only thing. Do not answer their late-night texts. Don’t let their friends or yours tempt you with the latest news about them. Don’t peak on their social media. Hide them. Mute them. Block them. Right now, any contact you have is just going to make you spiral.
Remind Yourself Why it Ended
It’s quite possible to have good memories of a bad relationship. You may have fond feelings towards someone who couldn’t have been more wrong for you. Sometimes, you may find yourself thinking about how the relationship could have worked if only certain things had or had not happened.
None of this means ending the relationship wasn’t the right thing to do. Or, if your partner broke up with you, that you have the power to change things. Nostalgia doesn’t make a relationship viable. Enjoy your good memories until they prevent you from moving on. Then, remind yourself why it ended.
Lean on Friends And Family
It can feel devastating to lose a romantic or sexual connection with someone. These kinds of relationships are extraordinarily important to many of us. Naturally, when they end, we feel lost and traumatized.
When this happens, one of the best things you can do is reach out to your friends and family members. When people maintain strong, platonic social connections they experience better mental health. People with strong friendships respond to stress better, live longer, and enjoy better mental health. Studies have even shown that friendships can change your brain.
Get Therapy
Friends and family are amazing. They can be there for you to stave off loneliness, provide emotional support, and offer the reality check you need. That said, they may not have the skills you need if you are truly getting over something traumatic, or struggling with your mental health.
Think of it this way. You’d ask a friend to help you paint and redecorate your living room. You probably wouldn’t ask them to strip the place down to the studs and rebuild it. Sometimes, you need professional help before you can move on, and that’s okay!
Focus on You
There are two parts to this tip. The first is the one you’re going to enjoy. Now is the perfect time for you to pamper yourself. Take a weekend trip. Go to the spa. Start hitting the gym. Get outside. Treat yourself to amazing food.
Be warned, you may not like the second part very much. It’s the part that’s difficult, occasionally painful, but absolutely worthwhile. This is where you focus on self-improvement, owning the things you did wrong, and setting yourself up for amazing things in the future.
Final Thought: Move on as Slowly As You Need
You may not get over your ex quickly. That’s not the end of the world. Just know it’s going to happen. So, proceed to your next romance at your own pace.
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