You are single again. It’s difficult to process the fact that you are all by yourself. The breakup must have come as a shock or Perhaps you didn’t get dumped but called for an amicable breakup. Now, you are in bed recalling events of the day and your eyes are filled with tears.
You feel abandoned and rejected and there is this insatiable desire to be with your ex. You can’t seem to get over them. You feel empty as you reminisce over times shared, promises made and even memories created. You wish what you are experiencing now is a dream or just a movie but no, it’s not, it’s your own love story turned sour.
The relationship you once fought for has now become “once upon a time”. What must have happened? Your ex fell out of love or just changed and began to withdraw? Perhaps you don’t even know what went wrong but what you know and feel is a large vacuum that seems unbearable accompanied by loneliness.
You replay events in your head and try to erase some memories you both created yet it seems not to be working. You feel rejected and abandoned and it’s making you feel “less” and that your best wasn’t good enough.
There’s no need to worry as you can get over your ex and your past relationships if you are determined to. Realize that no one is indispensable, over time the feelings will fade if you work with time actively to get the results you need. How to get over your ex is a question on the lips and minds of many who have experienced heartbreak.
There are steps to achieve this feat. They are not special but you will experience some level of relief as you stay determined to get over the people who hurt you.
1. Allow Yourself Grief
This is the first step on how to get over your ex. I understand you may be feeling numb especially if the break up just occurred. You don’t need to be strong and try to mask the pain at this stage. Be free to feel your pain. Cry if you feel like, grieve, let your feelings out, be angry, be anything you feel like so you can move past this phase quickly.
When you try to hide your feelings or feign being strong, it can only work for a while, your anger may stay down for a while only for you to lash out later in a more monstrous manner when you least expect. It’s like a time bomb being set, waiting to explode at a later date.
To deal with the numerous emotions of anger, guilt, anxiety, and even fear, you have to write them out as you experience them, see a therapist, try taking a walk sometimes or doing an activity that will distract you.
Are you seething with regrets?
It happens. Everyone makes mistakes, but don’t see it as one except if you discover you really made a mistake but if you didn’t, try to see it as you being the real person here who gave love and it was tossed right back at you.
2. Break Off Contacts
This is the next step on how to get over your ex. Cut off all contact no matter how much you want to hear from your ex. Don’t spend time obsessing over them. I understand the temptation of wanting to see what your ex is up to. You want to see if they have moved on so quickly, who the new person is and how they even look together.
You become a detective checking and investigating every comment received by your ex on social media. You don’t need this. If you can’t handle staying away from social media, how about blocking them? I do this a lot when I want to heal from a heartbreak( I’ve had quite a lot of them).
You will notice that when you learn to stay all by yourself, it may be tough initially but as you go on, you will discover the peace that comes with it and you will begin to feel better.
Staying away will help you heal properly in every way possible. As you read this: make a decision and tell yourself, I will not call, text or do any form of reaching out to my ex and endeavor to stick with it.
When I had to use “the no contact rule”, I knew it would be difficult staying away from calling because I was used to it. While I was with my ex I did most of the calling and texting. In order to succeed at this, I decided to take his number off my phone, address book and also block contacts on Facebook and other social media handles since I’m not good with numbers (yes, I have a hard time remembering mine either).
3. Let Go
Put away pictures, love letters, gift items or souvenirs and any other thing that remind you of your ex. Take it easy on yourself and don’t rush things. When the time is right, you will feel the need to let go.
If you don’t feel like throwing them all out or can’t get rid of them completely, at least tuck them away. You can put them in a box and put it far away from you( a place that isn’t easily accessible). You can choose to do this at once or gradually.
4. Avoid Places That Act At Reminders
This is very important so that your healing process doesn’t get truncated. Remember your visits to the parks and your usual hangout spots; seeing your ex, running into them or being in places that serve as reminders could make you feel angry or even ashamed depending on how the relationship ended. You wouldn’t want your ex to see you distraught. Don’t put yourself in a position of more hurt.
A lady sent a mail saying she can’t do without her ex, in her words she said: “my ex has moved on but I still love him”. I try to be in places we used to hang out to see if he will see me and rethink his decision for a breakup, yet it never worked. I had to start a session on how to get over your ex with her and shared this piece with her.
Truth is you may never stop loving your ex even as you proceed in the journey of healing but it won’t be as intense as it used to be. Yes, you care but you won’t have the desire to share your world with them anymore. Yes, you made a couple of memories together that you cannot just forget easily but for you to heal, you have to move on.
5. Recall Your Painful Experiences While You Were With Your Ex
This involves a lot of soul searching and deep thinking with all honesty.
- What is that part of your ex you wished you never saw?
- What is that part of them you hoped will change but never did?
I met with a client who was disturbed and just couldn’t get over his relationship with his ex-wife. Breaking up with her began to feel like a heartache after he did. He held on to his marriage to avoid being remarried a second time and having kids with someone else.
He realized after the end of the relationship that he had put up with so much from the ups and downs of breaking up and making up with her several times, her lack of respect that hurt him deeply, the abuse, he really had so many to mention. This is one sure way of taking steps on how to get over your ex.
6. Get Back To Yourself
Sounds strange but I can bet all your love was poured on your ex while the relationship lasted. You may have under-loved yourself and now it’s time to return to yourself.
I understand that you may be emotionally drained and physically unkempt but you need to work on you. Emotionally, you need to be sound and physically be healthy and presentable. Work on your nutrition, get enough sleep, think of things to be grateful for. You only lost a relationship and not your life.
Begin to work on your life goals, revisit your dream. See a doctor if you have trouble sleeping or eating. Go to the gym if you can. Accept love from friends and family, lean on them for support, have one or two friends you can be accountable to and who can cheer you up when your emotions go south. Go on vacation, hit the gym, the list is endless, just explore and seek what will contribute to your total wellbeing.
Begin to go on dates not because you want to begin dating again but so you don’t stay isolated but to experience the feeling of being pampered and wanted again.
Sometimes, comfort hampers your ability to view life realistically but when you are hit by the storms of life, you become uncomfortable and begin to look into areas of your life critically.
When you love someone or something, they become a priority. Now that you are all by yourself, turn the spotlight on yourself and focus on you. You may be low emotionally now because you might have had some sense of dependency on your ex and now you are alone.
Care for yourself, you need all the strength you can muster to face life now. You are getting close to the finish line of how to get over your ex. There is one secret I learned during my dating years and it is to always come back to myself and never get carried away because you never can tell what will happen on the way to the altar.
7. Take Stock Of Your Relationship
Want to learn how to get over your ex? This will go a long way to help. Get a notepad or diary and some thinking aloud by journaling what comes to your mind as you consider the following points:
- What good times did you have together?
- What good things did you love about him/her?
- What good things did he/ she do for you that you can’t forget in a hurry?
- While you were together, people must have made comments about you two. Make a list of those things: good or bad.
- Write the things you never liked about your ex.
- What about the relationship? Write your down moments.
- What change did you experience in your life while you were with your ex? Good or bad? Note them.
- Why did you stay back in the relationship despite the bad qualities of your ex and the rough patches you had together?
- Were you received into believing a lie?
- Did you stay in for financial security?
- Did being with your ex feel good to you?
- What were the red flags you noticed very early in the relationship but ignored because you were head over heels in love?
- What painful experiences or scars do you have from being with your ex?
- Did they apologize or did it end in a blame trade?
- Search inwards and write out what you think went wrong or where you missed it?
It will take a lot of time to do this exercise. Remember you are trying to get over someone who meant a whole lot to you, so understand that you will need some time to really work this through by doing a thorough job.
After having done the above exercise, take some time to read through all you have written down. As you do this you will keep remembering a whole lot of things you ought to have written, don’t be surprised when your list begins to increase.
This list is by no means exhaustive, you can add more to it. I bet you are learning a whole lot and getting close to your search for how to get over your ex.
8. Grant Your Ex Pardon
Want real advice on how to get over your ex and find healing as quickly as possible? Then you have to forgive. I know you must be thinking why I would write such a thing after all you went through being with them.
Like I always emphasize, take it a step at a time, you don’t need to rush this too. Forgiveness takes time. You have to let go else you will keep acting out of anger and take it out on others or even hinder yourself from finding love again.
Forgiveness comes when you have gone through the process of moving past your pain. You can’t forgive when in pain, you have to get to a point where you have gone past the anger. You feel the pain will never go away but if you go through the process in this write-up, you will find yourself healing gradually and the anger you feel fades.
9. Don’t Make Excuses To Keep Being In Touch With Your Ex
You will be doing yourself more harm than good, you will find yourself going back to your ex and it will be difficult to move on. It’s easy to make excuses to stay close instead of thinking of how to get over your ex. It may be a subtle way of saying you can’t leave without them but it’s not true.
Don’t make the excuse of being just friends. You were friends while you were in the relationship right? Irrespective of how it ended either on a friendly note or with a couple of drama attached, you need some time to internalize the fact that you are now alone and no longer a couple with your ex.
Your world needs you now, there’s a lot of catching up you need to do with yourself. Besides, what’s the motive behind wanting to stay friends? Friends don’t hurt each other intentionally. But you have just been hurt. Do you think you should trust your ex when they say you could be friends? If it’s your ex calling for a truce, you should do well to say no.
It is not a must to do their bidding any longer. It’s all about you, how you feel and you’re well being. They used to be the first place in your life when it came to making decisions but not anymore. Let your ex feel bad for all I care, don’t play the sympathy card and get worse emotionally, insist on being left alone without any form of contact.
Don’t also allow the excuses of “I don’t know how we got to this point”, something is wrong somewhere, maybe they don’t mean what they said to me, it must have been a test and the list goes on. Pls, stop all these. It’s too late to cry when the head is off.
Don’t try to beat a wall into a door, it’s over and it’s final( possibly for now). Your ex is gone for good. To you it seems “okay” to reach out and ask questions about what is wrong, in fact, if they have any explanations to do, it’s too late. Move on.
Trust me when I say your ex thought all these through before dumping you and even if they did not, it should not be your duty to make them realize it. Perhaps, you want to create an impression to counter a bad one that isn’t true but you don’t need to. After all, you have just been dumped. Let them think whatever they like, you, move on.
Yet another excuse could be “Let me stay close, they could change their mind”. Really? It is true that there could be a possibility of your ex returning but how are you sure that they won’t bail out on you again? For now, concentrate on you and leave the possibility for reconciliation for the future.
You just lost a relationship, be traditional, grief over it, it’s ended, feel the pain, even if they are to return, it will be a whole new relationship and not a continuation of the last.
Sit back, do a review as earlier stated above. But if you ask me, why want to even be around? To feel good emotionally? To be able to get intimate( perhaps you are horny), or even eventually be a friend with benefits.
Come on, you are more than this level you want to settle for. How does being “friends with benefit” describe your worth and personality? You sure deserve more. The relationship you had with them is dead and buried. Don’t exhume it, you will be having a carcass. Who sleeps with a carcass? No one.
Another excuse could be “but we have the same friends”? Won’t I come across as being proud when I stay away? Who cares!
Or what if we work in the same place? It is one of the reasons office romance is frowned upon greatly.
Having a heartbreak and having to face this same person at work will be like putting a bandage over a sore that needs air to heal.
It may be difficult to use the “no contact rule” when you are colleagues at work who need each other to make work go on but make sure it doesn’t become an excuse to pick and drop each other or even call or send messages. It will take a lot of discipline to be able to follow through on this.
You may be asking, how to move on when your ex finds someone? If someone new gets on the block for him or her, where kids are involved, be firm and know the new person can’t have access to your kids. Protect your kids and also teach them how to protect themselves.
10. Be Hopeful For A New Beginning
You are done with your last relationship, yes! But do you need to stay there?
Sometimes you have to face your pain, don’t run from it. Sometimes you may need to go beyond the surface till you get to the bottom of the debris for real healing to begin. While you get deep within, you will come face to face with a turning point to begin from.
While it’s true that the whole of your system seems to be at war because of the breakup, it can also be the beginning of a beautiful life for you if you face your pain and grow from it. You can decide to come out of this better and stronger with lessons learned and wisdom gained to face future relationships.
Presently, you have several options which include crying out your eyes, cursing your ex, try scheming on how to have them back which I believe isn’t good for you now.
Another option is to harden your heart and decide not to succumb to the pain you feel right now and end up in a worse relationship.
You can brace up, go through all the emotional tearing up you need to do and decide your next relationship will be better by looking at where you missed it and getting prepared to give your next the best shot. Which of the options above on how to get over your ex did you choose?
I’m sure you are determined now after reading this piece on how to get over your ex. For all of these to work, you have to be determined. Remember the spotlight is on you now, let it not be said that your life ended with your ex.
Plan revenge and that revenge is to work at being successful and working on yourself until you get a male that deserves you. Do this intentionally. Love yourself and begin to plan for your next dream partner. Look into the future with hope, you will make it. Go for it!
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