Just like that, it’s over.
You spent months or even years clinging to someone who became one of the most important people in your life, and now they’re gone.
You no longer have a partner to attend events and shows with. You don’t have a supporter who’s eager to hear your questions, triumphs, or jokes. And your phone doesn’t buzz nearly as much as it used to.
There’s an eerie void left when you split from someone who was that close in your life, but despite all the pain this void brings and the quiet new normal you must adjust to, I want you to know one thing:
Breakups are easier than you think.
People act like breakups are some of the hardest, life-altering events you can experience, but that’s because they don’t understand how to actually recover.
Every breakup has 2 components to address—the mental side and the emotional side. I’ll show you how to face both so you can get over your breakup and stop thinking about your ex.
How to Get Over a Breakup: The Mental Side
Unfortunately, almost all the common advice to get over a breakup is misguided. Most of it focuses solely on emotional recovery and the tips and tricks you can use to dull the pain.
While the emotional aspect is important—and I’ll share my own tips to address it later—your bigger priority should be the mental side.
Thinking rightly about a breakup and how it affects your long-term goals will comfort you much more than that tub of ice cream you wanna scarf down. It will also prevent future dating mistakes so you won’t be an emotional wreck again later.
Recognizing the Hopeful Truth About Breakups
First, I need to clarify that I’m working under a few assumptions.
When I say “breakup”, I’m referring to a permanent romantic split between two people who are not married, living together, or have children. Divorce is far beyond the scope of this article. So is a split between two people who acted like they were married.
I’m also assuming you either initiated the breakup for justified reasons, or that the other person broke up with you for reasons they felt were justified.
Now if your circumstance still fits into what I define as a breakup here, I want you to ask yourself what the goal of your dating is:
- Is it to have a romantic partner to attend concerts with?
- Is it to validate that you’re attractive and desired by the opposite sex?
- Or is it simply to have another person around so you aren’t bored?
If your answer is “yes” to any of those questions, then I’m sorry, you have no hope. Those goals are too short-sighted and selfish to ever see a breakup as a good thing.
So what should your goal be while dating?
The ultimate goal is to find someone compatible for a mutually enriching lifetime commitment. Or in other words, you want to look for (and be) a good future spouse.
With that goal in mind, it becomes easier to change your perspective about a breakup no matter who initiates:
- If you chose to break up for mature reasons, you no longer see your ex as the right choice for a long-term partner. You don’t want to be married to someone who isn’t a good fit long-term, therefore, breaking up puts you closer to your goal.
- If your partner chose to breakup, they no longer see you as the right long-term choice (and no amount of arguing or convincing will likely change that). You don’t want to be married to someone who doesn’t want a future with you, therefore, breaking up puts you closer to your goal.
Both scenarios lead to hopeful outcomes considering your long-term desire.
The short-term pain of a breakup will hurt due to your investment, but you should never let your long-term perspective be clouded by short-term results.
3 Challenges to Thinking Rightly About a Breakup (And How to Fix Each)
Obviously, the mindset above won’t come naturally to you.
People aren’t robots. We can’t change our programming easily and expect immediate results.
Fortunately for us, however, the challenges we face to adopt this mindset are very common, and they’re not tough to fix once you know what to do.
Challenge 1: You Can’t Separate the Role from the Person
If you and your ex broke up for justified reasons, you probably miss the role of girlfriend or boyfriend more than you actually miss your ex.
Sure, it felt good to have someone who loved you and wanted to go out with you. I know it was also encouraging to have the hope of a future spouse be so apparent. But here’s the thing about feelings like those: another person can provide them while being a better fit long-term.
Of course, your ex probably had specific quirks that made him or her stand out individually, but if those traits contributed as much as you think to the goal above, you never would have broken up.
How to Fix It: Understand That Your Ex Doesn’t Exist
Perhaps that sounds a little harsh. I don’t say this to push a “they’re-dead-to-me” mindset though. I say it to make you aware of reality.
The reason I say your ex doesn’t exist anymore is because they will treat you differently now that you aren’t together. It won’t necessarily be because they hate you either. You’ll just see firsthand how differently people perform in different roles.
The person who would drop everything to be with you before will barely respond to you after a breakup. And all those, “Good morning!!! I love you <3” texts will become “I appreciate your attention to this matter.”
It’s easier to forget your ex when you know the version of them you miss only exists in a role they aren’t suited for.
The breakup showed that your ex isn’t suited for the role of future spouse. So why would you miss a version of them that sabotages your goal?
Challenge 2: You Can’t Detach from Unrealistic Outcomes
Your ability to get over a breakup correlates heavily with the amount of foresight you have.
A person with a deep knowledge of their self and their partner will soon reach a point where they know if it will truly work.
Contrary to what we think, most of us aren’t complicated people. We all have predictable character traits, skills, and routines. Once you know enough about a person, it gets easy to predict how the relationship will fare in the future.
Couples who live far apart, work different schedules, or have different religions don’t typically survive in the long run. Even though most of us know this, however, we still lament the “what-if’s” that could have helped our relationships succeed.
If only we tried harder, or if that job worked out, or if our partner changed just a bit, things could have been different. The breakup is harder because we felt so close to making things work, but the honest truth is, we probably weren’t close at all.
How to Fix It: Accept Probable Outcomes and the Risky Reality
Relationships that go the distance don’t need excuses or “what-if’s”. Truly compatible people stick together because, for the most part, it’s easy.
Yeah, there’s some effort required to maintain a relationship, but there shouldn’t be fundamental differences that constantly pull the two of you apart.
If you’re struggling with the mental side of a breakup, you have to be honest with yourself and accept outcomes that were most likely to occur. Very rarely in life do we see the best-case scenario where everything goes our way. If your “normal” didn’t work with another person’s “normal”, it makes sense that you had to break up.
Sure, the pain hurts right now, and you may question if you’ll be successful with anyone, but that’s because you’re dealing with the negative side of risk.
There will always be risk no matter who you choose to date. If you still want the upside of a relationship though, you have to acknowledge the reality of that risk without letting it stop you from trying again.
Challenge 3: You Aren’t Comfortable Being Single
No breakup can devastate a person who’s comfortable being alone.
If you hate being single, however, you’ll give your partners far too much control over your life. Instead of dating with the long-term goal of finding a good spouse, you’ll be too desperate to turn anyone down because your happiness will be dependent on them.
This is how people get stuck in codependent and toxic relationships. They get accustomed to using another person to meet their personal needs. Then when they realize the partnership has no future, they still leech on to each other because they don’t think they can function alone.
How to Fix It: Remind Yourself That Singleness Has Advantages
You don’t need a romantic relationship to function, be happy, or prove your worth.
You should seek a relationship because it’ll benefit you and another person—not because you need one to not be a mess.
It’s always better to be single than with someone you aren’t compatible with. You’ll not only avoid commitment to someone proven to not be worth it, but you’ll have the chance to work on yourself and eventually meet someone new.
Singleness has tons of advantages—some of which I’ve written about before and will also mention below—but the greatest one of all is that it puts you back on the path to your goal.
You can’t say “yes” to the right opportunity until you’ve said “no” to the wrong one, so don’t be afraid to take a temporary step back on your own.
How to Get Over a Breakup: The Emotional Side
Once you’ve overcome the mental hurdles of a breakup, all that’s left is to recover emotionally.
The emotional pain you feel right now is very similar to a physical injury. If you sprain your ankle, for example, you know you’ll be fine in about a month, but that doesn’t mean you can walk like you used to right now.
Your emotional recovery—like any other injury—requires a mix of both active and passive treatment.
Here are 5 tips that should help you out with both.
5 Tips to Recover from the Emotional Pain of a Breakup
Tip 1: Remind Yourself of the Stuff You’re Glad to Be Done With
No human is perfect and no relationship is devoid of unwanted responsibility.
I’m sure there are at least a few things you’re glad to be done with no matter how much you miss your ex:
- Maybe they had anger issues they didn’t control as much as they should have.
- Perhaps they overreacted to very small inconveniences.
- Or maybe aligning schedules became too much of a hassle near the end.
Whatever you found to be annoying, remind yourself that it’s finally over now.
Tip 2: Let Time Do Its Job
“The way things are now is not how they will always be.”
Life is dynamic. Circumstances change. Emotional pain heals just like physical injuries heal over time.
Being hurt over someone you cared about doesn’t make you weak—it makes you a warmhearted human. You just need time to grieve and recover now without doing something reckless you’ll regret.
I know it seems like your feelings will never fade when you’re fresh off a breakup, but life’s other responsibilities, interests, and distractions will eventually change your focus. All you have to do is trust that those changes will eventually come.
Tip 3: Avoid Unnecessary Reminders of Your Ex While Healing
I’ve always thought blocking your ex and deleting all your pictures with them was too extreme. I get it if things ended on really bad terms, but if you actually miss your ex, chances are they’re still a decent person.
Trying to be friends soon after a split just doesn’t work though. So you should definitely limit your reminders of them during this grieving period.
You can silence their text messages if they don’t require a block. You can also move physical and digital pictures of them out of prominent locations. Muting their activity on social media and fighting the urge to bring them up in conversation helps too.
Remember that this person isn’t your enemy though. You just need space to detach while emotions are still strong.
Tip 4: Lean On Your Friends and Family
Non-romantic support is so important during this time.
Hopefully you have good family and friends who care for you no matter what. I know their love is much different than the kind you’d get from a partner, but please don’t undervalue it. It’s so good to know unconditional love exists in a world where relationships can be so transactional.
This is a great time to rekindle your friendships and go to those hangouts you neglected before. Being comfortably single doesn’t mean you isolate yourself. You need that community support right now even if you think you can handle the pain on your own.
Tip 5: Immerse Yourself in Your Own Interests
One of the joys of singleness I alluded to earlier is that you get a chance to redefine who you are. You can think deeply about what you want and work towards it without consulting or considering another person.
You’re not tied to your ex anymore. You don’t have to make compromises for what they wanted or hide your interests that they didn’t like.
You get the chance to be your own person again, and that’s an awesome advantage.
So go try some new hobbies you think you’ll enjoy. Re-gain that passion for an interest you fell away from. Look at your life from a big-picture standpoint and think about what you want to improve.
You have a new world of opportunity available now. And that will always be more desirable than a dead end.
-Drew
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