My girlfriend dumped me last week. Ouch. Now I need to figure out how to get over it.
Here’s my approach, based on what I’ve found on the net and some of my own thoughts:
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Remember: It’s a natural part of human life
Breaking up and feeling terrible afterwards is nothing unusual. Billions of people have had this experience before, and it’s one of the most common causes of emotional pain. So remember two things: (1) you are not alone and (2) breaking up is a natural part of human life. -
Remember: Time heals all wounds
No matter how bad you feel now, it will go away eventually. While knowing this may not reduce the pain directly, it may give you strength during the “shitty phase.” -
Do something good for yourself
You’ve taken a punch, and now it’s time to take care of yourself. Do something you want to do: watch a movie, read a good book, exercise (!), start a new hobby, buy the cool gadget you’ve always wanted, etc. -
Spend time with family or friends
Part of your “relationship life” took a hit. The solution? Take care of your other relationships. Spend time with family or friends and plan enjoyable activities with them ahead of time (especially on weekends). -
Let yourself grieve, but not for too long
It’s okay to feel sad. Cry, sob, and lick your wounds. However, after a couple of weeks or so, pull yourself together. Look to the future; don’t cling to the past. -
Make a clean break
After the grieving period, don’t think about your ex. Remove things from the house if they remind you of him or her. Erase your ex’s telephone number from your mobile phone and delete all emails. It’s over, and it’s time to move on. -
Think: Better now than later
Imagine what might have happened if you didn’t break up, but instead had got married, had kids, and then discovered things wouldn’t work out. What a mess that would have been. It’s better to set switch lanes now, even though it hurts. -
Learn from the experience
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” This saying has proven to be entirely true for me. Gathering new experiences is crucial for personal growth, although the process may not always be pleasant. -
Don’t start dating again too soon
As mentioned above, allow yourself some time for grieving. Don’t starting dating immediately after the break-up, or you’ll risk trying to replace your former boy- or girlfriend with someone else. This rarely works and it will make your new partner unhappy. Take your time, and you will be dating again soon enough. -
Don’t blame the break-up for everything
Sometimes we tend to channel our negative feelings in one direction, making them even more painful. A break-up provides a tempting invitation to do this, but don’t. If you feel bad, the break-up may not be the only reason. Make a plan for how to tackle the other areas you need to work on (e.g., identify your purpose in life, find a fulfilling job, etc.). -
Write about it
Putting your thoughts down on paper can help. I’ve followed the recommendation to write a letter to my ex, but not send it. This gave me a lot of relief. I’ve also decided to blog about it – let’s see if it helps.
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View the break-up as a new beginning
A break-up allows you to take a fresh look at your life and to kick habits that previously held you back. It’s a new beginning, with great opportunities and new loving relationships waiting you!
Have I forgotten anything?
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Dear Nick, thanks for this interesting post (and good luck!). I wonder why you did not even mention the idea of trying to ‘restore’ one’s relationship. This could be suggested: 1. because in many (most?) cases a relationship can be restored. A girl/boy friend may have at the moment a hard time, and blame the relationship for that. I would not throw everything away without trying to fix it. 2. because failing after having tried hard make (for several/many people) it easier to accept the failure. Else, one would keep on thinking “what if I had done this or that?”. I know, this does not apply to everyone, but to be happy the first rule is to know oneself, isn’t it?
You might suggest that point 1. only holds in case of a long-term relationship, after children have been born, etc. This is possible, but I guess that several/many people do not start a relationship unless they strongly believe in it, hence, they are ready to dedicate to its restoral time and energy.
I would agree with Elisa and hope that its just a momentary reaction. However, since you have been so clinical in your approach, I would suggest that you consider understanding the point that lust, attraction, attachment could be due to levels of different neurotransmitters. One could consider increasing the levels of the relevant neurotransmitters like oxytocin or vasopressin in himself and the mate. Heres one relevant article on the topic:
http://www.helenfisher.com/downloads/articles/10lustattraction.pdf
All pointers so true!
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I’m in the middle of my second break up right now. Well, second from a serious relationship at least. This sucks big time, but then again we had been together for many years and it just faded. Now I’m beginning to think it was not my fault or his, tough it culminated on his cheating on me. Maybe we didn’t work hard enough, we tried, but eventually I think we are just so different with our expectations and views of the word that this would have happened eventually anyway. I’m trying to concentrate on the positive. When I begin to miss him I try to think about the things that I had to compromise when being with him (like I can paint in the middle of the living room, no nagging about the mess or the smell and just leave things where I need them the next time, I can eat ice cream (universal remedy for all break ups all around the world) straight from the package!
The point about this being just a part of human life strangely comforts me. It’s just what it is. It will be over, make me stronger and next time I’ll know better. I can’t break all communication in a halt. We still have things and money issues to solve, I’m really thankful that our shared apartment is on my name, this is my home and I would hate to give it up. We are making effort to solve this in mature way, which for me at least is kind of hard (I did had urges to shred his clothes or other childlike things when I thought about the cheating), but I grabbed a pen and, yea: wrote those things down. Reading them the next day helped huge amounts just seemed so silly and totally not my way of working things out.
Thanks so much for all the points of advice. I will frequently refer back to them I’m sure cuz my breakup is still very new.
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Something that I have noticed that has caused me more pain in a breakup is the shock of it. Where it seems to come from out of the blue that there was an issue that didn’t even get discussed and one person just made an executive decision for the two of them. Communicate with each other. What happened to resolution? If two people communicate about an issue one may have then there may be room for resolution. But having one person just decide “it’s over” alone does not sound like a relationship to me. It sounds selfish or as if there is something else going on.