How to let go of your ex once and for all (even if it feels impossible)
It took me nearly 3 years to get over my ex boyfriend. If you have ever been through a breakup, you know it is one of the hardest most heart-wrenching things to go through.
After weeks of fighting, the day came where there was no other option than to break up. When he left my house that day I felt like he had ripped off a piece of my soul. I had loved this man with all my heart, it was a raw all consuming intense kind of love. I couldn’t grasp the reality of what had happened. My best friend came over and I was just lying there with lykke li’s song possibility on repeat. I had cried for hours and there was no life left in my eyes.
For the first few months after the breakup I was in denial and I went into party mode, but not dealing with the pain slowly started to take its toll. And eventually (also because of some other factors) I fell into a deep black depression that would last for about a year. After the depression it still took me a long time to completely let him go.
It was the hardest and most valuable experience of my life.
So what helped me to let him go?
I remember one day sitting on my sisters bed and complaining about how I wanted to stop thinking about him. I was more than sick of being hung up on him. She looked up and very firmly said, first admit you are still in love with him. I was shocked, I’m not in love with him anymore I cried out. I was.
The first step is admitting where you are. You still love this person. And that’s okay. Being hard on yourself for the way you feel, means you are rejecting your emotions and so you will not be able to process them. The next step is to decide that you truly want to move on. You have to want to move on, more than you want to be with him. You have to fight your way through the pain and tears, because you deserve to be happy. Then you have to be willing to experience the pain of letting go. You have to accept your emotions and process them. This could mean writing down all your feeling, locking yourself in your room and crying as much as you want. Give yourself permission to go through these emotions that want to be released.
Then comes the hardest part, you have to give up hope. The biggest reason why I couldn’t let my ex go was because I would not let go of hope. In my mind it was only a matter of time before he would call me and we would get back together. I used to come up with excuses why he hadn’t called yet, he was probably still working on his issues and sorting his life out first. He wasn’t ready for a real relationship. BULLSHIT. He might still think about you, he might even still care about you, but what really matters is what he is doing about it. And if the answer is NOTHING, then none of it matters. When hope is based on a fantasy it can destroy your life. In the end I forced myself to look at reality. He had not called me for almost 3 years. We would never get back together.
During my relationship I had made this person the biggest source of my happiness. And so when he left I didn’t know how I could ever be happy again. I thought my happiness depended on his presence in my life. You always hear this cliché advice about going out and doing things after a breakup, well it’s true. You have to find other things to focus on, other sources of happiness. I learned to focus more on my family and my friends. I started spending a lot more time with them and realized how happy they made me and how much I appreciated them. I also started reading a lot of books again. My focus shifted towards life questions like who do I want to be and what do I want to do with my life. Whenever you have a breakdown, it is a chance to rebuild yourself again. And that is exactly what I did. I became very self aware and questioned all of my beliefs about myself and the world. I started exploring myself and experiencing life. I am a completely different person today than the day lykke li was singing to a dead eyed girl.
So completely focus on yourself, find out what you truly enjoy. What do you still want to experience in the world? Time is passing us by. We are here to experience life and all of its ups and downs, don’t let this one down knock you out of the field for too long.
3. Choose your happiness:
You have to be very honest about whether you want to be happy. I used to think about all the mistakes I thought I had made. If only I had acted a little different we would still be together. If only I had different needs then it would have worked. Yes if I had the same needs as he had, it might have worked. But that person would not be me. I accepted that this is the type of person I am and these are the needs I have. I enjoy a lot of physical affection for example and I want to spend a lot of time with the people I love, especially my partner. These are not insane needs that no one can fulfill, there are millions of people out there who have the same desires in a relationship. Now I could ignore my needs and force myself to be with this person, but for what? Isn’t the reason I want to be with him, because I think he makes me happy? Well if he isn’t meeting my needs, it means I am not happy in this relationship. His needs are not going to change overnight and neither are mine. If I want to be with him, it means I can’t be myself, I can’t be happy. I had to make a choice between my own happiness and this person. I decided my happiness will always be more important than any man.
I had fallen head over heals in love with this man and after the breakup I continued to put him on a pedestal. I had a very selective memory. I only remembered all the times he made me feel beautiful and the deep conversations we had. I remembered how safe he made me feel. But I had “forgotten” all the heartbreaking times I had waited for his call that would never come, or all the times he made me feel unlovable. I was clinging to a fantasy man and a fantasy relationship. I was in love with his potential, with the man I thought he could be. But in reality he wasn’t this man and he didn’t want to be. I had made him into a king and no other man could compare. I had to be honest with myself and take away the crown.
What fantasy image have you created of this person? Are you looking at who they really are, or are you thinking about who they could be and how great the relationship could be. Maybe you are clinging to who this person was at the beginning of the relationship and you hope it will be like that again. But that’s not reality. If you are in love with this person’s potential, you are in love with a fantasy. And fantasies rarely come to life.
5. Rejection is redirection:
At first it was difficult for me to accept the breakup, because I had linked the failed relationship to my worth as a woman. To me the breakup meant I wasn’t pretty enough, my cooking wasn’t good enough and I probably wasn’t funny enough. I had to change myself in order to be worthy. WRONG. Obviously I was young and I had made mistakes, we both had. However I have since come to see that everything happens for a reason, and life will always be changing. Some people are meant to leave your life because their part in your story has come to an end. We are all worthy and no rejection can change that. I became aware that part of the reason this breakup was so painful, was because I had made it mean something painful. I had assigned a totally wrong meaning to the situation. Once I let go of this meaning it was much easier for me to accept the breakup.
What painful meaning have you given to your experience?
Accept that you are going through this, don’t think that this isn’t supposed to happen. Don’t resist the situation. Instead let the experience in. Let the emotions in. It is these tough experiences that build character. It’s these hopeless dark days that will truly make you appreciate the happy days. This too shall pass. Nothing is forever and you will get through this.
2087
titsay
areudirty
stormborns
