Breaking up sucks. If you are right in the middle of having just lost your partner, then you’ll need no reminding of how difficult just coping with life can be during this tough time. However, having some relationship breakup advice can not only help you cope with the devastation of a separation, but put you squarely on the road to recovery.
Finding Your Way
Ever sort of ‘lost it’ during or right after a break up? When all you can do is feel miserable, barely remember to eat, and the prospect of doing anything like work or socialising feels as remote as scaling everest in your birthday suit? Even if you haven’t been hit quite that badly by a break up, most of us experience a sense of being badly unsettled by a split. The temptation can often be to resort to behavior that provides us short term relief to our emotional pain, sense of loss, and lack of self worth. Its easy to read about how we’re supposed to do things to feel good about ourselves but its all too tempting to hide under a doona and single mindedly devour a family block of chocolate and a bottle of red. So how do we really break through the funk? We’re going to do it in three stages…
Stage 1 – Take a Moment
One of the big obstacles we face during or after a break up is that we become attached to the sense of loss. We focus on the fact that we thought our ex loved us, that we thought we had something good, or we fear we’ll never find it with another. What we’re really talking about here is expectation management. The fact that life hasn’t worked out as we planned it to is one of the things that rocks our world the hardest, especially in the case of an unexpected break up.
So what’s a soul to do? Firstly, its time to accept something. You ready for it?
Life is exactly the way it is meant to be.
I know…sounds wishy washy and a bit flaky right? Just stay with me a moment longer, because what I mean by that is simply this…we can’t change the past. We can’t! Where we are at the moment is exactly where we are supposed to be based on our past decisions and actions (or those of others). There is nothing…nothing we can do to change the past, and no amount of personal anguish will ever change that…ever.
If we can accept that, then it makes it a little bit easier to realize that time spent beating up or feeling sorry for ourselves is pretty much a waste of time and valuable energy. Even if you have reason to believe you contributed to the break up, there are still more constructive ways to focus our energy. We can’t change the past, but we can make amends. Having gained some understanding of that, let’s now look at how we can use that energy.
Stage 2 – Find Some Focus
If we can come to terms with how we came to be where we are, and accept it, what we then can try to do is look to where we are headed. Sometimes we have a pretty big decision to make. Do I want to get my ex back after a break up, or do I want to move on? To answer that question we need to ask ourselves some others, for example:
Was I truly in love with my ex?
Did I do everything I could to make the relationship work? Did they?
Was I partly responsible for the split?
What can I change if we get back together to make sure it works?
There will be other questions of course, but the last two are pretty important. If we’re going to consider getting back the ex, it helps if we believe that we can do something to prevent the cause of the original break up. If we can’t, perhaps we need to consider whether our own lives might be better by simply moving on.
Step 3 – Having A Purpose
Whether we decide we want our ex back, or whether we accept its time to move on, its important to have a sense of purpose. It helps to have a goal in mind so that we can then move towards achieving that goal. It also helps to have a plan. If we’re looking to get our ex back, it might involve getting back in contact with them, with a view to convincing them to take us back. If we’re looking to move on, it might be a plan of self improvement, hitting the gym, resuming contact with old friends.
Whatever the goal is, taking it one step at a time is key. Having a long term purpose but acknowledging each of our successes along the way can help us not become disparaged or falling back into the post break-up funk. Don’t be afraid to seek the support of friends or more realtionship breakup advice from professionals. There is a wealth of resources available to you, hopefully some within these pages.