9 Things You Shouldn't do After a Breakup

What I learned from my experience

The end of a relationship can break us. I have seen it crush the toughest O.Gs. The loss can make a person feel different kinds of emotions, and like most of us, I have been there a few times myself. It is hard to let go, but we learn to get through it. None of these break-ups stings like the first one, the very first heartache. When our minds finally process the change in paradigm, the realization makes us hit rock bottom. The loneliness then stirs up the doubts making us regret everything, and then, the fear kicks in, doubting our ability to ever find love again.

Pain can accompany even mutual break-ups caused by a necessary end. While many of us might feel relieved to see an unsatisfying relationship take its last gasp, some of us may feel acute pain when forced to acknowledge that the relationship has run its course. It will not matter how valid the reasons are when our assumptions and beliefs about the future of the relationship are ending with it.

As we mature through the pain and suffering, we learn how to get back on track. Still, love is complicated, and we tend to make mistakes now and then. We fear that we have ruined our last shot at true love. So, we over-analyze everything. But, soon enough, we get our closure and decide to get back in the game.

The most important thing when you decide to start dating again is being honest with yourself, making sure that you are ready. Ready to go out with someone new, and most importantly, you are not hung up on your ex. If you are, then not only it will mess up your process of moving on but also break an innocent heart.

If you wish to find love and fill your heart with new feelings and your brains with new memories, it’s necessary to let go of the old ones to make room for the new. It’s challenging to find something new if your thoughts, fantasies, and heart are engaged elsewhere.

“To have the relationship you desire, you need to put off the old fire.”

If you are still not sure about being hung up on your ex and how to move on, then these pointers will help you figure it out. The 9 things that you shouldn’t do after a breakup.

1. Getting Mad At Your Friends

An obvious one. More often, our friends will be the first to know. Even if I don’t tell them, they know. They can see right through me. After all, most of them have known me for a long time. It’s hard for anyone to admit that they are still hung up on their ex. So, I got angry and upset when my friend called me out on it.

If you are doing the same thing, and constantly trying to convince your friends that you are really, really really, really really really over him/her, the chances are that you are not. You are just trying to convince yourself.

Avoid doing that, or you might regret it later.

2. Not Letting the Little Things go

Sometimes a familiar smell of a particular perfume reminds us of our past. It can be anything, maybe a movie you once watched with him/her. Anything remotely related to our ex makes us go into the relationship flashbacks. This is not because the universe keeps shoving those reminders in our faces. It’s because it is already on our minds, and now we can no longer picture the world without the fragment of our memories.

No, it is not pathetic. It is just the aftermath of a rough breakup. But you have to understand that this can not be your everyday life. You should not be this miserable. And if you are still going through the same, it means that you are not over your ex.

If you are starting to notice this more often, it is time for you to move on. Some concentrate on their work, but my experience has been dissatisfying. Don’t stress yourself. Keeping busy with your career might help you distract your mind for a brief amount of time, but it won’t help you move on. It is all about the timing.

It might be difficult for you to get over your breakup when it is fresh. Give it time. Explore new things and distract your mind. Take on a hobby, something that interests you. Go out with your friends. Keep yourself busy and most importantly, happy.

3. Do Not Stalk Your Ex

Everybody does it. It’s pretty normal to check your past boyfriends or girlfriends on social media once in a while. After all, they were a big part of your life, and it’s quite normal to be curious about their lives. But there is a fine line, anyone can cross it unknowingly if they are not over the relationship.

Analyzing the post, who is liking it, who is commenting, who they tagged. Monitoring your ex’s accounts like Facebook & Instagram, who follows whom. The worst one is checking out the person’s profile who liked and left a comment on one of the posts. Trust me, you will feel disgusted later when you realize how obsessed you were.

If you find yourself doing this, you are definitely not over your breakup. You need to stop. Unfollow your ex from every account you were stalking him/her from or just uninstall social media apps for a while. Read some books or listen to music, I can confirm this based on a personal experience, singing along to emo-songs will make you feel much better. Take a break from social media and you will be fine.

4. Do not Stage a Surprise Run-in

If you both work together, are in the same university or you live in the same building, campus, or city as your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend, the accidental run-ins are going to happen. Spending time together can develop the same habits and likings. You might end up going to the same party, restaurant, or coffee shop. It’s normal. It might be awkward for you two, but it’s a normal phenomenon.

But, it also leaves you with a privilege to anticipate his/her daily activity. Your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend is not going to relocate or find a new cafe to drink coffee just because you two broke up. So it leaves a chance to stage an “It’s a surprise to see you here” run-in. If you wait for your ex to come in and then “accidentally” run into him/her, whatever scenario you plan, is stalking. Also, they know it wasn’t a surprise. You might think that this will make your ex miss you and you two will get back together. But no, it will mess with your feelings even more.

You need closure, and just like stalking on social media platforms, this will make you regret the decision.

5. Stop Comparing

It’s not easy to find love after you break up with someone you thought was “the one”. You constantly doubt yourself if you are capable of finding love again. Just like the one, you once had. While it is in our nature to observe similarities and differences between people. It’s not appropriate to compare the one you just met to your ex.

When you compare every little detail of someone you just met to your ex, you are trying to find someone just like them. And that my friend, is a clear sign that you are not over your breakup yet. If the girl or boy you just met doesn’t excite you in the slightest, you’re definitely not over your ex.

You should understand this simple fact that even if you are successful in finding someone just like your ex, you are repeating your past, just with a different partner. Your past shouldn’t be the benchmark you measure others with.

Keep in mind their good qualities but don’t make it an expectation. If the break-up is fresh, not having eyes for someone new is quite normal. But, if it’s been months since your relationship ended, it might be time to let go of the personality you fell in love with and find a new one that will excite you once again.

6. Get Rid of Their Stuff

This is a classic “holding on to whatever is left” example of not moving on. Keeping those pictures on your phone, looking at them when you miss your ex-girlfriend/boyfriend. Being extremely sentimental over relationship baubles that you keep lying around in the house. Not being able to let go of the stuff they bought for you as gifts. All these things are not going to help you move on.

You shouldn’t do this to yourself, get rid of them. If you don’t want to give it back or throw it away, store it somewhere out of your reach. Those souvenirs are just going to keep triggering the memories you are trying to move on from.

7. Not Letting Your Friends Help

When you are on a date with a new person, it’s a good decision to let them know that you just got out of a relationship. It might be okay to reply to her/his questions like, “why did it end?” and “how long it’s been?”. Only if your date asks about it.

But, when you keep on talking about your past relationship, you are letting your date know how miserable you are. For anyone, it is a red flag and will scare them off. What could have been something amazing, will never happen. The same goes for your friends. At first, your friends will be understanding, but after a while, it will start to get on their nerves. If that’s the case, it means you’re thinking about your past constantly.

That constant thinking will ruin your fun night-outs with friends. When your attempts to enjoy the time might turn into a therapy session with your friends. You may end up having a bad trip or worse, you will end up texting/calling the one person you are not supposed to.

Partying and drinking to distract yourself will only work for a little while. Sooner or later your true feelings will come back. So, do not ignore your grief, deal with it on your level first. Try to overcome them rather than just sharing them with others and staying in the same phase. Sharing your feelings is not a bad thing, but not letting others help you overcome the same, is.

8. Stop Sending them Indirect Messages

Stop posting those passive-aggressive posts on those social media platforms, when you know that your ex-partner is still following you. Some of us post quotes about love lost and some may try to show how amazing their life is without their ex. Maybe you try to make them jealous by posting pictures of you with other boys/girls.

This is just another way of letting them know that breaking up with you was a mistake. You just still want them to care about you and your life. Whatever you do, it’s clearly just a play to get a reaction out of them and make them miss you.

If this is you, uninstalling those social media apps might be a good idea. Remember this, she/he does care about you and your life. The breakup is tough on them too. You might not be together now, doesn’t mean you don’t care about each other.

9. Don’t bottle up, get through it

It takes time to move on completely. Everyone has their own process to achieve so. Some take a couple of months, and for some, it takes a year. During the process, anything you come up with might not work. No matter what you do, the pain might still be there. You can’t shake it off easily. You might feel it every time you remember them.

Do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself first. Feeling hurt is not a bad thing, it’s necessary. Don’t avoid the pain, it’s not healthy to bottle it up. Express it, live through it. You will be fine once you are through.

Final Thoughts

Relationships do not break in a day. It troubles for over a few weeks or sometimes years. It simply means that the relationship with your ex wasn’t working. Now you can move on to something that will work, with the help of your past experience. When one door closes, another one opens.

You had your chance with him/her. If you gave your 100% to that relationship, you can’t do anything more. If you messed up, you will learn from your mistakes and won’t do it with the next one. The thing is, One way or another, you have to accept the fact that the relationship is over, and if you want this to ever work again, you need to let it go for now.

Just remember, whatever happens, Life Goes On.