How To Get Over Your Ex
One simple way to put heartbreak behind you
You’re happily ever after met an untimely demise. Your heart is squashed, your mind distracted and you’re unable to move on. Even though you desperately want to.
As a relationship columnist, I hear the same question again and again.
“How do I get over my ex?”
Usually, by the time you ask this, your head is gaining traction over your heart.
You can acknowledge the love you left behind was unhealthy.
You understand the relationship hadn’t been working.
Perhaps you tolerated continually bad behavior. Or you experienced the same arguments without resolution. Maybe someone hurt you and you realize you didn’t deserve to be cheated on, neglected, abused, or mistreated.
Or maybe neither of you had been happy for some time.
But nonetheless, you miss love.
This person still consumes your thoughts.
For many reasons.
The shared history, the ‘good’ memories, the length of the relationship, the loss of letting go of what might have been, and the emotional grief. All of which is very real. It deserves to be addressed, acknowledged, and gently bid farewell.
Relationship grief is excruciatingly painful.
It’s a cycle and needs to run the course of loss.
Once it has, healing should begin.
But what if it doesn’t?
How do you get over your ex?
It’s simpler than you would think.
More than likely, it’s not your ex that’s preventing you from getting over them. It’s you who is preventing yourself from moving on.
Because you haven’t allowed reality to catch up with fantasy.
It’s not the ex you can’t get over.
It’s the person you wanted them to be. The one you wanted to believe in. The individual you continually chose to see the best in, again and again.The one you were undeniably loyal to and never gave up on.
It’s the rose-colored glasses brigade.
But that person doesn’t exist.
They showed you that.
It’s why the relationship ended.
They weren’t the person you believed them to be. They didn’t return your undying, put upon a pedestal, love of your life devotion. They disappointed you.
They don’t deserve your excuses nor space in your heart.
They didn’t value you.
If you really want to get over your ex…
You need to allow reality to replace fantasy.
And let go of who you hope and want this person to be.
Relationships falter for a reason.
It’s usually because the environment isn’t healthy enough for love to prosper. But we remain because love can blind us and our own personalities can further impair our vision.
And more often than not, long before that relationship ends, only one person is trying desperately to revive it. If both cared enough, the relationship might actually survive.
Instead, it’s the emotional Yin and yang.
The believer and the quitter.
Even when the head is finally gaining traction over the heart.
The believer hangs on, it’s who you are.
It’s not the ex you can’t get over.
It’s who you are romanticizing them to be.
