It’s Friday night. All of your friends are busy with their partners. You’re tired of watching Netflix. So you’re on your phone scrolling through old pictures.
Damn, do you miss your ex too?
It only takes one text to bring them back into your life. One text.
But before you do it, remember these:
You miss the idea of them — not the past relationship you had with them
“You start normalizing bad things that happened in your past relationship because you focus too much on how much you miss your ex.”
Whenever I think about my ex, I ask myself this question,
“Do I truly miss him? Or just the idea of him?”
Because most of the time when you’re brutally honest with yourself, the latter will be the answer.
You most likely miss the old attachment you have and how good the relationship was — before it turned into a shitty one.
This is also the main reason why people can’t let go of their ex — even after years of calling it off.
They don’t think rationally about why the relationship doesn’t work in the first place.
But they jump right away into the good times and how to think they won’t find someone new that’s as good as their ex. When you’re lonely and in a desperate mode, it’s easier to fall back into old habits.
You start normalizing bad things that happened in your past relationship because you focus too much on how much you miss your ex.
If you think you text your ex on a whim, you might regret it days later.
Sigh.
Unfortunately, that used to be my case. So I’ve done that mistake — you don’t have to.
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The pain from the breakup might hurt like hell but not compared to how badly they’ve treated you before
A couple of years ago I went through the most brutal and painful breakup in my life.
You know, those nonstop crying for weeks and couldn’t give a shit about taking care of yourself type of breakup.
It was so painful that I moved out of the city in the hope of starting fresh. It worked eventually but even at my lowest point, I refused to text or have anything to do with my ex.
The door was closed forever and I made sure I threw away the key.
Some people say it’s not healthy to hold grudges but thinking about how badly my ex treated me was a constant reminder of why I was better off without him.
Your heart might be shattered into pieces, your life might turn into hell and you might not know who you’re for a long time but at least you are no longer begging for your needs.
No one can treat you less than what you deserve.
If you felt unwanted and unappreciated in your past relationship, that’s enough reason to keep going on your own.
You haven’t fully allowed yourself to let go
We all grieve differently.
It doesn’t matter how long it takes for you to truly get over your ex — as long as you aren’t stuck in the same place as a year ago.
Missing your ex can mean so many things.
- Do you still like them?
- Do you want to get back together?
- Or do you just miss them for the sake of old routines?
So instead of focusing too much on the “missing them and wanting to talk to them again”, why not dig deeper into what’s happening inside your heart?
Because when you’ve let go, you no longer have the urge to do “something” whenever you miss your ex.
You just let it pass you and move on with your day.
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You can miss them and not text them
I still miss my ex sometimes — I’m not gonna lie.
On the good days, we got along so well. We laughed ’til we cried over stupid movies.
When you’ve spent that much time with someone, it’s hard not to think about them at least once in a while.
But you can miss them so badly and not do anything about it. You can just sit there with the feeling and let it pass through.
I used to lose control whenever I had a mental breakdown. I reached out to my ex just to see if he is “okay”.
But every time it happened, I felt disappointed in myself because I’d worked so hard on my healing — just to go back to square one.
Most of the items when you leave a bad relationship, things don’t change even after years of not communicating with your ex.
So reaching out to them in the first place is already the worst idea.
So the next time you think of calling or sending them a message, remind yourself of how much better your life has been ever since the breakup and how much work you’ve done to find yourself again.
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This isn’t an article that asks you to be hard on yourself and never think about your ex. Regardless of how bad the breakup was, they’ll cross your mind from time to time.
But what you do about the feeling determines whether you’re actually moving forward with your life.
The relationship’s over for a reason.
Dwelling on your past relationship won’t do any good — instead, it pulls you away from finding someone new who’s a better fit for you.
So do yourself a favor and focus your energy on something else — other than your ex.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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