How to get over an ex thats with someone else?

[donelly1]

Yeah I still feel like blocking her might not be best though because I feel like she is gonna get upset and then probably call me or something. Its probably best if I just leave it and just really cut back on using facebook. The picture did hurt but then again I expected it so it wasnt a huge surprise. At least I will never hear about her "status" updates and stuff since I de friended her.

 

I guess it is all up now to just waiting it out! Today though I got a short message from my ex. It was just a friendly message and she told me a short story about a mutual friend of ours. It just confuses the hell out of me why out of blue she would send this message. I feel like she wants to become friends. I remember specifically telling her on the phone 2 weeks ago though that after everything we went through, that I couldnt be friends with her until a long time. It confuses me that after the last month and a half of being broken up and barely talking she sends me an email like nothing ever happend and being all friendly...

 

Im not sure what her angle is if she is just trying to get a response out of me, maybe wanting me to be friendly towards her so she doesnt feel as guilty, or what. Realistically who cares what she is thinking because shes not the same person I knew before. Im just gonna leave it and not respond. It is surprising though how after more than a month of NC now she called me and sent me an email. I know though I just gotta leave it and cant engage her because it would just be playing into the game and I wanna move on. Im most definilty not over her still...

 

Yeah radio darcy that is pretty much the same feeling I often have to. Its just like this weight in my stomach when i think about her. It does seem to happen less though now. Thats good to hear that you are doing better after a couple months of not talking to your ex! Great job avoiding contact with him. Thats also interesting about the vegetarian thing. I think it is important to develop new interest and hobbies. I started gardening a little bit but I have to say Im not great at it! haha

 

Im interested to hear from others. About how long did it take you to get over your first long term relationship???

[PelicanPete]

 

Im interested to hear from others. About how long did it take you to get over your first long term relationship???

 

It took me about two and a half months to accept that she left/cheated on me with another guy, and about 3 months after that to become indifferent towards her. We were together for ~4 years.

 

I went full NC a month after the breakup. The main goal I felt to moving on was getting to the core reasons of why I was feeling depressed. Through beginning to identify my emotions I was able to get an idea of her real motivations towards her actions. It's really hard to think rationally when your heart broken because you still have the mindset of a victim. The sooner you get rid of the "pity me" attitude and accepting reality, the sooner you're able to move on.

 

I was able to stop feeling like a victim and starting to understand things better by going over the break up with other people (like LS), writing out the break up many times in different ways, and reading/helping other people with their relationship problems to apply that knowledge to my own break up. In the beginning when you're going over what happened, it's filled with heart ache and bitterness. The more you tell the story in different ways and examine it from different angles, the less meaningful it becomes to you. It's the same psychology as listening to one song on loop, eventually you're going to get tired of it and want to move on.

 

If you let it happen you will soon start to learn a lot, not only about the break up but about yourself. The more you go over what happened by admitting your mistakes and identifying why you are in pain, the more you'll understand about yourself, why it happened, and your ex's behavior. All of this makes it a lot more bearable to move to the next chapter in your life. If you're reading a book and you don't understand a point in the story, it makes it difficult to understand the rest of the book. Breakups seem to follow the same philosophy. Once you understand why it happened, there is nothing left to hold on to.

 

When you achieve understanding, you probably won't see your ex as that horrible person you saw when it first happened. By going over the story so many times, you are probably able to gain some insight from her point of view and maybe even understand why she did it. It takes more effort to hold negativity towards them at this point, you may even feel sorry for them. After all, people who hurt others are in pain themselves. When your at this phase, you'll find it much easier to let go and move on.

 

You'll come across little reminders of them after letting go, and they won't hold that much emotion. It will be easy to just let them float past in your head, maybe even smile at the fond memories, and move on with the rest of your day.

[melenkurion]

 

I was able to stop feeling like a victim and starting to understand things better by going over the break up with other people (like LS), writing out the break up many times in different ways, and reading/helping other people with their relationship problems to apply that knowledge to my own break up. In the beginning when you're going over what happened, it's filled with heart ache and bitterness. The more you tell the story in different ways and examine it from different angles, the less meaningful it becomes to you. It's the same psychology as listening to one song on loop, eventually you're going to get tired of it and want to move on.

 

If you let it happen you will soon start to learn a lot, not only about the break up but about yourself. The more you go over what happened by admitting your mistakes and identifying why you are in pain, the more you'll understand about yourself, why it happened, and your ex's behavior. All of this makes it a lot more bearable to move to the next chapter in your life. If you're reading a book and you don't understand a point in the story, it makes it difficult to understand the rest of the book. Breakups seem to follow the same philosophy. Once you understand why it happened, there is nothing left to hold on to.

 

When you achieve understanding, you probably won't see your ex as that horrible person you saw when it first happened. By going over the story so many times, you are probably able to gain some insight from her point of view and maybe even understand why she did it. It takes more effort to hold negativity towards them at this point, you may even feel sorry for them. After all, people who hurt others are in pain themselves. When your at this phase, you'll find it much easier to let go and move on.

 

You'll come across little reminders of them after letting go, and they won't hold that much emotion. It will be easy to just let them float past in your head, maybe even smile at the fond memories, and move on with the rest of your day.

 

Blimey. That's quite profound Pelican Pete. I'd never heard of that technique before (telling the breakup in slightly different ways). It fits in with some of Elizabeth Loftus' ideas on memory, maybe? Basically, she believes that every time a memory is recalled, it can be subtly altered depending on your state of mind at the time of recall. In other words, recalling a memory is more like opening a document than viewing one. AFAIK, the emotional pain often gets stored right along with all the other more obvious elements of a memory (the sights, the sounds, the scents). By "opening up the memory" in this way, perhaps you are able to lesson the impact of the "stored pain".

 

Your story sounds similar to mine, but you seem to have come a long way.

[PelicanPete]

Blimey. That's quite profound Pelican Pete. I'd never heard of that technique before (telling the breakup in slightly different ways). It fits in with some of Elizabeth Loftus' ideas on memory, maybe? Basically, she believes that every time a memory is recalled, it can be subtly altered depending on your state of mind at the time of recall. In other words, recalling a memory is more like opening a document than viewing one. AFAIK, the emotional pain often gets stored right along with all the other more obvious elements of a memory (the sights, the sounds, the scents). By "opening up the memory" in this way, perhaps you are able to lesson the impact of the "stored pain".

 

Your story sounds similar to mine, but you seem to have come a long way.

 

I haven't come across any of Loftus' work yet, but I will now have to read up on her! My influence was more along the lines of Freuds "talking cure" which he used for psychoanalysis to treat hysteria. An example of one of his cases with "Anna O": http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/freud.html

 

What I did kind of follows the same guidelines. Using different words when describing/writing the break up will unlock different ideas and perceptions about the event. Each word holds its own perception. For example you get a different idea when you hear "happy" compared to "blissful", but they still have the same core idea. By describing it in every way you can think of, it causes you to get over the pain of your break up a lot faster, because you have opened as many doors as you can think of to filter your heart ache out instead of just one. Instead of seeing it one sided, one idea, one perception, you'll eventually see it from multiple.

 

Think of a relationship as a glass full of water. When a break up occurs that glass starts to leak, and all of your feelings towards that person start to slowly drip away. Some people ignore it, try to cover it up, or fix it, but if you never look beyond that one leak, it will take forever for that whole glass to be empty. By examining the cup you may find multiple weak spots in the glass. When you let yourself understand why those spots are weak, water will begin to pour from them. The emotions you held towards that person will exit a lot faster through multiple points rather then just one, and soon all that you'll have left is an empty glass. When the glass is empty, you'll know which points to strengthen without making a mess, so hopefully next time you won't have any leaks.

[radiodarcy]

It took me about two and a half months to accept that she left/cheated on me with another guy, and about 3 months after that to become indifferent towards her. We were together for ~4 years.

 

I went full NC a month after the breakup. The main goal I felt to moving on was getting to the core reasons of why I was feeling depressed. Through beginning to identify my emotions I was able to get an idea of her real motivations towards her actions. It's really hard to think rationally when your heart broken because you still have the mindset of a victim. The sooner you get rid of the "pity me" attitude and accepting reality, the sooner you're able to move on.

 

I was able to stop feeling like a victim and starting to understand things better by going over the break up with other people (like LS), writing out the break up many times in different ways, and reading/helping other people with their relationship problems to apply that knowledge to my own break up. In the beginning when you're going over what happened, it's filled with heart ache and bitterness. The more you tell the story in different ways and examine it from different angles, the less meaningful it becomes to you. It's the same psychology as listening to one song on loop, eventually you're going to get tired of it and want to move on.

 

If you let it happen you will soon start to learn a lot, not only about the break up but about yourself. The more you go over what happened by admitting your mistakes and identifying why you are in pain, the more you'll understand about yourself, why it happened, and your ex's behavior. All of this makes it a lot more bearable to move to the next chapter in your life. If you're reading a book and you don't understand a point in the story, it makes it difficult to understand the rest of the book. Breakups seem to follow the same philosophy. Once you understand why it happened, there is nothing left to hold on to.

 

When you achieve understanding, you probably won't see your ex as that horrible person you saw when it first happened. By going over the story so many times, you are probably able to gain some insight from her point of view and maybe even understand why she did it. It takes more effort to hold negativity towards them at this point, you may even feel sorry for them. After all, people who hurt others are in pain themselves. When your at this phase, you'll find it much easier to let go and move on.

 

You'll come across little reminders of them after letting go, and they won't hold that much emotion. It will be easy to just let them float past in your head, maybe even smile at the fond memories, and move on with the rest of your day.

 

you know i have a tendency to do the same thing! before if found LS i used to journal about the relationship/breakup all the time - - looking at it from different angles, etc. a friend of mine told me i needed to stop and just let it go. but i for one can't just simply let something go cold turkey. moving on is a process and looking at the b/u from different is part of that process for me. so in essence - - i *am* letting go.

 

case in point my ex and i used to work together (that was how we started hanging out). I now work for another company across the street and he works in a another town altogether. anyway, yesterday i had to drop my laptop off with IT. i had about four hours to kill so i decided to walk across the street to where we used to work and literally take a stroll down memory lane. it was eerie. and even though i started to get those butterflies in my stomach and the wheels started turning and fueling that old familiar desire to reach out and contact him "one last time", i was able to temper that old pull by reminding myself that the gold old days weren't always so good. and how even back then, he had started becoming distant. going from contacting me and asking me to take a walk, get lunch, hang out every day; to treating me like i didn't exist the next. as many good memories as that place held, there were a lot of bad ones as well. but at the same time, i didn't feel the usual bitterness either. sure i still have some anger left. but walking around the old stomping grounds reminded me that he does have his good points too. that he's human just as i am. and that he most likely didn't want things to end on the note that they did. i really do wish we could have kept things as friends. but unfortunately too much has happened for that to happen anytime soon.

[donelly1]

well my life has officially become a country song! I got fired yesterday. So now I flew over to a foriegn country been here 2 months and currently Im unemployed.

 

I was trying my best but I guess it just didnt cut it. I was fired because I provided "inadequate" lessons but the truth is I never recieved the training and have only done this a total of 2 monhts now. I had a toxic boss though. He was emotionally abusive perfectionist and extremely difficult to work with so in a way I actually feel happy about getting fired as odd as it may sound.

 

Im not sure what to do now. Really takes my mind off my ex though getting fired for what that is worth...

[radiodarcy]

oh man! donelley, i'm really sorry to hear that! but as you said it doesn't sound like that job was a good fit for you and it's good that you see it that way. also, like you said - - this will give you a chance to re-asses your priorities regarding the break up and focus on you. not sure if you've seen it but there's another thread here on loveshack called business and professional relationships; which offers advice on job seeking and of course - - allow you to vent about this as well...

 

good luck...

[donelly1]

Recently my ex contacted via my house phone. I was doing so well forgetting about her! It was almost a month since I last heard from her, and about 3 months since the break up.

 

One the phone she was saying how she regreted the last 3 months and how she wanted to get back together and so on... I wasnt sure what to say but after everything that is happend Im not sure I could be back together with her. She wanted to meet up and talk about it, and I said maybe I could meet up with her. The part that confuses me though is that I have not heard from her at all since that phone call and its been about 5 days now...

 

I recieved a number of unknown calls when I was at work that might have been her but she knows I have work and cant answer calls so it seems like she would try a different way if she wanted to get ahold of me.

 

Im not sure what to do. Friends of mine here have told me not to meet up with her and just move on. That probably is the best route but there is part of me that wants to be with her still... I guess Im not totally over her yet, and now that she is talking about getting together its changing things again...

[dreamscape123]

Its an old thread, but just wondered how things are going now? Also just broken up with an ex of about 2 years too, i was her first love, and everything that involves. She ends it, and is seeing a new guy within a week or two as well.. Almost the same as you.. The thoughts of them together makes me feel ill too... I also dont understand how she can just go to someone else straight away.. What about the two very very recent years of us? The wonderful times we spent together, and how can she just forget all that and go off with someone else...?? Hurts and makes no sense to me dispite the good advice i have recieved on here. I hope in a few months i can pass this experience on to other people on here and tell them it does get better, but that is so hard to see.

[guccimane99]

I'll tell you guys its sucks but being on the other end i can see clearly now. Its hard to admit that she wants him over me seeing as everyone says hes a scumbag and ugly, while everyone just questions it. I look back and say its not about looks or whose got a brighter future or whose better to her. Its truly what she wants and what she needs. I know she doesnt need me and i know i dont need her. She left me when i need her the most and then she trashes me when i was just a good bf. Yes, i will admit i was clingly but that was because i liked her and love the feelings i got when being with her, and no it wasnt a drug its was a great happiness i felt. She broke up with me then two weeks later my gma was in the hospital and i hadnt spoken to her in 2 year because of a family falling out. She abandonded me and as much as i forgive her that i wont ever be able to forgive, but at the end of the day just be u. I have learned we will love and lose, but in the end we will overcome it and be happy with just being us. As a dumpee i have hits lows and done terrible things, but i can say that when its over its over. They gave up on you not the other way around they could have discussed the problems an example would be; "hey ______ we need to talk there are things that upset me that you do such as ______,_____." Thats so easy its all about communication i just dont understand i have dumped someone before and talked with them then did it. Therefore, i couldnt say i didnt try and i still look back from time to time. I will tell you i will never talk down upon anyone i have dated because at one time she made me happy and i made her happy. That is what life is about happiness and living ur life to the fullest.