How to Get Over Someone

Let me start this post by saying that there is no magic formula for getting over anyone. There are countless self-help books, songs, movies and TV shows solely dedicated to how crappy breakups are, and how to get over it.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about breakups. As I’ve shared before, I’ve had some major relationship endings in my life. My divorce, my failed engagement and the breakup of my first true love. Through my divorce, as I’ve alluded to before, I did EVERYTHING you’re not supposed to do with a break-up. I sifted through our shared cell phone plan looking for his phone records. I used my friends’ log-ins to stalk him on Instagram and Facebook. One night, I even parked my car across the street from his house to see if he was home. True stalker status. I’m not proud of it. I’m hesitant to share it. But 8 years ago that was my reality. I come from a family where divorce wasn’t a thing. My parents weren’t divorced and even their parents weren’t divorced. It seemed like something that happened to other people. Until it happened to me. And I was a mess.

Eventually, through the support of literally the best friends and family a person could ask for, and a lot of therapy, I moved on. But not without making a lot of mistakes along the way.

With my next two major breakups, I took what I had learned from my divorce and made better decisions. Not perfect, mind you, but I learned a lot about what not to do.

What follows is a list of things that really helped me move on and make healthy decisions during a breakup.

1: Decide to move on. This is step numero 1 and probably the hardest one. When you break up with someone, you probably go through a period where you wonder if you should/will get back together. This is a normal, natural part of breaking up. But it’s not healthy to wallow in this indefinitely. Especially if the other person is holding firm on their stance to stay broken up.

Decide officially to let go of hope and say goodbye to that relationship

What does it look like to move on? First you have to commit to giving that person a lot of space. Don’t text them, call them or communicate with them in any way. If you’re ending things on a good note, it’s a good idea to express this to them during your break-up talk. Let them know that you won’t be reaching out for a while. It’s called a break-up because it’s a break from each other. I don’t care what TV shows and movies portray – you cannot breakup and then immediately be friends with your ex. It doesn’t work. So make things easier for yourself and commit to keeping your distance.

When my boyfriend in dental school broke up with me after a year of dating, it took me about 7 months to accept that we were never getting back together. Every month I wanted to reach out to him, but knew it wasn’t right. So I would set goals for myself. If I felt like I was really missing him or really wanted to tell him something, I would set a date about 3 weeks in the future and say, “If I still really feel like I want to tell him this in 3 weeks, I will.” And you know what? There was only one time that I actually reached out to him 3 weeks later. Most of the time, we want to reach out to an ex because we really miss them, and we’re used to being in close communication with them. It is natural to want to talk to someone, but ultimately makes it harder to move on. Instead of reaching out to your ex when you’re feeling lonely, or because you want to share something that reminded you of them, call a friend instead. What are friends for, if not to listen to us occasionally sob on the phone about how broken we are about this breakup?

2. Delete them from social media.

Listen up: this is really important. All of the worst things in my life that I’ve found out about (aka that my husband was having an affair, that an ex I truly loved was engaged, that my ex-fiance had a new girlfriend after only a few weeks of being broken up with me) have been through social media.

Don’t. Put. Yourself. Through. This.

Block your ex from everything – Facebook, Instagram, Venmo, LinkedIn – whatever you might use in a moment of weakness to stalk them. Again, if you’re ending on good terms, maybe give the person a heads up. It doesn’t mean you can’t ever follow each other on social media. Heck, I had an ex where we ended things on a good note but only started following each other again 5 years after our break up had ended. At that point, there weren’t any feelings anymore and we could successfully become friends. But there are some exes out there who I will NEVER follow again – either because they are not good humans, or because the breakup was so painful that I still don’t want any of those feelings of loss or longing to come back.

I know that there is that whole movement on social media to “show off what a fun time I’m having/how hot I am while I’m single” while in reality you’re really miserable but hoping that your ex will see you and feel jealous of how well you’re doing. STOP IT. It’s not worth it – believe me, I’ve tried. No amount of regret by an ex is worth my peace of mind. Prioritize yourself! You want to heal! You don’t want to feel crappy and despondent and like you’re never going to find anyone again – right? So don’t torture yourself by social media stalking your ex, or by posting things in hopes that they are stalking you! And if it’s too hard for you to un-follow them, hand your phone over to one of your friends and have them do it.

What if you work with an ex or go to school and have to see them every day? Well that is significantly tougher. I only had to experience that for about 2 months and it was hell. Actually, if anyone who reads this has advice or has been able to successfully navigate through this – will you let me know?

3. Lean into people who care about you.

I’ve said this already, but my breakups have really allowed me to be loved by my friends. If you’re going through a breakup, you’re going to need someone to lean on. Don’t try and hold all of this in yourself.

Lean into to friends and family who are going to lift you up and help carry you through

I’ve had the most amazing friends and family who helped me get through these times. I will actually write about them in more detail on an upcoming post called friendship. But what I will say is that I felt so incredibly loved by people and that made a huge difference in my recovery.

4. Learn to Compartmentalize: I also think I was able to keep perspective after reading a great book by Shauna Niequist called Bittersweet. In that book she says, “How can we expect our friends to cry with us if we can’t celebrate with them?”

I took that message to heart and really tried to be fully present and express joy with my friends as they announced engagements, house-purchases, and babies. I essentially learned to compartmentalize my sadness so that I could go to work, and genuinely be happy for others, all while not denying to myself that I still felt sad about my own situation.

5. Repeat experiences that you used to do as couple, except with other people. This one is really hard. With every relationship comes things that are ‘special’ to the both of you, whether it’s a band you love or a restaurant you used to go to. It’s okay to avoid these songs/places for a little while, but eventually it’s important to stop letting these places, things, and experiences have power over you. It’s kind of like starting to work out if you haven’t in a while. At first, your muscles will be sore and protest – much like how your heart will feel if you go to a John Mayer concert with someone new. But do it once, and the next time it will get easier. These experiences don’t have to hold power over you forever. Take it back! Reclaim it.

Right after I ended my engagement, I flew to Hawaii, where my ex-fiance was from, for a friend’s wedding. Some people could look at that and say, “How could you do that? Didn’t everything remind you of him?” And the answer is, “Yes, a lot of things did remind me of him and it was really painful. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let an ex-fiance hold all of Hawaii hostage for me.” The only way for it to not be painful, was just to straight up go there and experience that pain. And it worked! The next time was not as painful.

Going back to Hawaii – even though that’s where I had shared so many memories with my ex – helped me to create new memories and still enjoy this beautiful place

6. Do things that make you happy.

Sometimes all we want to do is lay in our beds and bawl our eyes out. That’s okay to do. But sometimes we have to go do things that give us a sense of purpose and a glimmer of hope. For me, as I’ve said before, it’s dancing. Dancing makes me feel alive and happy, all the good things. I also feel the same way about swimming. When I get my body to move, its healing to me. Maybe for you it’s yoga. Maybe it’s binge-watching Game of Thrones with your bestie on a Saturday. Whatever it is, try to do something that makes you happy if you know you’ve been in a funk for a few days.

Swimming makes me really happy.

7. Give yourself some frickin’ time.

I know that it feels the loneliest right after a breakup and it can be really tempting to just get back out on the dating sites. Spoiler alert: YOU’RE NOT READY! I’m serious. I know that our society makes it into a thing – but if you literally just broke up with someone you really cared about – 1 month is not enough time to heal or to be ready to fully date someone else. All that will usually end up happening is that you will either a) hurt yourself or b) hurt another person. Both scenarios are selfish on your part. Don’t be selfish. Take time to heal so when you are ready to date, you can truly be ready for it.

Take time to heal before you plunge into something new.

Those are my take-homes from all my failed relationships. It’s not been easy, but through it I’ve learned how to grieve the loss of a relationship while not letting it completely destroy me. Anyone else out there have any tips or been through similar things?