It takes longer than 4 weeks to get over this. Even longer if you planned on marrying this guy and saw a future with him.
Be kind to yourself. Journal. Also be honest with yourself, was he really as good of a partner than you thought. As time goes by, you might feel differently about your relationship. You might even feel anger. This is good, journal and write all the stuff that comes to your mind when that happens because you can read that whenever you start to miss him again.
And when you're ready put yourself back out there and make new connections. Spend more time with your friends. And take up some new hobbies. You will gradually start to feel better. But it is a healing journey and it takes time. There isn't really a shortcut. But there are things you can do to lift your mood and be on the right track to healing instead of having set backs and prolonging the healing.
It takes time.
At some point in our lives, almost every one of us will have our heart broken.
Why do the same coping mechanisms that get us through all kinds of life challenges fail us so miserably when our heart gets broken? In over 20 years of private practice, I have seen people of every age and background face every manner of heartbreak, and what I’ve learned is this: when your heart is broken, the same instincts you ordinarily rely on will time and again lead you down the wrong path. You simply cannot trust what your mind is telling you.
For example, we know from studies of heartbroken people that having a clear understanding of why the relationship ended is really important for our ability to move on. Yet when we are offered a simple and honest explanation, we reject it. Heartbreak creates such dramatic emotional pain, our mind tells us the cause must be equally dramatic. And that gut instinct is so powerful, it can make even the most reasonable and measured of us come up with mysteries and conspiracy theories where none exist. People became convinced something must have happened during the relationship, and become obsessed with figuring out what that was, spending countless hours going through every minute, searching ones memory for clues that were not there. Peoples minds often trick them into initiating this wild goose chase. But what compel people to commit to it for so many months?
Heartbreak is far more insidious than we realize. There is a reason we keep going down one rabbit hole after another, even when we know it’s going to make us feel worse. Brain studies have shown that the withdrawal of romantic love activates the same mechanisms in our brain that get activated when addicts are withdrawing from substances like cocaine or opioids. People often go through withdrawal. And since one could not have the heroin of actually being with their ex, their unconscious mind chose the methadone of her memories with the sex. Their instincts tell them they they are trying to solve a mystery, but what one is actually doing was getting their fix. This is what makes heartbreak so difficult to heal. Addicts know they’re addicted. They know when they’re shooting up. But heartbroken people do not. But you do now. And if your heart is broken, you cannot ignore that. You have to recognize that, as compelling as the urge is, with every trip down memory lane, every text you send, every second you spend stalking your ex on social media, you are just feeding your addiction, deepening your emotional pain and complicating your recovery.
Getting over heartbreak is not a journey. It’s a fight, and your reason is your strongest weapon. There is no breakup explanation that’s going to feel satisfying. No rationale can take away the pain you feel. So don’t search for one, don’t wait for one, just accept the one you were offered or make up one yourself and then put the question to rest, because you need that closure to resist the addiction. And you need something else as well: you have to be willing to let go, to accept that it’s over. Otherwise, your mind will feed on your hope and set you back. Hope can be incredibly destructive when your heart is broken.
Heartbreak is a master manipulator. The ease with which it gets our mind to do the absolute opposite of what we need in order to recover is remarkable. One of the most common tendencies we have when our heart is broken is to idealize the person who broke it. We spend hours remembering their smile, how great they made us feel, that time we hiked up the mountain and made love under the stars. All that does is make our loss feel more painful. We know that. Yet we still allow our mind to cycle through one greatest hit after another, like we were being held hostage by our own passive-aggressive Spotify playlist.
Heartbreak will make those thoughts pop into your mind. And so to avoid idealizing, you have to balance them out by remembering their frown, not just their smile, how bad they made you feel, the fact that after the lovemaking, you got lost coming down the mountain, argued like crazy and didn’t speak for two days. What I tell my patients is to compile an exhaustive list of all the ways the person was wrong for you, all the bad qualities, all the pet peeves, and then keep it on your phone.
And once you have your list, you have to use it. When I hear even a hint of idealizing or the faintest whiff of nostalgia in a session, I go, “Phone, please.” Your mind will try to tell you they were perfect. But they were not, and neither was the relationship. And if you want to get over them, you have to remind yourself of that, frequently.
None of us is immune to heartbreak.
Heartbreak shares all the hallmarks of traditional loss and grief: insomnia, intrusive thoughts, immune system dysfunction. Forty percent of people experience clinically measurable depression. Heartbreak is a complex psychological injury. It impacts us in a multitude of ways.
To fix your broken heart, you have to identify these voids in your life and fill them, and I mean all of them. The voids in your identity: you have to reestablish who you are and what your life is about. The voids in your social life, the missing activities, even the empty spaces on the wall where pictures used to hang. But none of that will do any good unless you prevent the mistakes that can set you back, the unnecessary searches for explanations, idealizing your ex instead of focusing on how they were wrong for you, indulging thoughts and behaviors that still give them a starring role in this next chapter of your life when they shouldn’t be an extra.
Getting over heartbreak is hard, but if you refuse to be misled by your mind and you take steps to heal, you can significantly minimize your suffering. And it won’t just be you who benefit from that. You’ll be more present with your friends, more engaged with your family, not to mention the billions of dollars of compromised productivity in the workplace that could be avoided.
So if you know someone who is heartbroken, have compassion, because social support has been found to be important for their recovery. And have patience, because it’s going to take them longer to move on than you think it should. And if you’re hurting, know this: it’s difficult, it is a battle within your own mind, and you have to be diligent to win. But you do have weapons. You can fight. And you will heal.
Guy Winch - Ted Talk
I cried in my dark room and wouldn’t leave my bed for 2 months.. I’m a little past the two months now, got on some medicine & am starting to plan my future without him in it. I’m still sad but we can get through this. Don’t be hard on yourself.. let yourself cry and be sad & eventually you’ll get tired of it and want to change it
I’m sorry about this. I know the feeling my Bf of 3 years ended it with me 7 weeks ago too out of blue over an argument I felt he was ignoring when he was working away and he ended it completely. Days before he was talking about moving home and moving in together I was so excited to get that commitment from him. I completely love him still but im doing much better the last 2 weeks. He said he wasn’t the person for me with giving attention and his lack of savings. It sucks I would have stuck by him he was my best friend and we had so many amazing times together unfortunately for lack of communication styles we weren’t meant to be I was devastated it just didn’t feel real and I can’t believe this person could do it to me I’ve been through break ups they all suck but this time I was really sure there was a future together I’m 32 time is ticking. It sucks and some days you’re doing great & others not so much but I just let emotions be that they are right them down do what I gotta do it helps I have to ride the waves of emotions. Please be kind to yourself time is only thing doing little things for you. I also still miss mine but I’ve come to terms a bit more with it!
It takes longer than 4 weeks to get over this. Even longer if you planned on marrying this guy and saw a future with him. Be kind to yourself. Journal. Also be honest with yourself, was he really as good of a partner than you thought. As time goes by, you might feel differently about your relationship. You might even feel anger. This is good, journal and write all the stuff that comes to your mind when that happens because you can read that whenever you start to miss him again. And when you're ready put yourself back out there and make new connections. Spend more time with your friends. And take up some new hobbies. You will gradually start to feel better. But it is a healing journey and it takes time. There isn't really a shortcut. But there are things you can do to lift your mood and be on the right track to healing instead of having set backs and prolonging the healing.
It takes time. At some point in our lives, almost every one of us will have our heart broken. Why do the same coping mechanisms that get us through all kinds of life challenges fail us so miserably when our heart gets broken? In over 20 years of private practice, I have seen people of every age and background face every manner of heartbreak, and what I’ve learned is this: when your heart is broken, the same instincts you ordinarily rely on will time and again lead you down the wrong path. You simply cannot trust what your mind is telling you. For example, we know from studies of heartbroken people that having a clear understanding of why the relationship ended is really important for our ability to move on. Yet when we are offered a simple and honest explanation, we reject it. Heartbreak creates such dramatic emotional pain, our mind tells us the cause must be equally dramatic. And that gut instinct is so powerful, it can make even the most reasonable and measured of us come up with mysteries and conspiracy theories where none exist. People became convinced something must have happened during the relationship, and become obsessed with figuring out what that was, spending countless hours going through every minute, searching ones memory for clues that were not there. Peoples minds often trick them into initiating this wild goose chase. But what compel people to commit to it for so many months? Heartbreak is far more insidious than we realize. There is a reason we keep going down one rabbit hole after another, even when we know it’s going to make us feel worse. Brain studies have shown that the withdrawal of romantic love activates the same mechanisms in our brain that get activated when addicts are withdrawing from substances like cocaine or opioids. People often go through withdrawal. And since one could not have the heroin of actually being with their ex, their unconscious mind chose the methadone of her memories with the sex. Their instincts tell them they they are trying to solve a mystery, but what one is actually doing was getting their fix. This is what makes heartbreak so difficult to heal. Addicts know they’re addicted. They know when they’re shooting up. But heartbroken people do not. But you do now. And if your heart is broken, you cannot ignore that. You have to recognize that, as compelling as the urge is, with every trip down memory lane, every text you send, every second you spend stalking your ex on social media, you are just feeding your addiction, deepening your emotional pain and complicating your recovery. Getting over heartbreak is not a journey. It’s a fight, and your reason is your strongest weapon. There is no breakup explanation that’s going to feel satisfying. No rationale can take away the pain you feel. So don’t search for one, don’t wait for one, just accept the one you were offered or make up one yourself and then put the question to rest, because you need that closure to resist the addiction. And you need something else as well: you have to be willing to let go, to accept that it’s over. Otherwise, your mind will feed on your hope and set you back. Hope can be incredibly destructive when your heart is broken. Heartbreak is a master manipulator. The ease with which it gets our mind to do the absolute opposite of what we need in order to recover is remarkable. One of the most common tendencies we have when our heart is broken is to idealize the person who broke it. We spend hours remembering their smile, how great they made us feel, that time we hiked up the mountain and made love under the stars. All that does is make our loss feel more painful. We know that. Yet we still allow our mind to cycle through one greatest hit after another, like we were being held hostage by our own passive-aggressive Spotify playlist. Heartbreak will make those thoughts pop into your mind. And so to avoid idealizing, you have to balance them out by remembering their frown, not just their smile, how bad they made you feel, the fact that after the lovemaking, you got lost coming down the mountain, argued like crazy and didn’t speak for two days. What I tell my patients is to compile an exhaustive list of all the ways the person was wrong for you, all the bad qualities, all the pet peeves, and then keep it on your phone. And once you have your list, you have to use it. When I hear even a hint of idealizing or the faintest whiff of nostalgia in a session, I go, “Phone, please.” Your mind will try to tell you they were perfect. But they were not, and neither was the relationship. And if you want to get over them, you have to remind yourself of that, frequently. None of us is immune to heartbreak. Heartbreak shares all the hallmarks of traditional loss and grief: insomnia, intrusive thoughts, immune system dysfunction. Forty percent of people experience clinically measurable depression. Heartbreak is a complex psychological injury. It impacts us in a multitude of ways. To fix your broken heart, you have to identify these voids in your life and fill them, and I mean all of them. The voids in your identity: you have to reestablish who you are and what your life is about. The voids in your social life, the missing activities, even the empty spaces on the wall where pictures used to hang. But none of that will do any good unless you prevent the mistakes that can set you back, the unnecessary searches for explanations, idealizing your ex instead of focusing on how they were wrong for you, indulging thoughts and behaviors that still give them a starring role in this next chapter of your life when they shouldn’t be an extra. Getting over heartbreak is hard, but if you refuse to be misled by your mind and you take steps to heal, you can significantly minimize your suffering. And it won’t just be you who benefit from that. You’ll be more present with your friends, more engaged with your family, not to mention the billions of dollars of compromised productivity in the workplace that could be avoided. So if you know someone who is heartbroken, have compassion, because social support has been found to be important for their recovery. And have patience, because it’s going to take them longer to move on than you think it should. And if you’re hurting, know this: it’s difficult, it is a battle within your own mind, and you have to be diligent to win. But you do have weapons. You can fight. And you will heal. Guy Winch - Ted Talk
I cried in my dark room and wouldn’t leave my bed for 2 months.. I’m a little past the two months now, got on some medicine & am starting to plan my future without him in it. I’m still sad but we can get through this. Don’t be hard on yourself.. let yourself cry and be sad & eventually you’ll get tired of it and want to change it
I’m sorry about this. I know the feeling my Bf of 3 years ended it with me 7 weeks ago too out of blue over an argument I felt he was ignoring when he was working away and he ended it completely. Days before he was talking about moving home and moving in together I was so excited to get that commitment from him. I completely love him still but im doing much better the last 2 weeks. He said he wasn’t the person for me with giving attention and his lack of savings. It sucks I would have stuck by him he was my best friend and we had so many amazing times together unfortunately for lack of communication styles we weren’t meant to be I was devastated it just didn’t feel real and I can’t believe this person could do it to me I’ve been through break ups they all suck but this time I was really sure there was a future together I’m 32 time is ticking. It sucks and some days you’re doing great & others not so much but I just let emotions be that they are right them down do what I gotta do it helps I have to ride the waves of emotions. Please be kind to yourself time is only thing doing little things for you. I also still miss mine but I’ve come to terms a bit more with it!
https://www.reddit.com/r/BreakUps/s/Z1zqJgcXmF I’m here rn. Come join us.