How To Get Over Someone - A Comprehensive Guide For Women
Personal Development Guides | By: Katie Lister
May 01, 2024
How do you get over someone you still love? What are the best tips on how to get over someone? What is the healthiest way to get over a breakup? How do you know you are over someone? If you are looking for answers to these and more questions, his article is for you.
Hi, my name is Katie Lister. I am a Registered Nurse and the founder of Growth Gals. Here at Growth Gals, we provide resources to help you live intentionally, improve your mental wellbeing, navigate relationships, and create healthy habits. In this article, I discuss moving on from a romantic relationship and how to get over someone.
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Katie Lister
Written by Katie Lister, RN, BScN. An experienced Registered Nurse, Group Facilitator, Life Coach, and Community Leader. Read Katie's Full Author Bio
Why Losing People Hurts
From the moment one is born, relationships often form the basis of one’s everyday life. Humans rely on our social connections to thrive and survive. Relationships come in different shapes, forms and sizes. In every area of your life, you will meet people and form relationships, from coworkers, a best friend, and family members to people you form romantic relationships with.
When it comes to romantic relationships, it is often said that it is a big mystery how you can meet a stranger and they end up becoming an essential part of your everyday life. Once you meet someone and fall in love with them, the last thing on your mind is the possibility that the relationship will leave you with a broken heart, especially if you really believed your partner was your soulmate.
Therefore, when this relationship ends, most people lose a part of themselves along with the relationship. Moving on after the end of a relationship, especially a long-term relationship, can be difficult. This is because, for a long time, your life was tethered to another person’s life. While in a relationship, people often lose a bit of their individuality. After the breakup, getting back to this sense of individuality is part of the reason why moving on is hard.
Read the following article for more information if you want to break up with your boyfriend but are afraid you’ll regret it.
How to Get Over Someone
The ending of a relationship can be tough, even when the decision to breakup with him or her is for the best. As you navigate to life after a breakup, there are certain things you can do to make moving on easier for yourself according to relationship experts.
Allow yourself to grieve
Losing a relationship is a type of loss. For this reason, it is normal to go through the stages of grief in your pursuit of moving on. While unpleasant, it is essential to allow yourself to grieve this loss. You must give yourself time to go through the motions during this process.
Shower yourself with empathy, unconditional love and self-care. It is okay to allow yourself to cry and feel the emotions as you grieve the loss, whether it was unrequited love, a ‘situationship’ you invested your emotions in or a full-blown relationship.
Allowing yourself to grieve the loss in a healthy way is essential to the healing process. Otherwise, you end up with all these bottled-up emotions that eventually come out negatively.
In this process, you may be wondering “why do I still love my ex?” Read this article for the answer.
Find a support system
You do not have to go through the heartbreak alone. Now is the time to lean on your friends and loved ones. Being surrounded by people who validate your feelings and offer emotional support is important for your mental health.
Surrounding yourself with a support system will ensure you are not alone through the process and will fill the void left by your ex. Spending time with people who love you also protects you from the possibility of falling back into old patterns that may force you back with your ex, especially if it was a toxic relationship.
Create new routines
While it is important to go through the grieving process, it should not be the only thing you do from morning to night. Creating new routines is one of the best tips for getting over someone. It is important that you get back to your daily routines and find ways to fill your free time. Having structure, especially during the first days of the breakup, ensures you do not spend your days wallowing over the past relationship.
You can fill up your free time with activities you love. Consider taking up new hobbies that take your mind off the breakup. Having things to do can help you miss your ex less and move on faster.
Focus more on self-care
It is easy to let yourself go after a breakup. This is because everyday things you used to do with little to no effort can suddenly feel impossible. However, it is important to avoid neglecting self-care even as you work on moving on.
Pampering yourself is an essential part of self-love. It does not have to be elaborate. It can be simple things like treating yourself to a spa day, wearing your favorite pajamas around the house, read a book at your favourite cafe, or go on a solo date. Exercising and prioritizing your health are also forms of self-care.
Post breakup, you actually get guilt-free time to focus entirely on your well-being. Therefore, take this time off dating as a time to ‘date yourself’. Focusing on your self-development will go a long way in boosting your self-esteem and self-confidence, which are often bruised after a breakup. Yoga, making new friends, practicing mindfulness, meditation and journaling are also excellent self-care ideas.
If the breakup is taking a toll on you, you should consider seeking professional help. Therapy can go a long way in making it easier for you to clearly see the reality of the situation.
Rationalize the ended relationship
While it is common to avoid thinking about anything related to the ended relationship, it is essential to do some soul searching and see the relationship for what it was. While there may have been many good times shared, the fact that it ended means that it had some negative aspects.
Looking at the relationship with a critical eye allows you to determine the things about the failed relationship that were not working.
Want to know when to call it quits in a relationship? This article has the answers.
Some of the questions you should seek to answer as part of self-help during this process can include:
- What were you not comfortable with during the relationship?
- What aspects about yourself do you need to work on?
- What boundaries do you wish you enforced more, if any?
- What are the qualities you no longer wish for in a partner?
- What are your non-negotiables for the next relationship?
- What are your deal breakers?
Remember, every situation you find yourself in has something new to teach you. Therefore, taking the time to analyze the ex-relationship will make it easier to determine what lessons you will carry to future relationships once you are ready to date again.
Want some timely tips on how to leave your husband? Find everything you need here.
Go no contact with your ex
After a relationship ends, the feelings of emptiness and loss can easily trick you into returning to what feels familiar. The relationship ended for a reason, and it is important to remind yourself of this reason. Part of learning how to get over someone is being okay with not speaking with them for a while.
Going no contact means avoiding calling or replying to messages from your ex-partner, meeting them in person, and avoiding stalking them on social media. You can unfollow them to make this easier. After a breakup, you can experience withdrawal symptoms since your partner is no longer there to trigger your feel-good hormones. In their absence, you start to crave these feelings, which often causes many people to allow their ex back.
Cutting off your ex from the beginning will save you the emotional roller coaster of returning to your ex for the wrong reasons. Remember this may feel harsh, but is actually the most kind thing you can do and is necessary for both of you to move on. Once enough time has passed and you’ve both healed and moved on, in certain circumstances you may be able to be in each other’s lives again.
Do not rush the healing process
Whether you were with someone for three months or three years, you cannot rush the healing process. It is common for people to assume that it is easier to move on if you dated for a short time. This is not always true. Getting very attached to someone over a short period is easy, which ultimately lengthens the recovery process.
While you may want to jump back into the dating bandwagon sooner than later, it is important to avoid rushing your healing process. Giving yourself enough time to heal ensures you have enough time to unpack the relationship and breakup, making it easier to close that chapter of your life with no regrets.
Consider dating again
Once you have given yourself time to move on from your previous relationship, you should consider opening yourself up to the possibility of dating again. This can be difficult, especially if the last relationship caused you a lot of hurt. Trusting again can feel difficult or near impossible.
However, opening yourself up to the possibility of falling in love again and finding a better partner is essential. To make things easier, you can use the lessons from the previous relationship to pick a better partner and determine the type of relationship you want in the future.
Can You Be Friends with Your Ex?
This is a common question when it comes to dating and breakups. The truth is, there are no right or wrong answers. The possibility of remaining friends with your ex depends on how your relationship was and how it ended. It is easier to remain friends if the relationship ends through a mutual agreement. On the other hand, if one party was hurt in the relationship, it can be challenging to be friends with the person who hurt you.
Before you decide to remain friends with your ex, determine exactly why you want to be friends with them. You should also consider the fact that, at some point, they will find someone new and start dating. Would you be okay with this as a friend?
While it is possible to remain friends with your ex, giving yourself time away from them immediately after the breakup is better. This will help you separate your romantic feelings from platonic feelings should you decide to remain friends.
How Long Should It Take to Get Over Someone?
Even as you work on yourself after a breakup, it is expected that you will wonder how long it will take you to move on fully. This is because people are often in a hurry to go back to living life as before they met their significant other.
Unfortunately, there is no definitive answer to this question. Some people can move on after a few weeks, while it may take others months to finally move on. Different factors determine how long it takes to get over someone. These factors include how long the relationship lasted, how emotionally invested you were in the person, how the relationship ended, and the reason for the breakup.
Following the tips highlighted above on how to get over someone can ultimately make moving on easier and maybe faster.
How Do You Know You Are Over Someone?
As it is often said, time heals. While it may have seemed impossible in the beginning, over time, the relationship and the person who meant so much to you start to become a distant memory. You will realize that you no longer think about them every day, and thinking about the breakup no longer makes your heart ache or eyes teary as it once used to.
Signs that show that you may finally be over someone include:
- You can think back on the relationship without feeling pain
- You no longer avoid going to places you frequented together or doing activities you did together
- You feel whole and complete again by yourself
- You no longer harbor any negative feelings towards them, regardless of how the relationship ended
- You feel ready to start dating again without trying to look for your ex in the next guy
How Growth Gals Can Help You Get Over Someone
Our aim at Growth Gals is to inspire women to reach their full potential. We also strive to create positive change by giving women the resources to discover their true selves and expand their knowledge base on various issues, such as mental wellness, healthy habits, self-improvement, and navigating relationships, including equipping them with resources on how to get over someone.
Growth Gals helps women overcome obstacles and make informed decisions, which is crucial in moving forward after a failed relationship. To learn more about navigating relationships, subscribe to the Growth Gals newsletter by signing up below. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us directly if you have any questions or simply want to connect.
The Bottom Line
While ironic, going through a breakup provides you with a new lease of life. If you have recently broken up with your partner, I hope this article has given you all the information you needed about how to make the process easier for you.
Ultimately, having a support system can go a long way in making it easier for you to move on. Sometimes, surrounding yourself with fellow women who understand can be all the therapy you need. Growth Gals is there to provide this supportive community and is sending you all the love as you go through this difficult time.
