How to deal with a bad break up.

I’ve recently broken up with my boyfriend. We’d been together for a while and he was basically my best friend during the relationship until about 3 and a half months into it. It’s been rough.

All we did was argue; we couldn’t even have a conversation without it breaking into some stupid conflict, menial as it was. I won’t say I didn’t see it coming, but obviously I hoped that we could make it work. Sadly, all things have to come to an end.

I figure that giving other people some advice on how to deal with these situations might motivate me to do the same, so this may be somewhat hypocritical in areas. Here are my tips on how to deal with a difficult break up.

Remember the good times, but don’t be too tempted. The first thing you might think of after a separation is “Oh god, did I make a huge mistake?” So thinking of the positives will be easy. Problem is, all of those things will make you want to resume the relationship. Depending on what happened and how it ended, this would be very unwise to do. So don’t worry about remembering all of the pros in the relationship at first, it’s perfectly normal. Just keep in mind that if these pros were in such a large quantity or worth something to your ex, the relationship wouldn’t have ended.

Give yourself a time limit. You can’t grieve forever, you have to move on sometime. This doesn’t necessarily work for everyone, you’ll move on in your own time. But personally I gave myself a limit to do the main grieving in order to get it out of my system. Then I could focus on putting myself together and enjoying my life – they weren’t worth the pain and they didn’t care enough to try in the relationship. Life is short, and I refuse to waste it on something like that, and nor should you! You have your whole future ahead of you! To be honest, it’ll be a better future without them. They weren’t the one, but the right person will come eventually. My ex always said “Don’t worry about looking for love. Eventually love will find you.” This was probably one of the only sensible things he said, and a valuable lesson for me. Which brings me onto my next point.

Learn from the mistakes. The fact that it ended is a good thing, don’t forget that. Things worked out for the better, because now you can learn from the downfalls of the relationship and use that in your life in the future. The flaws you find in people that you break up with help you to mould your ideals in future relationships. You’ll also know what the red flags are and understand when to get out of the relationship if things start to go wrong.

Excuse me for being blunt here: Understand that they clearly didn’t love you or care about you the way they said they did. In fact, while you’re in pain and heartbroken about the relationship, they probably don’t give a sh*t. When mine ended, he was “relieved to not have so much stress”. When I heard this, of course there was a part of me that was upset – there’s a part of me who still loves who he was. But overall, I was actually pretty okay with it. I wasn’t sat wondering what he was thinking or if he was thinking about me at all. It meant I could get on with my life. It was like a form of closure, knowing there was nothing really to go back to if I wanted to. Sometimes when you have no choice but to be strong and deal with what life throws at you, it can do you the world of good. Everyone needs a nudge in the right direction when things get tough.

Anytime you feel like you want them back, remember WHY it ended. These things don’t just happen at random, there’s always a root cause. If like me, all you did was argue with your partner, then remember that whenever you feel down or miss the relationship. It’s okay to want the good times back, want the person they were back. But the cold hard truth is that things changed and it didn’t work for a reason. You’re worth so much more than to be wasting your time over a broken relationship. Chances are the relationship fell apart a while before it officially ended, so it wasn’t worth the time or the pain to attempt to save.

And as always… Ben & Jerry’s. Can’t go wrong.

I’m aware that there may be people reading this who haven’t actually experienced any separation in the recent past. Perhaps you’re having trouble with a current relationship and you’re scared about what could happen. in which case, for those of you who do not yet need the previous tips, here are some things you should watch out for in a relationship that would indicate that you’d better off without it.

RED FLAGS:

They always have to be right. This is a form of control. If they cannot accept when they are wrong in any argument you ever have, it means you always have to be wrong. They don’t respect you enough to accept your views. In other words, it’s time to leave.

They begin to control you. Sometimes this can be quite hard to spot. I didn’t realise until after the relationship ended that this was what was starting to happen. he said “No one can feed you other than me, except your girl friends, they’re not an issue.” This would have been the beginning of the end if we hadn’t have called it off soon after. He also would not allow me to mention any other guy unless it was a close friend of his that he could talk about. This emanated jealousy, and if it went any further like it does in some unfortunate relationships, I may have had to cut people out of my life for him. no one messes with my friends, I stand up for them no matter what. So giving up people who are like siblings to me and who I love would never be an option.

Your foundations fade away. The foundations in every relationship is that, first a foremost, you’re both friends. You can get on, have things in common, have a conversation and laugh together. When this suddenly goes, it’s not going well. This will usually be the breaking point where everything else in the relationship starts to crumble. Get out before you find yourself wallowing in the ruins.

They think about other options. This isn’t necessarily to do with wanting other people (although you should obviously watch out for these scenarios). This can be to do with lifestyle, differences in your ideals. Obviously, first try to talk to them about it. If they listen and understand, don’t get too concerned just yet. If they don’t listen, alarm bells will ring. Just be weary of the direction of the relationship at all times.

I hope this has been of some use to a few of you in some way. This is based upon my own experience, so if you do not feel that what I have said is entirely correct, you do not have to follow it and I encourage you to criticise it!

This period of time in your life is going to be difficult, but just remember you are worth so much more than that – your ex will realise just what they’ve lost eventually. When that happens, don’t look back. Show them how strong you truly are, because your life will go on and you can achieve amazing things without them. They are worth your time and trouble. Just keep smiling and stay happy, everything will work out for the best, I promise. 🙂

Hope you have an amazing day. -Steph xx