Moving on when you still love your ex (6 tips to help your healing)
Getting over an ex you still love can be one of the most challenging experiences to face, especially if they were the one to end the relationship. It's not natural to switch off your emotions overnight (even if it seems that way for your ex); it takes time and patience to get over someone and move on. I’m sharing things I did in 2022 that helped me to begin to move on when my long term relationship ended.
Acceptance is the final stage of a breakup
Acceptance is the final stage of a breakup and it’s not a straightforward place to get to, especially when you didn’t want the relationship to end and still love them. Before you get to accept that the relationship is over, it’s going to take your time in moving through the other stages; denial, anger, bargaining, and depression (one theory).
Getting to acceptance isn’t a linear process (i.e smooth sailing from one to the next); for example you might feel all of these in a matter of hours, or you might accept the breakup one day then feel back in anger the next. The main thing is to take your time, and know that you’re normal for feeling all over the place.
The more we can validate that going through a breakup is a truly complex and terrible thing to experience, the easier it will be for us. We’re wired as humans for connection, and there is a lot of research done around how when we split up from someone, it can feel just as intense as if we are withdrawing from drugs.
How to get over someone you still love
When you love your ex, and wanted the relationship to work, the fact that it is over is going to be a huge thing to work through. When my relationship ended, it was extremely hard for me to accept that he wasn’t going to be in my life any more.
The way the breakup happened was also really hurtful so it felt like a double dose of pain to work through at the same time.
However, out of my big breakups, this is the one I’ve moved on from the quickest. And it’s because I made a commitment to myself that I was going to do this one differently, not get stuck in a hole like I had previously, and make it a mission to be happy. An that’s exactly what I did.
So my personal tips on how to get over someone you still love:
Be honest with yourself about the relationship
Journal daily to vent your emotions
Get your ex off the pedestal
Make goals and decisions to match
Reflect and take away lessons from the relationship/breakup
Enjoy your glow-up
1. Be honest with yourself about the relationship
It’s normal to still love your ex and you don’t have to not love them or force yourself not to. But what helps you to move on is to be honest with yourself about what led to the breakup. Because there is a reason. If you were having issues that you couldn’t solve together, be honest with yourself about it.
Try to stop fantasising about the relationship and ignoring the facts about the problems you were having. This is what I did; I was heartbroken, but it really helped me to be brutally honest about whether I would have want to continued in the relationship anyway, and the reality is, I wasn’t far from ending it myself. This exercise in itself, helped to pull me out of the fantasy and in to realty.
If you were blissfully happy, and blindsided, and can genuinely think of no reason your ex ended it or the relationship is over, know that you still get to be happy regardless, with someone who whole heartedly chooses you, and wants to fight for you and make it work.
Don’t give up on your happiness, just because an ex chose to walk away. If you need to work on self confidence, this is a really helpful thing to do.
2. Journal daily to vent your emotions
Journaling saved me in my darkest moments in 2022 after the breakup. I feel like people hear journalling and zone out haha. But give it a try. After a breakup, emotions and thoughts can get chaotic. And a way to regulate the rollercoaster of emotion, confusion, anger (whatever is going on for you), is to get it out on paper.
To journal after your breakup, you don’t have to have a fancy notepad, or a specially made journal. You don’t even need prompts (but if you would like journal prompts, stay tuned for when I share my favourite breakup journal prompts). Just simply get a notebook and pen, and free flow write. Brutally honest, no holding back, as long as you need writing.
Post breakup, I journaled every single day, sometimes up to 10 times a day. It was my safe space to process everything I was feeling, all the sadness, pain, anger and hurt. It stopped me from texting those thoughts to my ex, and it helped to calm me down when I felt frantic.
3. Get your ex off the pedestal:
Your ex might have been the best person ever and that’s OK. BUT, through this breakup, looking after you and your emotions is the most important thing. The more time and energy you spend on focusing on how amazing your ex was, how not worthy of them you are/were, how someone else will be lucky to have them, how you’ve lost out etc, the harder it will be to move on.
You’re allowed to think your ex is a good person, it is not about slating them. But this isn’t the point. So many times I speak to people and hear people talk about their ex being on a pedestal. And this was the biggest thing I had to teach myself. Its so important after your breakup to remember that your ex is a person.
The relationship is over, and it can cause our mind to play tricks on us, to convince ourselves that we are no good and our ex is everything. Get your ex off the pedestal as quick as possible.
4. Make goals and decisions to match:
You might still love your ex, and that’s OK. But something that is going to help you to heal from your heartbreak is to think about how you want your life to look now without them. From simple things such as trying a new hobby (I committed to a dance class and it was/is the best thing ever!), or even big life changes.
Think about your ideal day, week or life situation for yourself and then work it back to the practical steps that you can do to take you there. Try not to think of it as a rush to get to the end goal, but enjoy the process of your new single life, whilst you make these moves and move in the direction of your new goals.
Some things I have done post breakup, are selling my house, moving out of my home town in to a city that I’ve always wanted to live in, committed to this blog and my business! You have to get involved in your life and play an active part in taking actions to make your life fun and exciting!
5. Reflect and take away lessons from the relationship/breakup:
Make this breakup pain mean something and make use of the pain you’re feeling from still loving your ex. This might sound like a hard concept to grasp when you love your ex and you are struggling to not obsess about them. But reflection after a breakup is so important. Learning lessons after a relationship is over, is SO important.
Get your journal out and write three lists. One is a list of everything you liked about your last relationship. This is going to set your minimum relationship standards of what you want in the next person. You can add to this list. The next is everything that didn’t work in your relationship (from both you and your exes side). This is now things that you won’t settle for next time or accept. The third list is a list of things you wish you did differently; this is going to help you when you move on with someone else.
Learning and reflection after a breakup is going to make the breakup worth something, it is going to help you personally transform and grow as a person. Also to create better and healthier onward relationships for yourself.
6. Enjoy your glow-up
We’ve all heard of the post breakup glow up. It might be cliche and you might not be in to it, but my opinion on this is that during a breakup, you can feel so low. Why not do things to feel better, feel sexy, build your confidence. It depends what you like and how you feel so make this unique to you.
After my breakup, I started wearing dresses and heels, having my nails done and generally taking better care of myself than I had in years. Generally making more effort with yourself and self care does feel so good.
You might love your ex, but love you more.
In conclusion, loving your ex isn’t a bad thing and it will take some time for the intense feelings to fade away. But in the meantime, fill your time with things that revolve around you, your new chapter and your goals and dreams. Journalling can help you to process the pain, and taking daily action on your life can help you to find your identity in your new single life.
I hope this tips help, please do comment or email me to let me know!
