Trying to understand why will cause you even more pain. My advice: treat it as a funeral/loss of a loved one. The time has simply come. Do your mourning and move on. Dwelling on it will only cause my pain and reopen old wounds.

Grieve. Be kind to yourself, be kind to them. Allow yourself to feel without resisting the feelings. But don’t chase them either.

There isn’t a right way to feel for most of this.

Part of grieving is reflection (usually). Remembering good times, bad times and wish-they-were-different times. Find a way to be with those moments and accept them as they are: moments. They aren’t lost, just future ones will be different.

And that’s okay. Or it will be. And you’ll be okay, too.

I ruminate too. I tell myself it helps me learn, helps me grow, helps me remember not to “x”. It rarely helps. It’s just a conditioned response that makes me feel more control while i actually lose some.

What truly helps is healing. Learning that sometimes compatability isn’t a you tho Ing or a them thing. But it’s still a thing and somebody called the spade a spade.

If you weren’t up to your standards, then rise. Otherwise, coat yourself in patience. Listen to YouTube videos like Tara Brach. Be honest with yourself as you heal. We all have barbs, we all have scars.

Breakups can be pretty hard to cope with depending on how it ended.

The best advice I can think of is trying to think of it as an era of your life is now over. Those events from that era still have significance to you and will likely for a long time. And the best thing to do is not to dwell on them but look to the future.

What will this new era bring? Will you pick up those hobbies you’ve been thinking about but didn’t have the spare time for? Will you find new adventures in hobbies you already have? Will you focus on self improvement?

The best thing you can do is to let go.

They’re gone, they chose to move on. And now you will have to as well.

Yes they were incredibly significant to you, and for a time you were to them too. But just like eras in history those eras end and a new era begins.

Don’t dwell on the past and what could have been, you will only find pain there.

Look to the future for what could be.

And reach out to your friends/family and talk to them. It will be hard but open up to them about it. And if your family is just as supportive as mine, just your friends.

Here’s a brief(ish) personal story of how my most significant relationship ended.

Trigger warning: death and substance abuse.

A long time ago I was in a long-term committed relationship with 2 people (a man and a woman) I loved more than anything. Life was good for a time and improving. We had long-term goals for the relationship and our futures together.

Then some stuff went wrong that waa outside of our control, we could still achieve our goals but they would have been harder. We didn’t know how to handle it well. But we tried to stay on target.

Then more things went wrong that put us on a 30 day clock to sort out housing situation faster than we had hoped by a long shot.

We had nobody we could lean on for help, our only choice was to try our damnedest to make it happen.

We were running up to our deadline, stress was at an all time high.

We were working as many hours as we could trying to get the cash together faster then we thought possible.

She lost her job.

Then she died.

And a few days later he died due to drinking and driving.

Everything fell apart.

The era was over. And a new era had begun.

I handled it the worst way possible, I fell back into substance abuse.

And it took me 6 years to kick it.

Don’t do what I did, don’t lean into substance abuse (alcohol/drugs) they will only make the hurt worse.

Breakups suck, and there’s no shortcut to getting through them.

Time will help you heal. You will go through the mourning cycle - look it up, if you need a refresher - and the end of the cycle is “acceptance”. Look forward to it!

It’s a lot like a funeral really. You will want to shoot them a text, or tag them on social media, and you can’t or just get sad when you do. And if it’s someone you really, truly cared for, it will take a long while. And that’s okay. I seriously lost who I thought was the one I was supposed to be with, did a couple short realtionships and some one night stands (all optional) and then met my wife three years after that big break up. But you just keep keeping on

I have. But it took literal years, I think about 3 or 4 years to completely get over it.

You’re going to have to accept that it’ll hurt for a long time. Give yourself some grace and let yourself be heartbroken for as long as you need. It sucks, but you’ll snap out of it eventually.

Two things that will probably help:

1. Hang out with people you like
2. Do things that make you proud of what you did that day

It’s easy to skip into a hole and wallow there. While you have to let yourself grieve, you also have to put in the work to have a constructive life. Treat it as a responsibility to get up and do something each day.

The best way to get over a breakup is to hook up with as many random people as possible. Take a couple nice pictures, set up a tinder/bumble/zoosk/hinge/badoo/whatever dating app you choose and just get out there and have a bunch of casual consensual sex. It’ll feel gross at first but just grit your teeth and power through because it’ll feel a lot better after a while

First- understand that everyone goes through this, everybody has an answer for you, but the answer that worked for them may not work for you. There’s no right or wrong answer. A lot of people say ‘the way to get over someone is to get under someone’ personally I’ve never subscribed to that sort of thinking. It leads to unhealthy rebound relationships IMHO.

The only thing that will really fix this is time. So there is no magic bullet. There are things you can do to help though or pass the time faster. The biggest one is find ways to not ruminate. Focus your attention on other things, ideally useful things. Take some time to improve yourself in fun ways. Hit the gym is an obvious one, but I generally recommend take up a hobby or learn an instrument or take a class. Basically learn some fun new skill and focus your attention on that. It serves as a distraction from your grief, but also a source of engagement and a little happiness.
It WILL get better.

It will suck for a while. And then it will get better. And it will stop hurting. Go hang out with friends as much as you can. Keep busy. Time is the only cure and keeping busy will make time go faster.

Take your time, and try to focus on yourself. It’s normal to feel uneven when someone/something that’s meaningful for you suddently (or forcefully) goes away.

And not because you broke up with that person it means you cannot reamain friends.

But right now you got to get on your feet. (unless you have a cat over your chest, in that case do not move).

Be kind to yourself! :)

I sulk for a while while covered in my sadness. When I had a little more strength to come out my sadness what helped me the most is “Yes Man” attitude. I like watching movies but my previous relationship is holding me back, I would go by myself to the movies. Who decided that a nice dinner date needs to be 2 or more. One night after work I feel like eating nacho and a beer, I went to a lounge and ate me amazing warm nacho. I saw a ballet show that’s cheap and for charity, well let’s check it out. I heard fringe is in town, one ticket for me please. I haven’t seen Northern lights well no one is stopping me now. I studied how to read the forecast and found a dark spot out of town. Hmm, how about shooting stars, well there are so much chance in the year to catch it. No need to plan with someone else. Then eventually I have dozens of solo hobbies and just acceptance of the of past. It took me 4 years to be on a relationship but I would say that 4 years of hobbies was fun. Edit: I didn’t actively avoid relationship but I didn’t seek it. I tried tinder and plenty of fish but figured out it’s not for me then I went back to my list of hobbies. I took up photography, kayaking, a friend ask me to go to cabin, we’ll sure! Friends invited me for a vacation, Hmm it’s cheaper if I come early and come home late, I can join their rental then I tried hostel, which was a fantastic choice. I enjoyed the place more with saying yes to the hostel tours than the planned friends days.

No quick fix, just focus on a goal that makes you proud of yourself and distracts you

It’s just gonna take time. Even if you’re doing all the right things to speed it up it will still be awhile.

Try to distract yourself. Don’t try to totally ignore it or anything but trying to do some fun activities will help you get out of the gunk somewhat.

I have just fine. Need 3-6 months IIRC but time does heal wound.