How to Move On From a Breakup [Easy-To-Follow Guide]

Relationships end for various reasons, and even though the process of breaking up is painful, the aftermath is even more so. You need to get over the breakup and move on with your life. This article addresses what you need to do after a breakup and how to get over your ex and start living again.

How to Get Over a Breakup and Move On

Breakups are difficult and emotionally draining and can have long-term consequences to your mental and physical health if you don’t move on from them. So we’ve created the following guide of 12 valuable tips to help you get over your breakup.

➱ Take Time for Yourself

When dealing with a breakup, we often forget to take care of ourselves. Self-care is vital, especially when you feel vulnerable. So set aside time to focus on yourself, and do what makes you feel better. Getting over a breakup takes time and effort, and each person’s journey is unique. Don’t compare yourself to others who are going through the same thing. And whatever you do, do not compare yourself to your ex-partner’s progress.

➱ Work on Your Self-Esteem

When a relationship ends, you may tend to question yourself and your qualities. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you’re worthless and that you don’t deserve love and happiness. So you must work on your self-esteem and create a picture of yourself that presents all your positive traits. If you have trouble envisioning this, you can try writing them down.

➱ Visit New Places

When looking for ways about how to deal with a breakup, one of the best ways is to step out of your comfort zone and start visiting new places and trying new things. Find at least three new places that you would like to see and make plans to visit them. You could go with a friend or by yourself. It’s essential to break your routine and start doing things without your ex.

➱ Cut Off All Ties

At the end of a relationship, it’s crucial to cut off all ties to your ex—which means no contact at all. You may think that keeping in touch will help you heal faster, but this is not true. Talking to the person that hurt you will only stunt the healing process. How to get over your ex then includes deleting their number from your phone. And it’s also best to unfollow and block them on social media.

➱ Social Media Detox

Even though you may have purged all your accounts from your ex’s presence, you probably still have many mutual friends on social media, and deleting all of them is not the right solution. Instead, it’s a good idea to stay away from social media when dealing with a breakup. It’s possible to inadvertently see photos of such friends with your ex, which will only make you feel worse. (And all those romantic pictures couples post of themselves won’t do you any good either.)

➱ Write Down All Their Negative Qualities

After a breakup, we show a tendency to idealize our ex-partners. We can only remember the good aspects of their personality and the good times we’ve shared. But you broke up for a reason—so try to assume a more objective outlook and remember the person’s flaws. How to get over an ex includes identifying all their negative qualities and writing them down in a list to refer to when missing your old flame will help.

➱ Eliminate Reminders

When a relationship ends, we’re often left with physical reminders of it. Photos, gifts, and clothes are all there to remind you of what you had and lost. So the best course of action in this situation is to get rid of all the things that remind you of that person—delete pictures, donate or re-gift some of the gifts, and throw away everything else.

➱ Let Off Steam

If you’re looking for ways of how to move on from your ex, one of the best strategies is to find a way to let off some steam. You probably feel angry, and if you bottle up such anger, you only make things worse. So instead, find an outlet that fits your needs—anything from a workout session, rage room, or a kickboxing class. Do whatever works for you.

➱ Seek Support

Having a support system is vital. You probably feel lonely and isolated from the outside world. If you don’t know how to cope with a breakup, reach out to your friends and family for support. They will remind you that you’re not alone; you have people who love you.

➱ Rediscover Old Interests

After a breakup, finding something to fill your time is essential, allowing less time to ruminate on what went wrong. Whichever activity you choose will lift your spirits. Although you could take up a new hobby, there’s a risk that you may not like it. So going back to something you once loved doing is a safer bet. Rediscovering your interests is a sure-fire way to get over a breakup—something that you’ve neglected because of the relationship—to re-establish your identity and reclaim your independence.

➱ Indulge in Whatever Brings You Joy

It’s only normal to feel sad when a chapter of your life comes to an end. Unfortunately, sadness can sometimes feel all-consuming. At this point, however, embrace your feelings and even give in to them a little. If binge-watching a TV series or gorging on ice cream makes you feel better, go for it. These, however, are not healthy coping mechanisms, so you shouldn’t practice them in the long run. But indulging just a bit when getting through a breakup can lift your spirits.

➱ Make Plans for the Future

It’s time to start planning for a future without your ex—an opportunity to do all the things you wanted to do but couldn’t while you were in a relationship. You can go on that vacation or take up an activity your partner wasn’t interested in. The best break up advice is to start envisioning your future without a significant other.

Will I Ever Move On?

When the breakup is still fresh, and the pain is all-consuming, you may wonder if you’ll ever move on. The process of getting over an ex takes time. You must be patient. Such change doesn’t happen overnight.

Don’t try to rush the process. Each person deals with heartbreak differently and goes through the process at a different pace. You’ll get where you want to be eventually. As we get older, it becomes more difficult to recover from a breakup because we approach relationships more seriously, and there’s a lot more at stake. But it’s not impossible to move on at any stage of life.

Moving on from a relationship may seem like an impossible feat, but rest assured, it is not. You may not be ready to start dating for some time after a breakup, but there is more than just one person out there for you, and you’ll be able to find love again.

How Long Does It Take to Get Over a Breakup?

Every breakup is different, just as each person is different. It’s essential not to make deadlines for yourself, thereby setting yourself up for disappointment when you’re still not over your ex by a specific point in time.

The healing process depends on several factors, such as the amount of time you spent in a relationship and whether you had plans for the future. And toxic relationships are more challenging to get over than healthy, loving ones that encounter some insurmountable differences and come to an amicable end.

We all want an answer to the question of how to get over a breakup quickly. But sadly, there’s no magic solution to help us get over something so heart-wrenching. Healing from a long-term relationship can take one to three years. An acknowledged timeline asserts that overcoming a long relationship (three to 10 years) takes some six to 12 months to recover from; relationships that last between nine months and two years require three to six months, and short relationships (up to nine months) take between one and three months.

Generally, you should expect to be moving on from an ex within six months to a year from the breakup. But you could speed up the process if you follow our guide. Then, if you still think the process is taking too long, you can seek professional help. And once you’re ready to enter the dating pool again, you should give dating apps a try. There are some great free apps you can use to start dating again.

Why Do Relationships Fail?

As we grow older, we learn how to get through a breakup, but we don’t always know why breakups happen. Relationships are complicated and can fail at any time in our lives for a wide variety of reasons.

We have listed the following seven most prominent reasons why relationships fail.

1. Infidelity: This is a common denominator of many failed relationships. Rare are those who can move on from infidelity.
2. Lack of Trust: Trust is the cornerstone of all human relationships. Unfortunately, once you’ve stopped trusting your partner, there’s rarely a way back.
3. Poor Communication: Moving on from a relationship where you weren’t heard is very difficult to do, and it can leave a sour taste in your mouth. The inability to communicate causes other problems and a breakup is often the only solution.
4. Jealousy: In small doses, jealousy can be a healthy way to show your partner you care about them. But when it becomes an everyday occurrence, it’s time to walk away.
5. Lack of Intimacy: Physical intimacy is crucial. So if there’s a lack of sex or physical affection, the relationship is bound to fail.
6. Emotional Distance: If you’re emotionally incompatible, there’s not much you can do—except end it before someone is seriously impaired. Dealing with a breakup is more manageable than repairing emotional damage.
7. Priority Differences: When you and your partner have different priorities, the relationship has no future. So what’s the point in delaying the inevitable?

Relationships can end for several reasons. But if you feel like you’re devoid of freedom and need space between you and your partner, the best thing to do is break things off and move on with your life.

Conclusion

Learning how to move on from a relationship is a trying and time-consuming process, but you need to be patient and wait it out. But this doesn’t mean you need to be idly waiting. There are plenty of things you should do following a breakup. Our guide should help you with your motivation to get on with your life.