OH NO! You’ve been dumped. Your girlfriend, or boyfriend, dumped you. While at first you were a bit numb and it was playing out in your mind, with every passing day, and then every passing minute, the situation starts getting worse for you emotionally. You started off thinking: I don’t need her! She’s replaceable and I’ll find someone new – to dwelling on her great qualities and then thinking she was the only one in the world for you. Congratulations – you are officially in panic mode, falling into despair and depression. Especially for an empath or highly sensitive person, the end of a relationship, when it doesn’t happen on your terms, can be particularly devastating.
\nToday’s podcast is about a few things, but mostly it’s about how to get over a breakup, otherwise known as the end of a relationship. While there is no magic pill, employing some of these tips post-relationship can help speed up the recovery process. And while it may seem like the pain is getting worse each day, just remember, that it will get better, and time really does heal this sort of wound.
\nWhile girls and boys, women and men, process the end of a relationship differently, I’ll try to speak generally about the feelings one goes through as well as what you can do to get back on your feet sooner rather than later. Time is precious so why waste it worrying and pining about someone that doesn’t even want to be with you? Most of the time you’re left bewildered, wondering what went wrong, but other times you saw the end looming. Either way, unfortunately from my observations, probably 90% of the end of relationships involve a third party (ie. Your significant other met someone else), but don’t take it personally or beat yourself up over it. Just like friendships can have a season, so can romantic relationships – people grow apart or start looking for other things. There’s no reason to be mad at the other person, nor reason for you to be mad at yourself.
\nThe strange part of a breakup, perhaps rooted in biology or natural history, is that usually the person that is on the receiving end of the breakup, is the one that suffers the most. What I mean by this is that the person who gets dumped usually suffers the most turmoil. Even if you were thinking of ending the relationship anyway, or perhaps you had ended it on previous occasions but had reconciled, the fact is that once you get dumped, you’re more likely to go down the path of feeling like crap. I think there’s a famous Seinfeld episode about this where George Costansa is in a rush to breakup with a girl before she breaks up with him so that he doesn’t have to be the “dumpee”.
\nAnyway, the end of a relationship will send you through a series of emotions. Let’s go through them briefly so we can discuss measures you can take to feel better. I think the more aware you are over these steps, the more you can be assured that your just going through a grieving process like anyone else and that you’ll get through it. How quickly or slowly you get through it though will depend on you and how hard you try.
\nThese days people get broken up with in a variety of ways. Because we’re in the electronic age, don’t be surprised or take it badly if you’re broken up by text message, e-mail, or a voicemail. If you’re really lucky you’ll get dumped in-person, but these days the new fad seems to be “ghosting” where your ex literally just blocks your number and disappears into thin air, never to be heard from again.
\nLet’s start at the top and go through some of the thought process you will go through after getting dumped:
\n2. Once you have exhausted hating on your ex, you’ll start to remember the good times and certain things during the day will remind you of him. This is the tricky part because it makes it harder to forget the guy and move on. You’ll start romanticizing, even over-romanticizing your memories. Your brain will take casual events or dates and paint them into these beautiful “Notebook-movie” style events along with music playing in the background. It could be something as simple as you seeing a garden hose in your drive way and it will trigger you to remember that time he washed your car for you inside and out using that same hose, meanwhile he was soaking wet and missed watching an NFL playoff game just for you. During this transition period he’ll have gone from being a total dick to being the most perfect guy for you and the love of your life.
\nYou’ll keep him as your Facebook friend, hoping that you can stay in touch, yet cringing every time his face pops up in your newsfeed.
\n3. Then you’re going to start vilifying yourself, overthinking all of the things you did wrong in the relationship, even though he or she was probably just as much to blame as you were.
\n4. Here’s where you can go down a bad path – you may start thinking about how to get her back.. Perhaps you’ll start to look her up online to see her relationship status, or you’ll reach out to casually she how she is in order to try to win her back. Terrible idea by the way and I’ll go into this later.
\n5. Desperation starts to kick in and you feel hopeless again. Depression can set in if you’re not careful and you can end up wasting incredibly valuable time on someone that probably didn’t deserve it in the first place. You’re left to wonder if you’ll ever get her back, meanwhile the world keeps spinning and better opportunities pass themselves by. It’s at this point, if you get to this point, that you have to do something more drastic, because the longer you stew in your misery, the harder it is to get out of the misery.
\nYou desperately try to restrain yourself from emailing or texting her, just to say hi, in order to keep the lines of communication open in the hopes that she changes her mind.
\n6. Finally, depending on your personality and brain chemistry, you start to pick yourself up, brush yourself and hit the dating scene again! Either that, or you fall into deep despair, thinking your life is over and your one chance at love has come and gone. If you fall too deep and months are passing without getting better, then please seek some professional help. But also keep listening as using some of these techniques to heal may help you to start seeing the light again.
\nFrankly I think too many of us suffer in the process quite needlessly, or for too much time. After a break-up, the reality is, you’re going to end up eventually getting over it and dating again, one way or another so here are some steps that you can take to minimize the blow and get you back on course to enjoying life again without sinking into despair and hopelessness. IF you’re holding out hope of getting your ex back one day, ironically, the sooner you can move on from her, the more likely you are to get her back if the stars align.
\n2. They say the best way to get over someone is to get under someone new. Translation: go out and find a new person to date as soon as possible. Actually the real translation is to go out and get laid ASAP – I think psychologically this works better for girls since it helps them forget their ex quicker whereas with guys we still tend to dwell on our ex relationship regardless of who is under (or on top) of us. I would be careful with this whole thing though – it can backfire. Especially if you had a decent long-term relationship prior to the break-up, one can tend to compare the new person to your ex and this can make you more depressed when they don’t have the same cute mannerisms as your ex. For example, just because your ex used to whip out her purse to pick up the bill at a restaurant all of the time, doesn’t mean that the new girl will.
\nThis is why I do suggest staying active on the dating scene, but don’t jump into it with the expectation of finding a replacement right away. Use the dating scene as more of a distraction to show yourself that there are lots of people out there. If you push too hard too soon, you’ll have a hard time forging a meaningful relationship as you’ll scare the hell out of any suitor when you start asking them about kids and marriage within five minutes of meeting.
\nIf you had a side-chick or side-boy during your relationship (SHAME ON YOU, NOT REALLY), then now is the time to cozy up to them a bit more. Yeah sounds bad I know but who cares. I remember when I reverted to the side-girl post-breakup it definitely cushioned the blow. No pun intended.
\n3. The other thing to do is skip dating altogether and take some time off to focus on yourself to improve so you’ll be a better person the next time around. Regardless of why the relationship ended, blame yourself for why it ended. Wait, what?! Blame myself?! You may be wondering why you would ever want to blame yourself when the whole thing could have been the fault of your ex. I think it’s vital to blame yourself so that you can analyze, then over-analyze the relationship and who you were a as a person in the relationship. Think of things you could have done differently and consider why you acted in certain ways, or if the case warrants it, what was it about you that enabled your ex to behave and treat you in certain ways? Use this time to grow and learn about yourself. If you do this, then the time you spent in the relationship will never have been a waste.
\nPerhaps you were always getting controlled or bossed around. Or alternatively, you were always acting in ways to make the other happy, but never expressed your personal frustrations or angsts for fear of upsetting the other person. Basically, you weren’t your authentic self. Maybe when you realize this you’ll see that you need to become someone who is more sure of themselves so you’re stronger. This is your time for some self-instrospection for you to exam why you are the way you are so you can make some tweaks if necessary. I’ve known plenty of people who are relationship addicts, taking no time off as they jump from one relationship to the next. They never really pull back to see why it is they can’t be alone for a few weeks or months, and not surprisingly, they probably keep repeating the same mistakes.
\nThese little adjustments can help you way beyond just the confines of a future relationship, but they can help propel you to your next level in your career as well. Let me give you a few examples in my personal life. In my first long-term relationship, I was still learning about myself. Not realizing I was such a people-pleaser or an empath, I found myself not only going overboard in spoiling my girlfriend at the time. In part it was my pleasure to do nice things as it was my first girlfriend and I wanted to give it my 100%. I would buy her cards every month for anniversaries, and random gifts such as chocolates etc. The thing with people though is they get used to a certain standard that you set. As time went on, if I didn’t give gifts as often, she would think that I didn’t care about her and start becoming a drama queen.
\nMy favorite example from this relationship is in our first week of dating. We were already talking on the phone for long periods of time. I remember I made a joke about having a threesome, something which she had joked about already. CLICK. She hung up. Now, at that point in my life, no one had ever hung up on me before so I didn’t realize what had happened. I called back. CLICK. She hung up. Finally when I got a hold of her she said in an angry tone “you know what you said!!!” And she hung up again.
\nTo be honest I couldn’t really remember what I had said, certainly nothing that had warranted such a rude response. After a few days, I ended up calling her back and I apologized for saying what I had said (even though I still wasn’t sure what I had said). She accepted my apology and we moved on. Except, I had now set the standard of apologizing for being myself. Looking back on it, this was during a period when I was living in Mexico and had three girlfriends at a stretch during some phases so I’m not really sure why I wasted my time, but again this comes back to me not being a secure and strong enough person.
\nDuring another breakup while I was in my last year of law school, I really dug deep to figure myself out. While the other person had basically moved away, it opened up my eyes to the fact that I was probably a borderline commitment-phobe. By investigating myself further after these relationships, I was able to be a better boyfriend and have better quality relationships. Not surprisingly, I attracted much better quality people as well.
\nSo every time a relationship ends, take some time to yourself to dig deep and learn more about yourself so you can grow.
\n4. Focus on all of the flaws of your former significant other. Realize that she wasn’t perfect, not by a long-shot. For some reason we have this weird habit of pedestalizing our exes in the short time after the relationship ends. While the other person probably has some nice qualities, they probably come with just as many negatives. Focus on all of their negatives so you don’t go down the wrong path of “she was the only one for me – boo hoo hoo hoo”. This will help humanize them so you don’t accidentally go down the path of feeling depressed.
\nAlthough I was the one doing the dumping with my first ex-girlfriend, I never missed her. Although she did a few nice things, she was insanely jealous, to the point that she would literally hallucinate things. I remember once we were in a nightclub for someone’s birthday. The girl I was dating had gone to the bathroom and I was waiting outside for her. While she was in the bathroom, the birthday girl was dancing on a table and someone had given her a rose. When my girlfriend had gotten out of the bathroom she looked at the birthday girl dancing on the table with the rose (at least twenty feet away from both of us) then she looked at me, and proceeded to go crazy, telling me she saw me give the birthday girl a rose and why did I do that?! Although I hadn’t given the girl a rose, I thought it was so crazy that she would hallucinate like that that I told her I did give her a rose, just to play up to her insanity. Point being, after I dumped her I just thought of all of these mental problems she likely had and how great that I avoided them.
\nAnother girl I went out with for a year, ghosted me the day after our one year anniversary. While I didn’t morn too much for the end of that relationship, I of course did talk a lot about it to a couple of my close friends. Fortunately, one of them was quick to remind me how often I would complain to him about her as she had a bad habit of always flaking on our plans and generally not respecting my time at all. Apparently I had magically forgotten about all of the BS I had been putting up with during that one year.
\nDid she ever do nice things for you without asking? If you were sick, did she offer to bring over some chicken-soup? Was she generous with her time and money? Oh she did do all of those things?? Shit, now you’re really fucked!!! No, just kidding! Seriously though, anyone that loves you will be generous and kind. Don’t assume these things are irreplaceable – plenty of good quality people will anything and everything for you. When you do start dating, don’t start flaw-finding and comparing the new girl to your old one. You’ll be doomed for failure.
\n5. TRAVEL. This is the best advice I can give and probably should be #1 in terms of getting over a relationship. As you sit in your apartment thinking about what could have been, or the memories you two created in your place, your surroundings will be a constant reminder. Then, if you’re going down a dark path of ruminating, even just being in the same place every day will become not only a reminder of the relationship, but now it will becoming a routine of your suffering. You’ll develop a bad habit that won’t change until you change your surroundings to get what I call a mental RESET. Travel somewhere exotic. It will shake you and force you to dig deeper. Go to India. Go to Vietnam. Hell, go to the Congo or Rwanda. These places will be an all out assault on all of your senses from head to toe. You’ll see how big this world is. When you go through a break-up it’s easy to think the person you were with was the best person for you. When you travel, it helps open your eyes as to how big this world is and how there are so many amazing people out there. It is only impossible that there is just one person out there.
\nI remember the only time I really suffered at the end of a relationship – I put myself through torture for nothing. I think frankly it was more than the end of the relationship, but mostly because it was the end of law school, I had no more degrees that I wanted to pursue, so life beyond academia was about to begin and I didn’t have a solid footing on what was next. People were settling down and getting married around me, and yet I was just starting over. Anyway, for a long 10 months I found myself suffering needlessly. I found myself lying on my sofa day after day staring at the ceiling. In retrospect it was the greatest thing to ever happen to me. The girl in question was nothing to write home about in fact given who I am today, I wouldn’t have even gone out with her in the first place. But I developed this routine of ruminating. It got so bad that I didn’t even get to study for the State Bar exam and contemplated skipping the exam altogether. Somehow I forced myself to write it and passed it anyway, but I still had this cloud hanging over my head.
\nBut that changed. After the exam, I went to Ottawa to visit my best friends. I remember I had gone out with my friends one night, the same guys I grew up with. We were in our late 20s and all crashed in my friend Jess’s basement at his Mom’s house after a night out. Imagine, 15 years later, we were sleeping in the same place that we used to hang out as little kids. It didn’t hurt that my house where I grew up as a little boy was literally steps down the street. After months and months of waking up and ruminating, I remember that morning – I awoke to one of my friends snoring like a freight train, and everyone hung over. My mind started thinking about how awesome that was…until I realized 20 minutes later that I had broken the same routine of ruminating. It was in that moment, I saw the first ray of sunshine shine through the fog that had clouded my mind for so many months. I knew everything would be okay. I have no doubt that being outside of my regular element was what turned it all around.
\nI learned that if anything like that were to ever happen again, I would take off. Every time I travel, especially in group travel, I meet so many people, single people, going through something, that I see I am never alone and that it’s not that bad after all. I highly recommend group travel with companies like CONTIKI where it’s mostly single people and you’re doing really exciting things. If you’re over 35 then G Adventures is another option for single travellers. Just go somewhere, meet amazing people, and it will not only cushion your blow from getting dumped, but you’ll likely meet amazing people that made you wonder why you cared at all in the first place. I’m not sure why it is, but even without a group I always tend to meet lots of girls when I travel without even trying. It’s like when you travel you give off a different aura or glow, and it causes people to look at you differently. You’ll realize that person you thought was the only one for you was actually just one of the many “ones for you” on this planet. I remember on my Contiki trip to Vietnam, I was supposed to have a roommate. He never showed up. It turned out that before the tour even started, he met another travel, they fell in love within a few days, and decided to ditch the whole tour and ended up travelling off into the sunset together with each other. It could happen to you, and when you’re travelling, you’re breaking out of the routine and pool of people you think you’re limited to.
\nCan’t afford the trip? Put it on your credit card. It’s worth it if it involves your mental health.
\n6. Throw out the things they gave you. Especially if you were in a very long term relationship and you thought this guy or girl was THE ONE that you were going to marry etc., it is likely you’re heading down the path of depression and despair. The problem is that especially in a long-term relationship, your mind will have developed triggers, meaning that everything will remind you of that person. You may drive by a restaurant and think of that time you guys ate there. A TV show may come on and you’ll think about your ex because you used to watch that show together. The problem is that your surroundings end up being constant reminders. If you’re constantly reminded though, it will be harder to move on. If you have momentos lying around the house, I suggest you discard most of them and if you want to keep some souvenirs, at least for now, throw them in a box and put them in the garage. Out of site out of mind. I’ve ready stories about people who didn’t get over their exes for years and not surprisingly they kept photos up in their house for years.
\nI’m a sentimental kind of guy so I didn’t want to throw things out, but when I went through a particularly tough break-up, I went out of my way to delete everything they gave me. Ironically, she had given me the DVD of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless” mind, which is a movie about a guy that can’t forget a girl no matter how hard he tries. It ended up happening to me ironically. Throwing things and deleting pictures was tough because you want to hold on to the physical memory of the person and trashing things gives some sort of finality or closure and yet we may still be holding up hope that things will work out.
\nRegardless of whether you throw things out or you put them in a box, just make sure they’re out of site, out of mind. It will do wonders for your mind to help avoiding the constant reminder.
\nCONCLUSION
\nSo there you have it. This list could go on and on but I wanted to keep it short. It never feels good to be the one that is dumped, and the end of a relationship can be the start of suffering if you’re not careful. I actually think that when we go through suffering, if used wisely, it can be some of the best time of our life because those are the instances when we are being forced to grow the most. Otherwise, everything else in life is just cruise control. The key however is to not let a season of suffering turn in to a lifetime of suffering. Learn your lessons, grow, and do better next time.
\nMy Dad told me to never worry about things like this. Dating someone is like waiting for a bus. If you get dumped or a relationship otherwise ends, just be patient and another bus will come around sooner rather than later.
\nThere are over 6 billion people in the world. Don’t let Disney movies convince you that there was only one. There isn’t only one person for you in this entire world. There never was.
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