What Not To Do After A Breakup: 5 Things To Avoid Doing

The end of a relationship requires a period of mourning, that is sometimes long and painful, necessary to rebuild and emotionally recover. That being said, doing certain things after a breakup will only drag you down and make you feel worse about the situation.

Don't do these 5 things after a breakup

1. Trying to stay friends with your ex

Remaining friends with your ex might seem like a commonplace situation, yet it is fraught with meaning and can be destructive to your self-esteem. Indeed, the one who has been left will try to cling to everything, and this will make for a poor friendship. After a break-up, it is better to give yourself time to heal and find yourself again.

>>> Check out; Should You Stay Friends With Your Ex?

2. Harassing your ex by phone (to get explanations)

You’ll feel lonely, you’ll get angry, and then you’ll start texting and calling your ex night and day. This is a very harmful attitude, which even reflects a kind of emotional dependence and only serves to try to alleviate a narcissistic wound. However, harassing your ex won’t achieve anything positive.

3. Social media stalking

We already know that social media doesn’t really do us any good in the long-term. This is even truer after a break-up. Spying on your ex means taking the risk of interpreting what you see there, or even having to face reality and seeing that they are doing well and living new experiences. Let’s face it, stalking will only lead to more discomfort.

4. Replay the story with "ifs" and "buts".

After a breakup it is always tempting to wonder what could have been done better, what would have happened if you had done that, acted that way or said that. Reliving your story with "ifs" is a very bad idea because it leads to guilt. It is obvious that a break-up is a failure, even a personal failure, but it is often the result of a succession of events. If you come to understand that in a relationship the wrongdoings are shared, you will come to accept the idea that your ex was not right for you and that you need to move on.

>>> You might like this article: How breakup maturely

5. Filling the void at all costs

After a break-up, withdrawal and loneliness can be difficult to manage, and it is important to accept it, but to make it easier, do not hesitate to use "band-aid relationships". Even though these can have a bad reputation, they can, in small doses, also be good for the ego and boost self-confidence. In short, take advantage of this period to listen to your emotions and learn to love yourself.

What are the 5 stages of a breakup?

A breakup is a traumatic event, which is often accompanied by a feeling of failure, sometimes a feeling of rejection. Everyone’s experience is completely unique, however, there are 5 typical stages that we all go through.

1. The phase of denial

When you have lived for several months or years with a person you loved (and who you may still love), accepting that the story is indeed over is point-blank impossible. Whether we saw the break coming, it is inevitably accompanied by a state of shock. We feel like anesthetized, confused mind, unable to project ourselves into this new solo life.

2. (Healthy) Anger

In a situation of rupture, finding a culprit has something reassuring. Depending on the case and the moment, we blame the other person, we blame ourselves, we blame those around us who do not act as we would like or who do not seem to measure the extent of the grief we feel and encourages us to turn the page. This is the time of revolt and loss of control. Anger, as long as it does not exceed certain limits (harassing an ex…), is healthy. It has to come out!

3. Bargaining: “If I do this, he will regret…”

During the bargaining phase, everyone will try to negotiate with reality. It will be a question of doing everything so that the other regrets us and changes his mind if he is the one who left. Concretely, we take care of ourselves again, we do everything to get the promotion that will make us shine professionally…

4. Depression

This is a time when we can be led to blame ourselves, to tell ourselves that we will never find love again. You can feel your self-esteem go up in smoke. This stage of loving mourning is also the time of looking back during which we can be nostalgic or tell ourselves that we should have done or not done certain things, that the relationship would not have been shattered if we had everything right. do.

5. Acceptance

The level of sadness drops. When we reflect on this love story that has stopped, we have clearer ideas. We are able to analyze the reasons why it ended. We even manage to tell ourselves that it is better that way. And then we think less often of the other; we no longer hate him, and we no longer attribute 100% of the blame to him. It's time to fully enjoy this new solo life and rediscover yourself, necessarily being a little different from before.

4 Tips to get over a breakup

If your partner has recently left, destroying your relationship, your dreams, and leaving you alone, you are no doubt wondering how to bounce back after this heartbreak. Here are 4 essential tips:

1) Accept the pain

Sadness, anger, anxiety, guilt, rumination... When a breakup occurs, we find ourselves overwhelmed with negative emotions. Here, it is important not to avoid them, and It is necessary to pass by the sorrow to enter the mourning phase. The first step is to accept your unpleasant emotions. Regularly take stock: "Where am I when I think of him/her?", "How do I feel?"... This is a good technique to connect with and evaluate your emotions.

2) Address the void

At first, the absence of the other person is difficult. With this terrible impression that you will not be able to live without your ex, and this irrepressible need to call him or to check his social media. Here, you need to cut contact and place your recovery above everything else.

3) Understand why it didn't work

"Why didn't it work out between us?", "Why did he leave me"? These questions often haunt ex-lovers. Especially those who were left brutally, or without explanation. When we do not understand what happened, mourning is even more difficult. By working on ourselves, we can find explanations. Often, when a relationship ends, we tend to idealize it. But a priori, if it is finished, it is because it did not work.

4) Break out of the repetition of love

Sometimes, love stories - and breakups, repeat themselves. The same scenarios, the same people we are attracted to, the same devastating relationships... A love repetition that often originates in our childhood. When we wonder about our failures in love, it is interesting to work on the patterns that lead us to repeat life scenarios. What do we repeat from our childhood or from a certain situation that we may have experienced as children?

Now that you've read up on what you should avoid doing, we think you might enjoy: 

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• How to get over an ex
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