Getting over a breakup is hard. 

Whether the relationship lasted for a month or a decade, whether we broke up with them or they broke up with us, whether we saw it coming or not, a breakup can leave us feeling hurt, confused, or vulnerable. 

It’s important to get closure after a breakup, deal with it, and move on. You can’t start anything new if you’re still living in the past. We often cling to the past, especially if our old relationship was safe and familiar and we understood how it worked. 

But once that relationship is over, you have to move on. 

Being on your own again can be difficult, and disorientating if your relationship lasted a long time. 

We sometimes have to learn how to be by ourselves again, we have to learn how to be single. 

You can’t do this if you’re still carrying around all the baggage of your old relationship. 

Eventually, you just have to let it go. 

How To Get Over A Breakup:

Unfollow Your Ex On Social Media

This one is a no-brainer. If you’ve just broken up with someone, you don’t want to be seeing them every time you go on your phone. 

Even if things ended ok and you’re trying to be friends, it will still help you to get some space by unfollowing them or blocking them, if only for a little while.

Seeing their face every time you go online will hurt, and will drag out the healing process. 

This goes double for messaging. If you can contact them at any moment, chances are you’ll have a moment of weakness and message them, usually at around one in the morning. 

If you remove this option, you’ll slowly lose that urge to reach out to them.

It might feel strange at first, but it will help you in the long-run. 

Talk About Your Feelings

After a breakup, we often go through intense emotions. 

Sadness seems ever-present, doubt has crept into areas that we used to have confidence in, and nostalgia keeps bringing us back to the past. 

These feelings are natural, and you shouldn’t hide from them or suppress them. 

We can actually learn from them, and the pain we feel after a breakup can help us understand more about what we want out of our relationships, how we operate when we’re in one, and how we process and react to these powerful emotions. 

These lessons can be invaluable. 

But you shouldn’t go through this alone. Find a friend to talk to about how you’re feeling. If something is left unsaid, it often goes unhealed. 

Getting everything out can be the first step in moving forward, even if it hurts to talk about it. 

Try To Let Go Of Any Anger You’re Holding Onto From The Relationship

Letting go of any anger or resentment about our past relationships is the healthy, adult way to deal with a breakup. It’s also one of the most difficult things to do. 

Anger is one of the most powerful and exhausting emotions we tend to feel after a breakup. 

Feel it, talk about it, and then let it go. 

If you hold on to anger it can make you bitter, jealous, and will harm your chances of being happy in future relationships. 

Anger is also just straight up bad for us in a physical sense. 

Being angry all the time physically changes our bodies. It causes tension in our jaw, neck, and shoulders. It can impact our digestive system, and increases our risk of heart disease. 

So please, for your own sake, let it go.

If you can’t let your anger go, work it out at the gym, or go to a rage room where you can smash a bunch of stuff with a baseball bat. It’s cheaper than therapy. 

Let Go Of Your Attachment To Your Plans

If you were in a serious relationship, you likely had plans for the future with this person. 

A breakup derails our plans, robbing us of the future we were sure we were going to have. This can be incredibly painful for us, as we become so attached to these constructs we make for ourselves. 

It can feel not only like we’ve lost the time we spent in that relationship, but also like we’ve lost the rest of our lives, the plans we were so sure were going to become reality. 

You have to let this imagined future go. 

Focus on the present, on you and what you’re doing. 

Move

If you were living together, you might be haunted by memories of your old relationship everywhere you look. 

You don’t just need time to get over a breakup, you also need space. 

Sometimes it’s best to move, starting a completely new chapter in our lives. 

Moving house, or moving to a new city won’t magically cure your heartbreak, and it won’t instantly transform you into a new person. But it can help you get some distance, get some perspective, and get you back out into the world. 

Enjoy Being Single

Ultimately one of the best ways to move on from a past relationship is to enjoy being single. 

While we might miss the person we used to spend all our time with, and we might struggle with being alone at first, the freedom that comes with being single can be fantastic for us.

Being single means you don’t have to worry about anyone else, you don’t have to sacrifice or compromise anything you want, and you don’t have to put anyone else’s needs before your own. Being single means you’re allowed to be a little bit selfish.

It gives us the time, the space, and the energy to work on ourselves. It allows us to try new things, and become new, better version of ourselves. 

Sometimes we let relationships take over our lives, so being single can give us the clarity and freedom to find our own personal happiness, rather than only the happiness we got from being in a relationship. 

Getting over a breakup takes time and effort, and no one can predict how long it will actually take. 

It’s different for everyone, but by taking active steps to make things easier for yourself, you can begin to move on from your past relationship.

Read more about how dating can impact your mental health.

Learn why you should start dating again this year.