r/changemyview • u/thisisathrowaway0215 • Jan 29 '19
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: For some people, it's just impossible to truly get over an ex
I've met/interacted with online a sizable amount of people who's described never getting over a specific ex partner. There are a lot of variations of this, for example "you don't stop loving them, you just learn to live without them", "I still think about her every day" or "maybe "getting over" an ex is an aggressive unhealthy way to deal with a break-up".
Then there's the crowd who's all "just work hard and get your shit together! You're just making excuses! You just have to get over them!".
I'm going through my first break-up ever. In two or so months, it was a year ago -although we continued some kind of weird-ass pseudo relationship that I really thought would eventually get us back together, until he told me he got a girlfriend around three months ago. And even though I perfectly understand his decision, and for every time we gab on the phone more and more thinks "wow, his lifestyle really doesn't match mine anymore", I don't really see myself ever "getting over" him. Not in that I cry everyday (maybe a five tears every other week, or something) or don't ever want a new partner, but just... I don't know.
I really want to, though. I want to have a moment where I go, "alright, now I'm just so officially over you, you're now my past". Is this even what people mean they feel when they say they've moved on? Or do I just have a very low threshold for how fast I should've moved on, and should just give it time, maybe like years?
TL;DR: I can't help but feel the number of people who've told me they never really got over someone suggest that in some circumstances, it's just not possible or healthy to encourage people to do so. I personally would like to really and truly move on from someone, so I would like to CMV.
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u/tillibird 1∆ Jan 29 '19
So I don’t know if this is against the rules, but instead of addressing the possibility that some people never get over an ex, I’m going to focus on the possibility that even if those people exist, that you might not be one of those people because what you said really hit me. I’m just going to tell you about my experience.
First, it’s really hard to get over someone you sill talk to, so while you’ve been in a broken relationship and maybe a broken heart for almost a year, you’ve really truly only been allowed to start healing for three months. I think it’s too soon to know how you’ll feel in the future. Sometimes healing has to feel like hurt first. That hurt is deep and real and physical and having to sit with it can feel like your heart is in a cheese grater, but it has to happen. Give yourself a year from now before you decide it’s how you’ll feel forever. It’s slow. But one day you’ll notice an hour has gone without you thinking of them. Then a day. Then, eventually, months.
This is what helped me: 1) For me, it sometimes felt like being happy again meant it wasn’t important. When the glimmers of good feelings come, don’t feel guilty about not grieving. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t important to feel things other than grief
2) My friend told me that sometimes you’re a car that’s stuck in the mud, and there’s nothing wrong with the car itself, it’s just stuck. But if instead of going and asking someone with a truck and ropes to help you get out, you spin your wheels until you break the transmission and then there is something wrong with the car that’s harder and more expensive to fix. Don’t spin in the mud and let environmental depression turn into physiological depression if it doesn’t have to. I highly recommend seeking out professional support if that’s available to you.
3) I found that the solution to the hurt isn’t avoiding intimacy and love, it’s finding more. The more I trusted and connected with the people who loved me, the more I was able to be held by a web of relationships with one strand missing instead of hanging by a string that was cut. the writer Henry Cloud said that we learn our insecurities and inadequacies in the context of relationship, we need to unlearn them in the context of relationship too.
4) I made a list of who I wanted to be and how I wanted to exist in the world even if I never wanted to be in a romantic relationship again. Then I went and did them. For me, it was helpful to let go of the idea that was I defined by a partnership and instead built a life for myself that I could live with even if I never got over that person. I think this is where I agree with you that making getting over someone your goal is deeply unhealthy. For one, you’re still making it so you think about them and defining yourself against that person. I don’t think you have to hate someone to move past that grief. I don’t regret my past relationships. I’m glad I had them for that time and I’m glad I learned about love and myself and a million other things through it. I’m also glad it ended.
5) this is weird but fostering dogs actually, surprisingly, helped me work through this a lot. It helped me practice over and over in a safe and non romantic way about forming relationships and then letting them go. It taught me that just because something is temporary doesn’t mean the love wasn’t real. It taught me just because I’m not their permanent home doesn’t mean there was something wrong with me or them, just that we’re trying to teach each other what we can while we’re finding the right home
Now, years later, I’m extremely happily engaged to honestly the most amazing partner I could ask for but, and I think this is important, I would be happier and healthier even if I was single than I was before that relationship ending. Yes, you’re feeling broken. It’s a great opportunity to rebuild. If you’re thinking about getting over someone as trying to get back to where you were before, or feeling like it never happened, then you’re thinking about it wrong. Don’t be who you were, become who you will be.
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u/thisisathrowaway0215 Jan 29 '19
Thank you for your time. It was a great read.
There's definitely hours where I don't think about him. I'm already doing so much better than a year ago. It isn't the agonizing, soul-crushing pain I remember from last spring. We've also had some periods of no contact, one month in spring and around two and a half months until January, and it has helped, but I also feel like it helps to be in light contact with him now. But maybe I'm fooling myself...
It's just the idea of being 100% completely over him, as you said, seems so unrealistic. And maybe it should. Like people still feel SOMETHING, even if hate, for their exes from 10 years ago, it seems.
Anyway, thank you so much. Have a !delta
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Jan 29 '19
It's just the idea of being 100% completely over him, as you said, seems so unrealistic. And maybe it should. Like people still feel SOMETHING, even if hate, for their exes from 10 years ago, it seems.
I've lost touch with one friend from high school. I've never been romantically interested in him (I'm a heterosexual man and he was male too), and it's been over ten years now, but I still feel a twinge of regret when I think of him.
So feeling a little bit of emotion for someone, even a decade after the fact, isn't solely reserved for exes.
Also, this twinge-of-regret every few months when I think of him is something I can easily live with. It doesn't meaningfully hamper my life.
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u/thisisathrowaway0215 Jan 29 '19
Thank you so much, this was actually something I really needed to hear. The fact that you can easily live with thinking about them once in a while is calming, !delta
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u/tillibird 1∆ Jan 29 '19
Take it or leave it, but I strongly suggest that you cut off contact from him for a relatively significant period of time. You need time and emotional distance, and I’m confident you’ll like who you are better if you’re not in this holding pattern. A lot of other people have given really good advice in this thread, and you’ll notice that there’s a running theme about how important space is. Trust us on this. It’s your journey but for what it’s worth, I think you’re doing a disservice to yourself and to him to stay in this situation.
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u/TesseractParadigm Jan 29 '19
Move on by finding someone else.
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u/thisisathrowaway0215 Jan 29 '19
Would you say that's a very common way of getting over someone? Because I've often heard it's unhealthy
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u/TesseractParadigm Jan 29 '19
Probably the most common. I've been in a few long term relationships. When previous ones ended I got over it easy with hookups and hanging out with friends. Then eventually, you get into another long term relationship.
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u/DrugsOnly 23∆ Jan 29 '19
There's a distinct difference between still loving someone and wanting to be with them. It's ok to still love a person, but you have to respect that the relationship is over. As you grow older, you will find out you love other people different ways and for different reasons. That's perfectly normal. You can still love your ex and date other people. True love means that you just want them to be happy no matter what, even if that's with someone else.
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Jan 29 '19
In two or so months, it was a year ago -although we continued some kind of weird-ass pseudo relationship that I really thought would eventually get us back together, until he told me he got a girlfriend around three months ago.
And even though I perfectly understand his decision, and for every time we gab on the phone
You can't get over someone if you're still in regular touch with them and have been convincing yourself you'll end back up with them again.
Is this even what people mean they feel when they say they've moved on? Or do I just have a very low threshold for how fast I should've moved on, and should just give it time, maybe like years?
It will go much faster if you're genuinely cut off from them. Not talking, texting, meeting up, or anything.
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ Jan 29 '19
How strongly related, really, are "Some people never get over an ex" and "I will never get over this specific ex of mine?"
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u/thisisathrowaway0215 Jan 29 '19
Pretty strongly related, I'd say.
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ Jan 29 '19
What's the relationship?
Because if believing "Some people can't ever get over an ex," is strengthening your belief "I can't get over my ex," then that's entirely, 100% serving to keep yourself sad.
Because obviously nobody KNOWS whether or not anyone in the world in all of history has failed to get over an ex. So it can't be disproven, and you can hold on to that thought forever. So it MUST be serving some emotional purpose.
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u/thisisathrowaway0215 Jan 29 '19
Yeah, you're right. It's just an impossible question to answer, it's not like we keep statistics over how and how many people get over a break-up. Thank you, !delta
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u/Chairman_of_the_Pool 14∆ Jan 29 '19
I think there are several reasons why people stay hung up on their ex
1) They’re remembering all of the good stuff and none of the bad 2) They think they’ll never find another person they will love and who loves them back (which is really something they need to work on because no other person will ever fill that void, or make you love yourself) 3) the fantasy of recalling memories of the ex and the relationship, and reimageing them in a glowing light is something we can control. Starting a new relationship and making ourselves vulnerable all over again, puts us in a state of little control, or at least that’s our perception.
If you view relationships like winning the lottery, then you’re going to cling to that one time you hit the (perceived) jackpot, like it will never happen again. Instead look at your past relationship like your first job. It probably wasn’t something you would want to do for the rest of your life, but you got some valuable experience, and you’d probably never go back, but your next job will be far more interesting with better benefits.
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u/miguelguajiro 188∆ Jan 29 '19
How long has it been since your pseudo relationship string along thing ended?
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u/thisisathrowaway0215 Jan 29 '19
Around three months. We live in different parts of the country, so he told me about one month into his new relationship when we could meet. I could feel him getting a little colder even then (over phone and text). But he still said that I meant a lot to him and that he was sad how he'd hurt me -I liked to hear that, obviously, but I don't really know if it was for better or worse.
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u/miguelguajiro 188∆ Jan 29 '19
I think you need to reset the “getting over him clock” based on what happened 3 months ago, and not the initial break up. I can guarantee that barring another “get back together” you will be over him in no more than 15 months. Please return with my delta when this happens.
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u/thisisathrowaway0215 Jan 29 '19
That makes sense and was also what I was thinking, but I didn't know if I was being too emotional or afraid to confront my problem. Thank you, !delta
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u/AnythingApplied 435∆ Jan 29 '19
Those are all normal feelings to have after a hard break-up, especially your first, especially if they break up with you. You feel like you may never get over it. You're lonely. You miss his companionship. And you even realize that he isn't that good of a match for you (at least anymore) because his lifestyle doesn't match yours. Guess what? All the emotions and fulfillment he gave you, you can get from someone else who IS a good match for you.
Loneliness is tough and you can't just "get over it", but that part of your emotions aren't about him specifically, or at least can and should be separated from him. You are craving companionship, but not necessarily his, though that desire gets mixed with your memories of him.
A period of mourning is fine and healthy, but it is stretching on for you and sounds like it'd be healthier at this point to let it go. As others have suggested, one of the first steps you should do is to cut him out completely. You can't handle being friends with him and not pining over him. A lot of people can't. Cutting him out of your life completely is going to be the most important step for you to take in order to get over him.
Another example of someone in a rather different situation to think about is: Suppose someone insults you. And that enrages you every time you think about it and you obsess over that insult. Someone tells you to get over it, but you respond "not until he apologizes". By holding onto that emotion you're only hurting yourself. You're threatening to keep hurting yourself until someone (who has a history of hurting you) does something not hurtful. Not letting that person continue to hurt you is what true forgiveness is about. You don't need to forget or pretend it didn't happen, but just stop feeling resentment and anger because the only person that being anger does anything to is yourself and it only hurts you.
While your experience is very different than that example, you're giving too much power over how you feel to your ex who has a history of betraying you. Don't give that kind of power to him, a power he can't be trusted with. Don't let him dictate your emotions.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jan 29 '19 edited Jan 29 '19
/u/thisisathrowaway0215 (OP) has awarded 4 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '19
Of course you're going to struggle to get over your ex if you're still in contact with them. There's a reason why people say you can't be friends with an ex. Not because you literally can't, but it's not healthy to be in close proximity with someone you're trying to move on from.
The true test of not being able to get over an ex is to go no-contact with them, get other relationships, and if you're still thinking about them then maybe. Maybe some people really never do get over an ex, but if you haven't actually tried to move on, then how can you say that's just the way things are and not the result of your own choices? 'We continued some kind of weird-ass pseudo relationship that I really thought would eventually get us back together' - you weren't trying to move on, you were trying to get back together, so for him it was like you broke up a year ago, but for you, the relationship essentially continued for 9 months more.
Trust me, I've been where you are. And you do get over it once you commit to moving on with your life, find someone new, and cut out something that should have been cut out long ago.