Letting go of your ex gf when she was a great woman. Is that even possible?! 

Hey guys, welcome back to my little Breakup Corner, I’m Andi Galster. Here I teach men to move on from their ex-girlfriends. It kind of feels impossible to let go of a great ex gf, doesn’t it? I don’t even care how good or bad your ex girlfriend was. Most likely, if you had a bunch of good experiences with your ex, even if objectively she could be a pretty terrible woman, you’d probably still think that she was an amazing woman.

After all, you shared so many things with each other. You shared a life together. You shared your hopes and dreams. Maybe even your fears, insecurities, your deepest darkest secrets, you talked about big pain from the past, how you were raised as a child, and how you may have wished for a better life back in the day. Whatever you two shared, the bottom line is that this relationship mattered a lot between the two of you, right? Even with a bad ex girlfriend, that would still be true. Which, of course, makes it even harder when your ex girlfriend was a great woman. 

It’s as they say, the higher they climb the greater they fall. How can you possibly get back to the top from this? Or put differently, how can you get back what you had with your girlfriend? Obviously, you can’t get HER back. But you want that happiness back… But it’s all tied to her. That’s why it probably feels like you’re out of options right now. A lot of guys get stuck in that phase and it can seriously feel like shit when you haven’t really been able to make any progress so far. So first of all, don’t be too hard on yourself if you’re struggling with that right now.

When we lose the good things in life, we usually look back and try to desperately hold onto them. After all, good things in life tend to require hard work. It’s much easier to lose something, than it is to gain something. Getting something good like your girlfriend back means, well, shit, now you have to start all over. You gotta go out into the dating world again. You’ll have to work hard on yourself, be as attractive as possible, you’ll probably get rejected many times, and so on. So of course, it’s logical to prevent yourself from letting go of your girlfriend. 

But it’s gotta be done. I know it’s not easy. The truth is, it’s even kind of uncomfortable. Doing hard things sucks a lot. That’s why, breakup or not, we procrastinate, play video games, eat unhealthy junk food, and so on. Man, I am sure you are tempted by a lot of these kinds of things. You have no more good things going on, your ex gf who was the best thing in your life is gone, and anything else that could make you happy is probably going to be a lot of work. And maybe even the things that USED to make you happy, no longer provide you with any meaning or fulfillment. All of this is extremely demotivating and I can imagine how you’re feeling right now, because I used to be very lost once with a breakup myself. I know how hard it is to find good things in life again. 

I know you don’t want to hear this, especially right now, but it’s in your best interest for me to say this: Nothing in life is for free. If you want to get back your happiness, then you need to take a step now to move forward. You have to let go of the good memories with your ex girlfriend. I know that all of those memories are irreplaceable. It’s easy to remember those good times. I know you’d rather think back to those times, than try to move forward and make new good memories. The things that could become good memories in the future probably seem quite useless to you. 

And by the way, it’s not as if I want you to forget all the good memories with your ex forever. I just want you to put them aside for a while.

Even now, occasionally, I sometimes randomly remember a fun or great experience that I had with an ex of mine. Not because I miss any of those girls, it’s just because it was a memorable moment in my life and something happening in my life right now, or something that I was talking about with someone, reminded me of that moment from the past. It’s sort of like a deja vu. But, the difference is that they are good deja vu’s now, rather than them serving me as reminders of how much I’ve lost, and that there’s nothing to gain.

I want you to look back to those good memories, once you’re starting to get over your ex-girlfriend. Of course, I think it’s important for you to appreciate and remember the good times with your ex. Honestly, it’s kind of nice to remember those important moments of our lives. They put a smile on our faces, once they no longer hurt us.

But right now is probably not the best time for that. I am sure that right now, any good memory about your ex-girlfriend is extremely painful. And I just don’t want you to be in pain.

Right now you should be focused on what’s in the future, not in the past. Stoics probably would even say that you should be focused on what’s in the now. And that’s not bad advice either. There’s a lot more potential for good things to happen to you right now, or in the very near future, than you could imagine. It’s just that you probably need to do a little bit of work for that. 

And I know, that’s a tough first step, for anybody. Anything that’s hard to achieve, is hard to get started with. And getting over your ex is probably harder than many things you’ll set your mind to in the next few years. But I know you can do it. I have faith that you can take the first steps. And over time, each little step will feel a little less heavy. The hard things may seem overwhelming, because we look at all the gigantic hurdles as one big obstacle that we can’t overcome, but you don’t have to get over all of it right now. You don’t have to magically forget ALL the good moments overnight. You just need to take the first small steps to get started.

And I don’t want you to take those steps in pain, anger, or frustration. As I said, I think it’s OK to remember an ex, and so the best thing you can do now is, be grateful for the good times you had with your ex, and then try to find a positive outlook. Find something fun or great that you’d get excited about and focus on that.

Focus on creating new happy moments and memories. Create a vision of something new that you want to create for yourself and your life, that’s not necessarily related to dating at all. At this point, you’re probably not even considering this, and maybe that’s a good thing. Focus on what you can get done right now. Personally, I’m heavily focused on moving to Japan right now. And despite my life not being perfect, this is my number one goal that I always come back to, day by day.

After ten years in South East Asia, and also, after losing my home in the Philippines because of the pandemic, I kind of felt lost and no longer had anything positive to look forward to. I would always just look back sadly towards the life I had lost in the Philippines, and at the same time, I wasn’t happy in my new home in Indonesia.

But then, I found my excitement in the incredible culture of Japan, and making it my goal to move to Japan, while scary, and a big challenge, really got me out of my negative energy. I managed to let go of the things holding me back, and started anew. Instead of trying to get back the good memories in the Philippines, I decided that it was time to start new good memories, even if it is not easy at all to start when you’ve lost everything you ever cared for.

I know that you can do the same. You can find something again that gets your heart pumping. Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for you this time. Is there something that you’d love to pursue as a new start after your breakup? Maybe it’s time to write it down, on pen and paper, on a YouTube comment, or in a journal.