Starting a new life… How to move on after a breakup as a man? Especially, how do you start a new life when you’re so intertwined with your previous life with your ex-girlfriend? This is especially difficult because one of the big reasons for why women breakups, is a lack of autonomy in the relationship. Whereas men don’t report this as a big motivator for a breakup. So we men tend to intertwine a lot more with our girlfriends and don’t often find reasons to break up when we’ve been together for a long time. But women detach from long-term relationships far more, especially when they seek autonomy and want to restart their life without their ex-boyfriend. So, let’s talk about this difficult experience.

Hey guys, welcome back to the Breakup Corner, I’m Andi Galster, and here I teach men how to move on from their ex-girlfriend. Oh man, starting all the way from scratch, that’s the hard part, isn’t it? When it seems that you have nothing left, but at the same time, because you were so tightly knit with your ex-girlfriend, you also share a lot of things together. Friends. Hobbies. Favorite places. Shared hopes and dreams. 

Man, that’s probably one of the worst parts about having a breakup. Sometimes you end up doing random things, or you simply cannot avoid going to places that remind you of your ex-girlfriend. And that hurts you a lot and makes moving on from a breakup so much harder.

I remember, when I used to live in the Philippines, I was living on the beaches, and the surfer community is pretty tight over there. Back then I had a breakup with my girlfriend who also was a surfer girl. So it was easy to run into mutual friends. I remember, back then, I went to Bali because I just had to get out of the country. And… ironically. My ex-girlfriend had booked a flight to Bali perhaps just a few days separate from me and we were even living in the same area.

So one day, I was on a run and she saw me, and she stopped her bike to talk to me. I don’t think she had stalked me or I don’t even think I posted about going to Bali, nor had I stalked her IG or anything like that, yet we still ran into each other in a completely different country. Granted, it was a popular surf destination, and in South East Asia, many people fly to Bali, but you get the metaphor. Sometimes it seems like the universe conspires against you in your attempts of avoiding your ex-girlfriend or even just things that remind you of her.

So even if you may be trying to start a new life, you are bound to run into hurdles, and at times, you will be reminded of your ex-girlfriend in ways that you wouldn’t expect. Or you wouldn’t expect that these things would hurt you so badly. Once, I had to go back to the city where my ex and I used to live, and I honestly was excited to be back there. It was the most wealthy, cleanest city in the Philippines, lots of big condo buildings, amazing restaurants, nice parks, etc… And the moment I stepped foot on the park where we used to walk our dog, I was overwhelmed with all the painful memories and I was unable to not feel awful almost instantly.

And this brings me to my point of this post. Sometimes, it’s necessary to start completely from scratch after a breakup. For example, in the case of my story about me running into my ex-girlfriend in literally another country, at exactly the same time, well, you could say geniuses think alike… Just kidding. More like we both were successful freelancers, or well, I was a remote product manager. We both lived the beach life, and so Bali, the place to go to enjoy life and heal yourself was the logical choice for both of us to go, and also for both of us to run into each other.

Likewise, back then, when I was extremely lost, I would always travel from one surf beach to another in the Philippines. I’d go to all the popular cultural surf towns, and of course, even though I never ran into my ex-girlfriend in any of these surf towns, you could say that a part of me was chasing what I was missing: We were a couple that lived on the beach, and we had worked hard to finally make this work. Long before remote work ever became a thing due to COVID.

So when the relationship was lost, I wanted to recreate the memories without even realizing it. And so, naturally, I would spend my time in places that felt familiar to me. Sometimes, when you want to start a new life, you really have to let go of the things that felt comfortable during the relationship. That’s not to say that you should just distance yourself from all your friends, and never ever go to the places that remind you of your ex-girlfriend, but there is often some benefit in creating temporary distance to allow yourself to heal before you return to the places that trigger your emotions.

For a while, I lived in a place called Baguio, which is a really nice city all the way in the mountains of the Philippines. It’s probably my favorite place in the entire country, because it reminds me a lot of my home in Germany. The architecture is Spanish-influenced, there are a lot of pine trees, and it has cool or cold weather. None of that has anything to do with the surfer lifestyle. I generally prefer hot weather, which is why I can’t stand living in Europe. But in that place, I found peace for a while. And that peace was necessary for me to find the time to process my emotions and get over the breakup with my ex-girlfriend.

If I would have remained on the surf beach forever, then I would have always remembered the life that I wanted to have with my ex-girlfriend. And I also had common friends, and my ex even used a friend of mine on that one surf beach to inquire about me. And of course, eventually, very soon, I would have certainly also run into my ex-girlfriend once she would have made a trip to that beach town.

I actually don’t recommend any of you guys to just randomly throw your entire life overboard and travel, work, or live in a new place. But there’s definitely merit in changing your routines, such as going to different places. Trying out new hobbies, or at the very least, doing your old hobbies in completely new places. And it’s also a good idea to make new friends to meet more people who do not remind you of your ex-girlfriend. Starting a new life requires you to try brand new things. 

That sounds like obvious advice, but you’d be surprised at how tempting it is to return back to the same habits and lifestyle choices that felt familiar in the past. And unfortunately, after a breakup, we’re often also drawn to our ex-girlfriend without even realizing how much we’re being pulled in her direction. You may be going to places and you think that you are in full control, that you’re not going to these places because you’d like to see her, but in reality, of course, you’re not over her and you are consciously going to places that make it more likely to encounter your ex.

So if you want to start a new life and move on from your ex, it would be best to think about how you can really start something new. You can of course incorporate your existing life and circle of friends into your new life choices, but it’s a good strategy to spend some time after a breakup to discover new things that are completely separate from your ex-girlfriend, and once you feel ready for it, you can then incorporate your old life with your new life. While you are focusing too much on your old life, you’re unlikely to focus on new things. But once you’ve established something new, it becomes much easier to combine all the new things in your life with the old parts that you want to keep in your life.

Do you want to move on from your ex-girlfriend? Then grab a sheet of paper and a pen, and write down random ideas that you would like to try that have nothing to do with your ex-girlfriend. You can try an exercise similar to a stream of consciousness journaling, where you write down anything that comes to your mind. And once you have written down a lot of ideas, passions, you can narrow it down to the ideas that seem more reasonable to pursue.

If you had a breakup and you haven’t taken any steps to start a new life, then I have a challenge for you to take the first step. Create a list of at least three things that you’d like to try or go to and experience. And then try to make these three things happen in the next 3 months. It may be scary to start, but by writing down a concrete list, you are holding yourself accountable to take real action, rather than just aimlessly drifting and not having a real plan.

One of the best parts about a breakup, even though we never see it this way when it’s just happening to us, is that we’re able to start our life from scratch. So I’d like to encourage you to find a new positive perspective for your breakup, and recognize that you can find a lot of positive things, wherever you go. You don’t have to find comfort in the old things that the two of you used to enjoy. You certainly can find comfort in them again in the future, once the breakup pain is no longer as insurmountable, but for now, I hope that you will manage to start something new so that you can avoid all the painful memories for the time being.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for you this time.