It’s been 2 years and you can’t get over your ex gf? Two years sounds like it’s a long time, and, yes, of course, objectively looking at it, that’s a very long time to not get over an ex-girlfriend, but love is never simple, and some guys struggle more with breakups than others. So let’s talk about what to do when you just can’t get over your ex, even after so several years.

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. Being unable to get over a breakup with an ex-girlfriend isn’t really something uncommon. I would say most guys have a lot of trouble coping when their ex-girlfriend is gone. We guys don’t deal very well with the fact that we’re alone after a breakup, especially because we often have the tendency to rely too much on our girlfriends, at least when the relationship didn’t work out.

In fact, it’s a common behavior pattern to see relationships failing when one or both partners are too dependent on each other, or to put it differently, when you no longer differentiate between your own life and identity, the life of your girlfriend and her identity, and how these two mix together to create the couple identity. 

Usually, when couples are too focused on the identity as a couple, that’s where the trouble begins, which seems counterintuitive, but the more you aren’t able to function on your own as an individual, the more you will become clingy, need your partner to help you in life, miss them when you shouldn’t, get upset when they have to reject you because, let’s say they have to work overtime on the weekend, and so on.

And so if you’re reading this post right now and it’s been more than 1 ½ years, maybe even 2 years or longer, yet you still miss your ex-girlfriend and you can’t let go of the relationship, you can’t get over the pain and regret, and you feel trapped in the past, then it’s very likely that you’re still stuck in that same identity trap that often causes breakups to happen.

Now, there’s probably still more to it. For example, if you still miss your ex after 2 years, then you’re probably very anxiously attached, but in this post I just want to talk about the mistake of not properly separating mentally from an ex-girlfriend after a breakup.

When you don’t move on from an ex-girlfriend, it’s almost as if you haven’t accepted that your lives are separate from each other. And this is a good metaphor of how many breakups happen. It’s usually women who no longer want to be with their boyfriends, not the other way around. Even when breakups aren’t one-sided, women have more criticisms towards their boyfriends than men have for their girlfriends.

So naturally, women are more prepared and willing to move on from their exes, even if a breakup was mutual. Even when a man breaks up with a woman, he may often be the one who very quickly has a change of heart, believes he made a mistake, only to realize that now his ex-girlfriend will no longer want to continue with the relationship because the moment the breakup happened, she was done with the relationship and ready to move on.

When women have breakups, they prepare themselves mentally for the separation of the couple identity and they get ready to start a new life. Because women see their boyfriends as sources of emotional and financial stability, if she knows that she is about to leave the relationship, then she needs to get ready to mentally detach, so that she can make herself available to date another man in the near future.

For a man, however, detaching from the relationship means that we are no longer able to provide, something that we instinctively crave to do. And we know that finding another woman to provide for is no easy task. Unlike your ex-girlfriend who loved you a lot during the relationship, your search for a new girlfriend will likely be filled with many rejections, and unless you work hard to meet and approach women, you’d likely be single for years. So as a man, becoming single again is anything but desirable. 

To a woman, however, if her boyfriend didn’t make her happy, being single is an opportunity rather than a burden because she is now able to find another man who is able to fulfill her needs. She’s been wishing for a while and now she’s about to get her wish fulfilled. So as a man, your mental framework is heavily influenced to double-down on ongoing or past relationships. 

If you’re still not able to move on from your ex-girlfriend after two years or longer, then it means that you still haven’t made this distinction. You are still connecting your own identity with your ex-girlfriend. But this makes little sense if you want to move on, especially if it’s been so long already since the breakup. But of course, from your experience of heartbreak and missing her, it makes perfect sense.

This is probably not something you would like to hear, but let me walk you through two hypothetical scenarios for you to understand why you need to force yourself to redefine your identity to only include yourself, rather than your ex still being included in that identity.

First of all, I think that hypothetically speaking, it is possible to move on from an ex-girlfriend after just a week of a breakup. This may sound unrealistic and unlikely, but hear me out for one moment. When I was younger, I was very codependent. Always dreaded conflict. Never tried to cause any trouble. Oh man , I couldn’t be any different nowadays. I sometimes say things that could get me canceled online because I just say what I think.

I just no longer care. I used to care a lot about not hurting anyone’s feelings, but nowadays, if I know a relationship isn’t right for me, I would end it in a heartbeat. It would still feel uncomfortable, I’d still have a bad conscience, and I wouldn’t take pleasure in hurting a woman’s feelings for breaking up with her. But I would do it without hesitation or regrets.

Before I turned roughly 30 years old, this was absolutely impossible for me. Unthinkable. Nowadays, this is possible for me because I learned to understand myself, relationships, and what drives my personal psyche. We’re in control of how we feel, how we respond to everything in life, and we can make smart and rational decisions, rather than always letting our emotions take control.

In the same way, I think it’s possible for a man to consciously choose to move on from a relationship, even if the relationship was great, was extremely important to you, and maybe even ended abruptly in a way that wasn’t foreseen. Such a breakup would hurt profoundly. But every guy can theoretically make the choice to be grateful for the experience of the relationship, reflect on the good and bad parts of it, and then decide to let the memories of it take their rightful place in a stash of great memories that can be appreciated, but don’t need to be dreaded or replayed over and over in pain.

All it takes to do so is to choose how to react to your emotions, rationally, and then commit to your new life decisions, rather than choosing to impulsively give in to the pain. 

Now, this is a hypothetical scenario. Even I wouldn’t say that it is likely that I would move on instantly after one week if I’d just gotten out of a 5 year-long relationship. Certainly not. But generally speaking, it is possible to choose how to move forward with our lives and how we choose to direct our intentions, emotions and actions.

Of course, a perfect scenario like this doesn’t exist, but you could choose to move on any given day of the week. Whether it has been after one week, one month, or one year. So whatever the timeline of your current breakup is, you have the power to choose right now to separate the identity of you as a couple, and you and your ex-girlfriend. You can choose to no longer see both of you as one couple, but rather as two distinct people, who no longer share the same identity, the same goals, the same path in life, and so on. And why is this so important? Well, let’s talk about the second hypothetical scenario… Which in fact, is very realistic and possible to happen.

Imagine this… You’re currently being heartbroken, missing your ex-girlfriend and thinking back to the good old times when you went on that special trip, or when you hugged her in that great photo that you’ll never forget. It doesn’t matter if it’s been a month since the breakup, a year, or even five years. If you are no longer in touch with your ex-girlfriend, she could literally have died without you even realizing it.

There’s a woman that I really loved many years ago. Losing her actually made me start studying relationships. Very early on in the breakup, just after a few weeks or so, I think maybe maximum after 2 or 3 months, I never looked at any of her social media profiles ever again because I decided I wanted to just focus on myself. And looking at what she was up to would only make me sad.

I guess it’s been almost 6 years now since that breakup and I have no idea what she’s up to, where she lives, or if she’s even still alive. She could have been run over by a car months or years ago without me ever realizing it. And not knowing this is a good thing. Back then, I missed this woman so badly, and damn, was I deeply intertwined with her. I had made my identity so dependent on her. And if I wouldn’t have made a hard cut back then to accept that I’m alone, then I would probably still be wondering what she is up to today, and perhaps I would have checked up on her social media profiles every now and then.

You need to create this separation of identity when you cannot move on. You have to accept that the one that you need to focus and prioritize is yourself. When your ex-girlfriend is gone, there is no guarantee that she’s even going to still be alive in a week from now. You could be hung up on a woman who has been dead for years if you don’t recognize and accept that you are starting a brand new life without her.

I know this isn’t easy, but the sooner that you see yourself as one fully-functioning individual again, the sooner you are going to start living for yourself rather than for your ex-girlfriend. The moment that you accept that you get to create a new life and love story in the future, is the moment that you begin to move on. That doesn’t mean it won’t still hurt. It also doesn’t mean that you won’t think about her at all.

I probably still loved this girl for easily two years or so after the breakup, and when she messaged me occasionally did not help with that, but if I wouldn’t have made the painful decision to move on and accept that she is no longer a part of my life, then I would probably still be in pain about her today. But almost 10 years later, despite the fact that she was my first big love, I frankly don’t even remember her that much, and a lot of the memories about her are not very good either, and I have zero interest in reconnecting with her in the future. 

If I’d ever run into her randomly, I would try to keep the conversation as short as possible and move on because she’s no longer a part of my life and I’ve closed that chapter for good. You need to do the same thing and close the chapter right now. One great way to do so is writing down affirmations for why you want to close the chapter, how you want to start from scratch, and what you want to achieve for your own life in the future.

Moving on or making a clear cut is never easy, this is why setting a clear intention why you’re doing so is a great idea. And certainly, if you still have feelings for your ex-girlfriend even after two years or you still think about her occasionally, then now is perhaps the time to give dating another chance. 

Your first attempts at dating might not be successful, or be frustrating, and perhaps you get dumped or rejected, or the girl you will be dating won’t make you happy. But eventually, with enough commitment to move forward all by yourself, you’ll find the right woman for you, eventually. I know it’s scary to move forward, but you got this.

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