It’s been 6 months and you can’t get over your ex gf? Damn, that’s tough! You’d think by now things have gotten better, no? Well, missing your ex-girlfriend right after a breakup is quite normal. Whether you’re the anxious type of man or not, you’ll probably struggle in the first few months. But once it’s been a few months, it can really weigh on you when it still feels as if it’s been like yesterday since she left and nothing’s changed. Like, damn! When is this ever going to end? So, let’s talk about that difficult feeling when you can’t seem to let go of her and you’re actually starting to realize that it’s about time for you to move on, but you still love her.

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. So, how long has it been since you and your ex-girlfriend broke up? Maybe a half a year? Some of you may have been broken up even longer? But even after all this time, you still keep on thinking about your ex and somehow you just can’t seem to let go. Somehow you still look at her pictures, or look at her Instagram, or you still remember random nice things that you’ve done together. Or maybe you remember her birthday, or something like that?

I definitely think it’s quite normal to have random moments where you unexpectedly think about your ex-girlfriend, but I also think that there is a case to be made for suggesting that some guys almost purposefully think about their ex-girlfriend when it wouldn’t be necessary. Some guys, almost actively remind themselves of their ex-girlfriend.

Now, I’m not saying that if you cannot move on from your ex-girlfriend, it’s because you’re creating little to-do list items that remind you to think about your ex, but I think we seek out the things that give us comfort. I talk about a similar idea in my book that I’m currently working on, called “48 Masculine Dating Principles”… Well, that’s the draft title anyway. One of the chapters in the book is called “Men should cry, but don’t choose to cry,” in which I give a scientific breakdown of why it’s not a bad thing to cry as a man, but why men also SHOULDN’T actively choose to cry when they instead could often hold in their tears and train their mental strength.

I’m sure you are familiar with what I mean… Sometimes, you feel miserable about your breakup and perhaps you feel like crying, repeating certain scenarios or fantasies in your mind about your ex-girlfriend, how you could have made things work out, what you could say to her if you’d see her tomorrow, and so on. 

And perhaps as you think about your ex girlfriend and become emotional, you may or may not start to cry. Maybe you even want to cry. The crying part aside, the entire point here is that often, none of this would be necessary. We often think about emotional matters of the heart and seek out our vulnerability, weakness, and desperation, instead of just fighting through the pain. Why do we do that? It’s because it feels more comfortable. And in the case of crying in particular, it actually relieves our pain, at least temporarily. But, as I lay out in the chapter, crying generally makes us unhappy in the long-term, even though it makes us feel better in the short-term.

Now, this isn’t a post about crying, but, the metaphor remains that when you cannot move on, it’s probably an indicator that you are too much focusing your attention towards the things related to your ex that hurt you — so all your memories, thoughts, hopes, fears, and so on. And instead, you are not focusing on the positive aspects of your life. Naturally, the things that we focus on become our reality. I’m not even suggesting that all of you are actively focusing on your ex-girlfriend, but rather, there’s a high chance that a lot of you are simply not focusing on anything else but her. 

This is actually a psychological principle that’s been researched: People are able to replace their negative emotions with positive emotions. Humans are pretty bad at coping with their heartbreak and pain, and so to a certain degree, your heartbreak and all the painful memories about your ex-girlfriend will always stay with you. But you are able to replace the negative memories with better ones. 

So, to any guy who is still struggling with the breakup and being unable to move on from your ex-girlfriend, I think it’s a great idea to do a retrospective of what has happened in the months since the breakup happened. Sometimes you would be surprised to find out how you spent your time since then. Did you go hit the gym or do some other kind of sport? Have you been trying to be more outgoing? And with outgoing, I don’t mean partying. Have you been going to events, activities, volunteering opportunities and so on. Have you made some new friends or have you maybe put in some new effort into old friendships? 

You know, the running gag on the internet is that bros abandon each other for a while once they are in a relationship. That joke is a pretty good metaphor for the need to be especially conscious of your bad habits. When you’re in a relationship, you tend to neglect your friendships. And when you had a breakup, you do the same, but there are also a lot of other ways of how we neglect ourselves. There are so many little subconscious ways how you may not even be aware of how you are not doing enough positive things for yourself to move on from the relationship. 

For example, some guys bury themselves in work, which by itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But imagine if you buried yourself in work for 6 months or longer and never took any time off for yourself to go on a fun trip on the weekends, and so on. Eventually, that stress would weigh down on you. So, maybe reflect on how things have been going for you. I actually have a Google document for myself, which acts as a simple goal setting document, and even though I’d like to believe myself to be a very diligent worker, I still get surprised how I neglected certain goals upon reviewing that document after a year has passed. 

And I think after a breakup it is much easier to run almost on autopilot and not realize how much you are giving in to your worst impulses, such as thinking about your ex, binging TV shows, not exercising properly, and so on. And then, when you look back 6 months, or a year later, you will realize that you could have taken more action steps to get out of your shell, and try to be more positive, and try to move on from your ex-girlfriend energetically. None of this is meant to shame any of you guys. And for some of you, what I’m saying may not even be too accurate. It’s just a reminder to be good to yourself. It’s not even just about the discipline to take action to do good things for yourself. Some of these things require work.

But there are also simple changes in your life that do not require you to become a unicorn in order to feel better. Take simple things, like going to the massage spa once every 2 months. It’s a tiny change, and sure, it won’t mean the world, but treating yourself good and finding positive things for yourself to enjoy after a breakup are just as important as finding positive aspirations that require a lot of work.

Whether you find positive things to do that are easy, or require some effort, doing good things for yourself after a breakup is crucial so that you begin to let go of your ex-girlfriend and realize that life isn’t all that bad without her. So if you’ve been struggling with the breakup, do an inventory of what you’ve been up to in the last months and then assess whether you could have been better to yourself, or whether you could have taken more action to invite new positive experiences into your life. And if you could have done more, then now is a great time to think of some fun or exciting things to do for yourself that bring some positivity back into your life.

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