The shame when you can’t get over your breakup with your ex-girlfriend. Perhaps some of you guys feel that way. A sense of shame, or inadequacy because you’re struggling to get over your ex-girlfriend. Or because you are extremely anxious, heartbroken, and can’t get your life back in order.
As a guy, we are conditioned to always perform, to always be productive and to remain strong. So when you can’t forget your ex-girlfriend and worse, become very unproductive because of breakup anxiety, the feeling of not being good enough can really add to the stress of the breakup. So let’s talk about what to do when you feel like you’re not recovering as fast as you should from your ex-girlfriend.
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, I want to talk about what it feels like when you can’t get over an ex-girlfriend. The feeling of humiliation or shame that you might feel. Probably just in a very subtle way. I think most guys don’t consciously sit there and feel ashamed of themselves when they struggle to get over an ex-girlfriend, but rather, it’s this really subtle, barely noticeable feeling of not seeming to be strong enough as a man. Deep down, something’s slowly eating at you because you know you are not handling things as you should. As we sometimes like to say: “Handle it like a man”… Be strong enough and don’t be weak.
This feeling can happen long after the breakup, but I think the same feeling can even happen to you when you haven’t been broken up for a very long time, but unlike you, your ex-girlfriend seems very, very happy, yet you are an absolute mess. Maybe you’re not letting other people see how messed up your life is and you’re really trying to keep it together, but deep down you know what you feel like. You know that you are doing anything but fine and it really feels humiliating when you can’t find your footing after a breakup. Sometimes, you might even have some context from friends, who recently have broken up with somebody, and you can see them handling it just fine. They’re stoic, maybe they’re even practical about it. Or even if the breakup was hard on them, they got over it quite efficiently. That contrast can really make you feel weak.
There are few things that embarrass a man more than being perceived as weak, not being able to assert one’s needs, or being unable to remain stoic. As a guy, you want others to respect you more than anything, and after a breakup, you can clearly see into the depths of your own psyche and can’t help but feel like if others would know what you really feel like, they would look down on you. I know that feeling. It’s very small. Barely noticeable. Like I said, it’s not always an outright conscious shame. It’s just that knowledge that something’s not quite right. You’re not handling the breakup the way that you’re supposed to. You’re supposed to get over it and move on with your life. At least that’s how we often feel.
But of course, life isn’t so simple. And even guys are allowed to struggle and be in pain. Certainly, I believe there’s merit in phrases like “Handle your breakup like a man”… Men should be strong. Men should choose to not cry unless necessary. Men should fight through hardship and not always choose to be vulnerable. But of course, despite a man’s need, but also, innate talent to be strong and masculine, if you struggle, that is fine. You just have to do the best you can do.
After a breakup, a little dose of self-compassion is really crucial. Of course, I want every man to feel empowered, to become a workhorse, find new goals and climb mountains to start a new life. But all beginnings are hard, and not everybody is at the same starting line when they get out of a relationship. Some breakups are harder than others. All the factors of how long you stayed together, what your plans were as a couple, and so on play a big role. And of course, your personality traits play a big role in how you may or may not handle the breakup. Of course, if some of your personality traits encourage weakness, certainly, this is a lesson to train them to become more resilient.
But in general, there are so many factors that impact whether or not you will have a relatively easy transition into singlehood. I think, if I were to give any of you advice who’s struggling with the feelings of inadequacy, I’d probably share with you my own memories from my men’s circle when I was at my worst. If you’ve never been at a men’s circle, it’s basically a place where men can share their feelings. Whether it’s good or bad stuff. And usually, most men’s circles are listen-only, so rarely do people give advice at a men’s circle. It’s just a place for men to relate to each other, and show support, and let them know that we have been through similar struggles.
For example, at my men’s circle, we had a ritual when a guy shared something, where we could express via certain hand gestures whether their story is something we experienced before. Or we could just express that we feel them and are with them. Or, we could express that we deeply resonate with the story because it was extremely close to our heart.
The reason why I’m bringing this up is because we all go through hard times. Some people may never struggle with breakups, unless it’s perhaps an extremely long-term relationship, whereas others struggle a lot, and perhaps they are indeed objectively taking too long to get over an ex-girlfriend. And that certainly is a sign to work on one’s resilience, to not let yourself be defeated so easily and to live with positivity and generate lots of good energy to get out of your rough patch in life, but in the end, it’s okay to struggle. You don’t have to feel ashamed to go through something that you haven’t resolved yet. It’s okay if you can’t let go of your ex-girlfriend, and if your entire life is a complete mess, nothing is working for you, and you feel as if everyone has got their life figured out, whereas you seem to be the only one who’s not able to cope with a breakup. Of course, in a perfect world, you’d always get over an ex-girlfriend smoothly and without too many setbacks. But the reality is that life is not always simple.
I’ve blasted through incredible hardships in my life as if they were nothing, never losing any momentum, to the point where people were inspired and wanted to be as productive, hard-working, positive and forceful as me. And then there’s been seemingly simple problems, that I absolutely should have and would have resolved in the past without any problems, with exactly that mindset, yet back then, those problems seemed unresolvable hurdles and I struggled with some of these issues for months or years, when in the past I would have probably not even seen that problem as a problem, but just a small hurdle to skip over.
Life doesn’t always unfold perfectly. Breakups don’t always heal easily. Sometimes they may. Your next breakup, if you will have one again — but let’s hope not — it could possibly be something that you move on from within just a few months without much hardship. So don’t beat yourself up so much if you feel like you are handling your breakup as badly as you possibly could. Hey, man, maybe you even are doing that. But there’s no point in beating yourself up, when you’re already lying on the floor anyway.
Just like the example of my men’s group, you have to find a positive way to look at these struggles. Even if you’re handling things in the worst way possible, there’s nothing else you can do, other than to pick yourself up, keep going, and not hate yourself for the way that you may not have handled everything as good as you could have. As I said, there’s been at least one time in my life, where I handled hardship in extremely terrible ways. Seriously, I struggled for years with such an extremely simple problem. I was so stubborn, and unwilling to change my approach because I wanted to get things done and prove myself. And in the process, I became extremely unsuccessful, unattractive, depressed. And I hated who I was…
And then, one day, I was done with all that shit. I was done with the pain. I was done with the shame and feeling like I wasn’t good enough. I decided to no longer follow that same approach, I stopped beating myself up, and I looked forward to a better approach, a better future, and instead of staying stuck in a loop of shame, I just accepted that life isn’t always easy or perfect, and everybody makes mistakes. Just keep on going. As I said, I also had countless times where I had zero struggles with things that others would miserably fail with. Just do your best and never stop fighting. That’s the best you can do.
The only way how you can get through this, and feel better about yourself, is to focus on the positive, and to keep on trying to make the next day a little bit better. You can only fight something negative with more positivity, and if you think that you’re not moving on fast enough, or that you don’t have your life all sorted out, and so on, then don’t try to be so harsh on yourself and talk yourself into believing that you aren’t doing a good job. I’m sure you’re doing the best that you can most of the time. The only thing you can do, is to keep on trying to do the best you can, or be even better, but most importantly, do so while maintaining a positive attitude.
As long as you can be proud of yourself for trying to move on from your ex-girlfriend, and as long as you’re taking small steps to get over her, small steps to take care of yourself and live a happier life as a single man, then you’re doing great. This was essentially the moral of the story of my men’s group. And I assume most men’s circles are the same. As long as you stepped into the ring, then you most likely stepped out of it 1% better. And that’s all that counts. So don’t beat yourself up, show up with a positive mindset, and get a little bit better, day by day. I know you can do it.
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for you this time.
