Maybe you did your life reassessment, looked at your whole life, and you realized that it was time to end a romantic relationship. Or maybe you already ended the relationship and are now trying to decide what your next move will be. The most common advice I hear given to people, especially cis men, after a relationship ends is, “The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else”. And…nah. Whether you are monogamous, in an open relationship, polyamorous, a relationship anarchist, etc., the end of any kind of romantic relationship is still a loss that has some kind of effect on you. And this kind of effect on any level is worth dealing with as soon as possible. This piece is about the next steps after a romantic relationship ends, whether that is taking a break before moving onto the next relationship and/or taking some time to yourself periodically (and/or with trusted loved ones, a therapist, etc.) to reflect and process what happened and how it affected you. Many people seem to think that closure comes from talking to an ex-partner and coming to some kind of total, complete (and honestly idealistic) understanding. That kind of closure is a myth, to be real, and I mentioned some reasons before (See this short Twitter THREAD about closure in romantic relationships) for why looking for that kind of closure isn’t helpful. Instead, find closure, understanding, and peace within yourself by taking time to work through how you feel, what you’ve learned, and how you can grow from what you have experienced.

How do you know when it is time to take a break and/or reflect?

In general, I’d suggest taking a little time to yourself after every end to a relationship, if anything, just to reflect. You just experienced a loss. Acknowledge that. Your first steps after a relationship ends are important. Any lessons you don’t learn and any wounds you don’t heal are not just gonna go away or heal itself with just time alone. Don’t let the often-repeated lie fool you: Time does not heal all wounds…especially not all by itself. Healing is never passive. It’s never something that just happens to you somehow over time. Healing takes active work. And life lessons have a way of coming back around the longer you are alive. It’s better to take the time and learn the lessons sooner rather than later. No one likes to be stuck in a rut: Repeating similar scenarios, similar relationships, similar dynamics, etc. for years, wondering why you always seem to date the same kinds of people or find yourself in similar situations. That’s a sign that it’s time for you to stop, check in with yourself, and figure out what you need to do to make some active changes in your life.

Again, the ending of any kind of relationship is a kind of loss and with loss comes grief. Grief is a normal response to loss and, like I mentioned in my piece on grief, it looks different for each person depending on the specifics of the situation and the kind of relationship you had with your partner. Grief is also affected by any history of trauma, history of abandonment, other stressful things going on in your life, physical and/or mental health symptoms, etc. And factors like these make no 2 people’s grief look exactly the same. And because humans are complicated and life is complicated, so are the feelings one can feel while grieving. You could feel sad, angry, lonely, relieved that it’s over, glad the partner is out of your life, nostalgic for the good times, etc. Like I mention in the grief post, these feelings are a normal part of the grieving process and they are important to feel/process because “un-dealt with grief can build up inside someone and then come out in other, less healthy ways.” Generally speaking: The worse the break up (meaning the more complicated, the more emotional, the less friendly of a breakup, etc.) the more likely you will need more time/effort to reflect and learn/heal and that’s ok. Scrapes, cuts, and wounds need their right time to heal, even emotional and psychological ones. 

“You Know What They Say…”

Do NOT use another person as an object to “get over” a past partner. First of all, it’s a messed up thing to do to someone else. It’s 1 thing if the person actively consents to being your “rebound,” but using people like objects is not how healing works at all. And “getting over someone by getting under someone else” doesn’t actually work. You never actually deal with whatever the problem was. It’s a distraction. In counseling, that would be an example of avoidance. And avoidance almost always makes things worse. It’s like seeing a water leak in your home and “fixing” it by renting a hotel room for a couple weeks. The feelings you try to push away will always come back in some way, usually stronger. Unhandled emotions and psychological unfinished business can come out in your body so you might start to feel achy, sick or drained all the time. You might start treating your other romantic or sexual partners, your friends, your children, and other relationships in your life like crap. You might start believing that you deserve to be treated badly in relationships or that you aren’t meant for real love or relationships. Like a physical injury, emotional wounds shouldn’t be ignored. 

Time for growth

Sex, casually dating, and new romantic relationships are great as long as you are also taking care of yourself in the process. Relationships are not tools for healing. They are relationships. The other person(s) isn’t your therapist. They are your partner(s). This is another example of the need for firm boundaries and an example of how firm boundaries are nurturing for you as an individual and for your relationships. Check out my introduction to boundaries piece here for basic information on setting and maintaining firm boundaries with people and why it’s even important. And here’s the Part 2 of boundaries 201 2-part series where I explain how strong, clear boundaries can be used to make relationships even stronger and more fulfilling. Those boundaries will also give you the time to dive deeply in your search for awareness and understanding. Mindfulness techniques (as I describe and explain in this intro piece to Mindfulness here) can be very helpful for tapping into yourself and getting to know yourself. Take some time to focus on you. Don’t rush or let anyone else rush your healing. Take however long you need. It’s better to be really ready than to be fast with the process. You wanna focus on quality here. Kind of like how I mentioned in the unemployment piece here, people of all genders should take the time to grow yourself after a loss, whether we are talking about losing a job or a relationship. If you don’t grow yourself, you will never learn from your past. Look at yourself. What lessons do you need to learn? Talk to your friends. And if you figure out that you might be stuck in a relationship rut, maybe talking to your friends isn’t enough. It might be time to talk to a mental health professional. 

A lot of the time the messages we get from society around love, relationships, and dating are incredibly toxic. There’s always someone in your life or some self-help book ready to tell you the fastest way to get over someone. However, at the end of the day, motivation and the juice for change is already in you. It’s just a matter of taking some time to yourself and doing some serious reflecting and going through your feelings, etc. It’s pretty easy to bounce from relationship to relationship. It takes a lot of strength to pause and take some time to look into yourself and to be honest about what you see. And it’s powerful to take what you’ve learned about yourself and use this information to begin to do whatever you need to heal and learn from those life lessons. 

Thanks for reading. The next piece will cover how to help friends come back to baseline (meaning how they normally used to live their lives) after a trauma/crisis and how to conduct crisis intervention in the mean time and in between time while y’all are looking for/waiting for professional help.