What is the best way to get over an ex ?

Hey man, welcome to Fluther. I’m sorry to hear about this.

I’ve found the best thing to do is to try to rediscover yourself apart from what your identity was in the relationship. Spend more time with friends that maybe you didn’t get to see that often. Pick up that old hobby that you didn’t used to have time for. Go to a concert or listen to music that your girlfriend didn’t like. Don’t burden yourself with painful memories. Remember what was good, and give the rest back to the universe.

If you are really in a bad way and feel in need of a kick in the pants, watch this clip from Bored to Death. But be warned, it’s a doozie. This show helped me through a really rough breakup in college.

four wheel drive.

No, seriously, I think that getting out and meeting more people as mentioned above is the best way. Find someone new for you.

So even if we are still friends its a bad idea to keep in touch as far as moving on goes? She seems to insist on keeping in touch. Maybe I’m her “safety net” in case things don’t work out for her?

I’m new to fluther btw, thanks for the input, I really appreciate it guys

1. Don’t spend a lot of time dwelling on the good parts of the relationship. If a thought comes up, replace with thoughts of bad times or bad traits in your ex.

2. Involve yourself in something new: a new relationship, new hobby, new volunteer opportunity. Something to engage your attention.

3. Time.

It must be terrible for them…my exes that is :¬)

The only thing that’s ever worked for me, to break the sadness of an ended relationship, is to get on with your life. I’d tell my friends I wanted to date again so set me up pronto!

Keeping in touch is hard on a person. I have an ex I talk to occasionally but it always brings back those feelings, lots and lots of confusing feelings. In order for BOTH of you to move on, you really do need to let each other go and then maybe with time and distance you can re-connect and be friends.

Additionally, depending on your feelings, if you still love her or if this was the love of your life, the feelings may not go away ever, and that can be very difficult to move on from, but only you can know your feelings and if keeping in touch is as harmless as it sounds. Good luck and welcome!!

I don’t mean to sound harsh when I say this, but if her going abroad to study for a year was a cause for break up, then it should not be that hard to get over.

I am currently waiting for my girlfriend to come back, she is over 8000km away, studying abroad, for a year. A couple months left to go until she returns.

Before she left, you both had a choice to make, and you chose. Experience tells me, that, if this is your first break up, that you feel bad mainly out of selfishness. You took a blow to your ego and self esteem, and it is probably much more about you alone than it is about both of you.

My advice…

As women/girls are more emotionally mature than guys, I would say that there is a chance that she still has feelings for you, or perhaps some level of interest. 4 years is a long time to throw away over 1 year. I don’t know how old you are, I am not too old myself, I recently turned 30. However, I can tell you, that a year is nothing, I am an inch off having a full blown midlife crisis at the moment, because years feel like months to me, and I feel like I will be dead from old age next week, time passes very fast.

Talk to her, keep in touch, try to save the relationship, or at least, remain friends.

I know what it is like, I’m a guy. And the idea of spending a full year back on the hand is not a nice one. But, you will not always be the person you are today, one day you will look back on your choices, and some times you will still feel the same, and other times you will be more matured and maybe develop regrets.

It is hard to find someone who will spend 4 years in a relationship with you. I have had at least 20 or 30 official relationships over my life time, of various degrees of success. Not one of them past relationships ever lasted more than a year or two. A relationship that can go 4 years has the potential to go 8 more.

Who was it that broke up? was it you? were you unwilling to wait for a year without sex? was it the doubt that she would not come back? did it make you feel like she did not value you enough? what really did happen?

Ask yourself those questions, because like I said, you wont always be the person you are today. There are people I have broken up with, that I would like if they were still around. Not so I could continue a relationship with them, not at all, I love the girl I am with at the moment, but you know… those people are still a link to my past, they are still a part of my experiences and a part of who I am, and yea, it would be nice to be in touch still, to know they are doing ok in life.

Take a look at the relationship. What did you have? was this just your first relationship for both of you, and you dated just because you were from the same area and based it on physical attraction? or was there perhaps a real relationship, a real connection, a once in a lifetime best friends deal?

If you were both just playing around, enjoying the physical side for the most part, then move on, be her friend maybe, or cut her off totally if that is what you want, but if this is a one in a lifetime deal, then throwing it away over a year, is really borderline retarded.

Be honest with yourself, you know the truth. If you broke up with her as some kind of punishment for abandoning you, then you will know that deep down. If she broke up with you, then you probably need to talk to her, to get a good understanding of why. There could be a chance she was setting you free to see if you would wait the year.

I am assuming it was you who broke up, as the male. I am not trying to be sexist, but I know a lot of women, who in tears after a break up with their guy, have told me “I thought he would be the one I spent the rest of my life with”, specially if they are past the 4 or 5 year mark.

Anyway, sorry for the long ass post, but by coincidence, I am almost in the exact same situation as you, except we took the path to be together and wait a year. We talk every day, twice, on skype, and yea, it is fucking shit being apart, but the worse part is over now. So, maybe some of my thoughts on the matter will be of help to you, I am not sure what else we have in common other than the part of being apart a year for study, but maybe the words can help.

No yeah your words have helped. It is a long story but she broke up with me I guess, she thought long distance would turn small problems into big ones and that there would be too much expectations of each other so we broke up even though I wanted to try the long distance. She’s been gone for 7months and came back for 3 weeks (2 more weeks before she goes back) and we have been hanging out as friends and it just brought back all the same feelings I had when she first left. It doesn’t make sense to start something again when she will be going back in 2 weeks but it would be nice to know that I am not waiting around for nothing..