10 Ways Brilliant Women Protect Themselves From Being Tempted By An Ex
Turning your pain into power is the path to being happy again.
utkamandarinka | Canva Nothing is worse than a broken heart. Nothing. Feeling your heart has been torn open is horrible. But the pain you are feeling won’t last forever. It's hard to believe, but life will go on, and you will be happy. Unfortunately, this happiness can be stalled if you find yourself tempted by your ex.
How long will it take to feel good again? It depends on how determined you are to heal and move forward. If you are ready to take action and not dwell on what happened for longer than is good for you. If you are ready to take the next steps in your recovery.
Here are 10 ways women can protect themselves from being tempted by an ex
1. Have no contact. None
It's incredibly hard not to see the person you have been in a relationship with, even if you did the breaking up. After all, this is a person you cared about and spent a ton of time with. The idea of not seeing them again is mind-bending.
No longer seeing that person is part of breaking up. You have to break the patterns, and that happens by not being in touch.
Perhaps you could just be friends. Perhaps you are looking for closure by trying to have one more conversation about what went wrong. Which will get you nowhere, closure is all about seeing your ex one more time, and hoping things will work out differently.
Being in contact with an ex is the number one thing that holds people back from healing. As long as they are in contact, they can’t heal. So, have no contact with your ex. None.
No social media, no driving by their house, no talking to their friends. None. And tell them you expect the same. If you are both on board, the chances of moving on are much better!
2. Make a list of all the problems in the relationship
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This is important to do as soon as possible, and don’t tell me that there weren’t any problems. If you are broken up, there were problems, even if you might have ignored them.
When we break up with someone and no longer have daily contact with them, we tend to forget the issues in the relationship. After all, if those issues are no longer arising, they are easy to forget.
What we remember is all the good times. When we fell in love, the trips we took, the fun times with friends, because those are the things we remember, we start to miss our ex.
I broke up with a guy, was missing him, and wanted to reach out. I just happened to stumble upon a journal I had written during our relationship. In the journal, I had written he never listened to what I said, and he always talked over me. I had forgotten about that. The reminder made the urge to reach out disappear.
So, write down a list and keep it somewhere close to refer to when you need it!
3. Block them everywhere
Isn't blocking someone harsh? You would never do anything so unkind to someone. It would be rude if you did. Nope, you won’t do that.
What you are thinking, under it all, is that you want to leave the door open, just a crack, in case your ex wants to reach out. That’s the real reason why you won’t block your ex.
There is no way to ever get over an ex if you don’t block them, especially if you are the one who did the breaking up. Why? Because having instantaneous access to an ex makes reaching out easy, and reaching out just stirs up all the old feelings, good and bad.
If your person is blocked, this can’t happen, and that is good. There will be no healing while you are still in contact.
You will never get over this breakup if you are in contact with your ex. There is just no way. One day you could be friends, but not now. For now, you need to separate and deal with the aftermath of the breakup alone.
If your person ever wanted to reach out in the future, they would figure out a way to do so. You don’t have to leave the door open for them
4. No stalking. Period
Have you, sometime in the recent past, looked up your ex on social media? Have you thought that a little peek wouldn’t do any harm? It's not like you are reaching out. And, when you did that, how did it feel? Not so good, I am guessing.
If you are going to move on after a breakup, you don’t need to know anything about what your ex is up to. Not what they are eating or who they are hanging out with or what Insta posts they are liking. Nothing.
Back in the day, when people broke up, that was it. No more awareness of what was happening in their lives. This made getting over a break-up so much easier. No, seeing them having fun, moving on, hanging with new people, or a new person. We might have heard about that stuff, but we didn’t have to see it. We didn’t have to have the image in our head.
So, no stalking! Period.
5. Limit your time on social media and choose content carefully
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Chances are, you were online and looking for answers to your pain. You googled “how to get over a break up,” and this article popped up. I am glad about that, because you are taking the first steps towards healing, but I am also concerned about how much time you have spent online looking at articles like mine.
I have a client who had to break up with someone he loved because that person didn’t make him a priority. He tried for a while, but couldn’t do it anymore. In the first few months after the breakup, he spent a ton of time online reading about people who didn’t put their significant other first. He looked up narcissists and predators, and gaslighters.
All the words that are out there online to talk about people who don’t prioritize their partner. He looked on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. He dug in deep.
My client thought doing all of this reading was helping him heal and learn what not to do next time. To some extent, he was correct. However, he also spent a ton of time focusing on his past relationship and what happened, thinking about what a gaslighter his ex was, and how he had been wronged. He watched people going on and on about what a horrible person their ex was. A study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships explained how he was feeding his sadness with other people’s anger.
What he wasn’t doing was consuming content about healing. It wasn’t about what the next steps could be, how to rebuild your self-esteem, or any kind of self-help. He wasn’t looking for content that talked about success stories, they aren’t out there, unfortunately. After all, someone who has come out the other side of a breakup is living their life, not posting about their ex on social media.
Certainly, you can spend some time online looking up narcissists and whatever, but only do it for a few days. Feed your angry monster. Then move on.
6. Change your text alerts
This might seem like a strange one, but it works.
Whenever your text alert goes off, does your heart leap, hoping it is your ex? Or perhaps your heart goes to your stomach because it might be them, and you don’t want to hear from them? Either way, do you have a moment of wondering, only to look at your phone and be disappointed or relieved?
If you change your text alert for your ex, it will help you avoid these painful moments. Right now, your brain is so used to hearing an alert and hoping it is your ex. Hoping to get a shot of dopamine one gets when a loved one reaches out, as supported by American Psychological Association research. If your text tone is different, your brain will no longer associate the alert tone with your ex, and your body won’t react one way or another.
Furthermore, if they have their own text alert, you will know automatically it is them, so you don’t have to look at your phone at all. It’s a small but powerful thing!
7. Rearrange your stuff
Do you live in a space where you spent a lot of time with your ex? Does being in that space cause you pain? If it does, you are stuck in a space that was joyful and is now painful, and can hold you back from breakup recovery.
An excellent way to move on after a breakup is to rearrange your stuff. To shift the energy in a way to make your space more comfortable again. It doesn’t have to be a big shift. Just enough of a shift that things feel different.
Maybe get new sheets and towels. Or rearrange the pictures on the wall. Buy some plants. Move your knick-knacks around. Get rid of everything that reminds you of your ex.
If you can shift your space around, the ghost of your ex will vanish, and you can start to heal.
8. Take care of yourself
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The one good thing about a breakup is that while going through one, you are allowed to sit on the couch, watch Netflix, and eat ice cream. If there was ever a time to do this, it's now.
While I approve of doing it, I also have to recommend that you not do it for long. The longer you spend on the couch, the more your body is going to get unhealthy. You might gain weight or not sleep well. You might isolate yourself or get depressed because you aren’t moving.
After a few days feeling sorry for yourself, get up off the couch and take care of yourself. Go for walks or runs. Dance around your apartment. Make yourself a yummy smoothie. Go to the gym, if that's your thing. Make a date with friends.
Do whatever it is you need to take care of yourself mentally and physically. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, just do something!
9. Read the book Exaholics
Exaholics, by Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby, is an excellent book to read while going through a breakup. In the book, she describes what exactly is happening in your brain and body to cause so much pain, what is making you obsessed with your relationship, and why you aren't being able to let go of your ex.
This is a science-backed book that will make logical sense and help you understand why you are feeling the way you are, and why you might have a hard time letting go. Most importantly, it will help you understand that pain is not all about your ex but something else entirely. Good information to have!
Dr. Bobby speaks very badly about life coaches in this book, and the fact that she does so and I still recommend it speaks volumes to how good I think it is!
10. Do something you have always wanted to do
One of the worst parts of a breakup is all of the extra time we have. All the time we used to spend with our person has us now figuring out how to fill that time can be challenging.
I always encourage my clients to fill the time doing something they had always wanted to do and hadn’t done, whether because of their relationship or because they hadn’t had the opportunity to do it. Now is the time!
When I got divorced, I decided it was finally time to go to Peru. I saved my pennies (which was kinda fun because I knew what I was saving for) and set out to hike in Peru with an old friend. Not only did we go to Peru, but we also hiked up to 17,000 feet, not too bad for an old lady.
Is there something you have always wanted to do that you haven’t done? Now is the time to do it. It doesn’t have to be a big trip, like mine. Something small is good. One of my clients started dancing, another took up horseback riding. Whatever makes your heart sing.
11. Get some professional help
I am guessing you think that people who get professional help have to be a mess. I mean, breakups are just breakups, and we all get through them and move on. Yes, this is true. It can also be true that moving on is harder than we thought it would be.
This is where a professional comes in. I know that because I have worked with hundreds of clients over the years, helping them manage breakups. I know how to listen. I know how to support. I know what coping skills work and don’t work. I know it's possible to come out the other side better than ever.
I am the friend without an agenda, I won’t bring my stuff to our sessions. Friends are great, but sometimes we need impartiality to help us move on. So, don’t hesitate to get some help. It doesn’t have other be forever, just some support to get you over the hump!
You might feel overwhelmed, and I get that. You don’t have to do everything on the list, but choose at least one as a place to start. I would suggest blocking them, but you do what you feel!
You will be OK if you are determined to move forward and heal, and not focused on looking back on what happened, you will get through this better than ever. I promise!
Mitzi Bockmann is an NYC-based Certified Life Coach and mental health advocate who works exclusively with women to help them be all they want to be. Mitzi's bylines have appeared in MSN, Prevention, and Psych Central.
