It will always be a part of his past, sure. But it will not always "be a part of his identity". Your identity is a lot more fluid than you think.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
I feel permanently damaged since the break up
- Thread starter BeforeU
- Start date
I feel you OP, my relationship was 8 years and it's only been a year. I've come to accept the fact that it will take longer. Meanwhile you can only build confidence and try to be active. At times it can truly feel like someone close to you died even if that's definitely not the case. They also move on and are hopefully happy just like you will be one day!
Deleted member 3837
Guest
I find the only way to forgot about the past is to find something new in your life that you can focus on in a healthy way.
Yeah super fucking broad, but you need to find that thing that will provide you with peace. No one can say how long it will take.
I hope you find it though.
Yeah super fucking broad, but you need to find that thing that will provide you with peace. No one can say how long it will take.
I hope you find it though.
it'll be better in another year, and then another year, and then another year, and eventually you won't care anymore really. It'll be fine OP. Just do your thing.
Op, you NEED to read this article. You're going to be okay, my man.
https://markmanson.net/how-to-get-over-someone
https://markmanson.net/how-to-get-over-someone
Sorry for bumping this thread.
But fuck me do break ups suck. 6 months later and I still break down sometimes. There are so many triggers.. all the restaurants we visited, places we walked in town and everywhere in the house obviously. She moved back to her home country so I guess she has the advantage of not getting confronted at all. But everywhere I go and look I see good memories of our almost 4 years. Every night when I go to sleep the empty bedroom feels like a punch in the gut. And this is all while realizing the relationship sadly didn't work for both of us. But why couldn't it just work damnit. :/ Meh.
But fuck me do break ups suck. 6 months later and I still break down sometimes. There are so many triggers.. all the restaurants we visited, places we walked in town and everywhere in the house obviously. She moved back to her home country so I guess she has the advantage of not getting confronted at all. But everywhere I go and look I see good memories of our almost 4 years. Every night when I go to sleep the empty bedroom feels like a punch in the gut. And this is all while realizing the relationship sadly didn't work for both of us. But why couldn't it just work damnit. :/ Meh.
Last edited:
I was with my wife for twelve years.
It's been a year and a half since the divorce.
I have no idea who I am.
It's been a year and a half since the divorce.
I have no idea who I am.
Hey I know how you feel. At one point in time with a breakup it felt like every little thought or thing in front of me was a reminder. It takes time but eventually those places become just that, places. You can appreciate the good moments you had there though, but just remember if you guys broke up it was probably for the best.
There's also no right or wrong amount of time to get over someone. Take your time to process what happened in a healthy way and take care of yourself first and foremost. You'll be back in the game when you're ready.
Yep, basically there are no rules to this. I've moved on from a 6 year relationship like it was nothing and had a 1.5 year relationship require an additional 4 years to get back to "normal".
I feel like I post this a lot in break up threads here, but honestly the best thing to do post breakup is to get a dog.
1) they love you almost immediately
2) they get you out of the house. you have to walk them daily, and you can go to the dog park and meet people. its a good way to relax. my favorite part of the day is taking my dog for a walk and listening to a podcast. it's literally the one thing I look forward to the most after work.
3) it gives you something to focus on energy wise. playing video games or w/e is just a distraction, but focusing on the dog is a good positive place for your attention and energy and you can see actual results.
4) if your dogs cute, it makes it hella easy to meet new people. I think I had a pic w/ my dog on my tinder and the joke "im looking for a good female role model for my dog." it was an endless source of dating options.
1) they love you almost immediately
2) they get you out of the house. you have to walk them daily, and you can go to the dog park and meet people. its a good way to relax. my favorite part of the day is taking my dog for a walk and listening to a podcast. it's literally the one thing I look forward to the most after work.
3) it gives you something to focus on energy wise. playing video games or w/e is just a distraction, but focusing on the dog is a good positive place for your attention and energy and you can see actual results.
4) if your dogs cute, it makes it hella easy to meet new people. I think I had a pic w/ my dog on my tinder and the joke "im looking for a good female role model for my dog." it was an endless source of dating options.
My only piece of advice would be find a new therapist if you've been seeing this one for a while as it doesn't seem to be working. Ignore if therapy is a recent development.
Finding the right therapist for you is key to get help. Just being in therapy is pointless if the person is a bad fit and can even make people worse.
Finding the right therapist for you is key to get help. Just being in therapy is pointless if the person is a bad fit and can even make people worse.
I've been broken up with a 5 year ex for 2.5 years now and I'm still not over it OP. New girlfriend of 1.5 years and all.
It sucks. Thought I was over it and everything. My dog dying a year ago broke me again and I'm still fucked up. Pretty sure I'm broken for life honestly.
I wish you better luck than me OP.
It sucks. Thought I was over it and everything. My dog dying a year ago broke me again and I'm still fucked up. Pretty sure I'm broken for life honestly.
I wish you better luck than me OP.
I had a pretty nasty breakup a few years ago that ended a relationship of nearly 5 years as well. It took me roughly a year to truly get over it.
Just keep doing things to improve your own quality of life and start seeing other people.
Just keep doing things to improve your own quality of life and start seeing other people.
Break-ups can be hard and we do many things to get over them. But there's a few things most of us tend to forget in the process.
A long term relationship for better or for worse forges your identity in a different direction. When you break-up this identity of yours is now reshaped/destroyed/collapsed/etc. Healing from a break-up doesn't work when you just focus on yourself.
Think of it this way. You had an amazing structure you built from Lego and it crashed and tore apart and you've lost some of the pieces. Now the structure might have been unsound, someone/you/them might have destroyed it even though it was fine, there are many possible reasons for its collapse. Now in most cases these pieces are missing that you can't rebuild the same structure anymore. You might have a lot of skills and abilities that function as blocks in your box or you might need to go and acquire some. But what you build will be something new, something different. It won't be the same thing. Don't assume when you rebuild you are rebuilding the same thing. You aren't going to feel the same thing. You can feel a lot better possibly but it requires you to have the focus to build something new and amazing.
For that process you need to go out and plan out what you want to do with the next few years of your life. Build that identity again, shape it, own it. Expose your emotions, remember all the things from the past but remember that you built this and you can build something again. Your identity will resurface to before you were ever in relationships, your happy place in a way. Your new identity will form and it has so much propensity to be better, to be amazing. But in order to do that you need to mourn the loss of the prexisting identity. It needs a burial/funeral and so you can come out of it again. Just focusing on building something new without taking care of the old means no matter how many skills you acquire, no matter how much you hit the gym, no matter what you do - you are still carrying the rotting corpse of your old identity with you and as time goes by this can stink. Many of us manage to throw it away but some of us become one with the corpse and some of us just attach bits of that corpse to ourselves for comfort. Mourn your old identity, discard the corpse and build anew.
A long term relationship for better or for worse forges your identity in a different direction. When you break-up this identity of yours is now reshaped/destroyed/collapsed/etc. Healing from a break-up doesn't work when you just focus on yourself.
Think of it this way. You had an amazing structure you built from Lego and it crashed and tore apart and you've lost some of the pieces. Now the structure might have been unsound, someone/you/them might have destroyed it even though it was fine, there are many possible reasons for its collapse. Now in most cases these pieces are missing that you can't rebuild the same structure anymore. You might have a lot of skills and abilities that function as blocks in your box or you might need to go and acquire some. But what you build will be something new, something different. It won't be the same thing. Don't assume when you rebuild you are rebuilding the same thing. You aren't going to feel the same thing. You can feel a lot better possibly but it requires you to have the focus to build something new and amazing.
For that process you need to go out and plan out what you want to do with the next few years of your life. Build that identity again, shape it, own it. Expose your emotions, remember all the things from the past but remember that you built this and you can build something again. Your identity will resurface to before you were ever in relationships, your happy place in a way. Your new identity will form and it has so much propensity to be better, to be amazing. But in order to do that you need to mourn the loss of the prexisting identity. It needs a burial/funeral and so you can come out of it again. Just focusing on building something new without taking care of the old means no matter how many skills you acquire, no matter how much you hit the gym, no matter what you do - you are still carrying the rotting corpse of your old identity with you and as time goes by this can stink. Many of us manage to throw it away but some of us become one with the corpse and some of us just attach bits of that corpse to ourselves for comfort. Mourn your old identity, discard the corpse and build anew.
Thanks for your input, tho a bit graphic in the end ;)
How come the person that ended the relationship doesnt have to deal with all that though?
1 year probably isn't enough time to heal your wounds. A 5 year relationship is long when you're young.
In all honesty, they were deliberating over that before they broke up with the person. In long term relationships no one really breaks it off in a day (unless they have little to no empathy or are some variant of narcissistic ). The feelings were there anywhere between 6 months to a year or two before they made the decision to end it. They were just trying to figure out how to end it.
As for imagery, haha well I started with Lego and it evolved into corpses somehow...
Hey OP. I made a thread about ending a 5-year relationship over at GAF back in 2013. Was exceptionally hard but I received a lot of good advice and after a lot of struggles and some painful moments... You can even see me caught in some High Fidelity-ish confusion the first couple years after when I updated the thread.
https://www./threads/5-year-relationship-over.623966/page-3
Anyway, I met my wife in 2016. We got married last month. It gets better :)
Stay strong OP.
https://www./threads/5-year-relationship-over.623966/page-3
Anyway, I met my wife in 2016. We got married last month. It gets better :)
Stay strong OP.
That's the thing; "normal" doesn't really exist. And whatever you consider "normal"? You'll never get that again.
You have to find - no, make - a new normal.
Seriously, within 4 years you'll barely think of it, give or take.
Don't try to get over it.
Let the pain shape you.
Only so you can become the monster that you need to be in order to survive in this world.
Let the pain shape you.
Only so you can become the monster that you need to be in order to survive in this world.