Just broken up? Here are 7 ways to get over her

Breaking up is never easy, especially if you were truly in love.

You invested so much of your energy, resources and emotions to make your relationship work may be even sacrificed your career, studies or ego so you could be with your love yet she did the unthinkable.

You just cannot understand why someone whom you gave all your love to would turn it down and hurt you this bad.

Breaking up leaves one with lots of unanswered questions. What did I do wrong? Did she really love me? How can I live without her?

If you recently broke up you must be wondering whether the pain will ever fade away, following are the 7 steps to getting over an ex-girlfriend.

1)    Grieve over your loss

Let no one ever lie to you that you can just shake hands and both walk away without feeling a thing. Splitting with someone you have spent so much time and made lots of memories with is always devastating.

When it happens don’t lock up your emotions, cry until your tear glands dry up.

Let your friends and family know about it so they can be with you during this time to stop you from doing stupid stuff like, imbibing a bottle full of vodka, jumping off a building or overdosing on a concoction of medications with names you cannot pronounce.

I was 17 when I had my first break up. I have a nebulous recollection of what really lead to our break up, all I remember was that one evening I was hanging out with my boys when I received this text ‘Janet says that she doesn’t want you anymore!’.

She didn’t have the courtesy to face me or even call resorting to break up with me via text worst of all through her friend! My heart was shattered into a million pieces; I wept like a toddler and wouldn’t even touch my dinner.

2)    Refrain from seeking revenge

Being in so much pain, blinded by anger and feeling betrayed can make one go momentarily insane.

When someone breaks your heart there is this strong urge to cause them physical pain, destroy their reputation, career or disfigure their attractive features so no one else will ever find them attractive. Please refrain from taking revenge by letting anger take control of you.

Causing bodily harm to your ex-girlfriend will not only land you in trouble with the authorities but also show the whole world what a psycho and immature jerk you are consequently no other lady would want to date you.

Restrain from badgering your ex-lover with calls and texts demanding to know why they did it or insulting them because it won’t make you feel any better. If anything you will end up wallowing in guilt.

It’s advisable to erase all images and videos of you in compromising situations from your ex-lover’s hard drives before initiating a break up unless you wouldn’t mind having a picture of you dancing to Pitbull’s ‘I’m sexy and I know it’ naked doing rounds on Twitter.

3)    Get rid of your relationship memorabilia

The first thought would be to set ablaze everything that reminds you of your ex from gifts to pictures. Do this only if you are absolutely sure it’s the only way for you to forget them and move on.

You can erase their phone number and everything else that reminds you of them but all these will still be engraved in your brain. Walking through the streets you may get a whiff of their favorite fragrance or see a stranger who looks like them and all the bitter memories come back flooding into your mind.

The best approach would be to put everything that reminds you of her in a box and stash it away until such a time when they will have no significant effect on you. This will help greatly help with the next step I recommend.

4)    Accept it’s really over and work on moving on

Accepting that the life you envisioned with your ex-girlfriend will never come true is one of the hardest things for any man in love.

There will always be some hope that she might come back make peace, and then you will have a bunch of beautiful kids and grow old together in pure bliss. This rarely happens in real life.

Chances are you will get back together without resolving the issues that broke you up in the first place, fruitless try to make it work and end up disappointed. Never entertain such hopes as they are bound to hold you from moving on.

However difficult it may be, accept that you fell in love with her and she will always hold a special place in your heart but it’s time for you let go and learn to love again.

Like stashing away your ex-girlfriend’s memorabilia, appreciate all the good times you had and just like when you finish up reading a good novel, put it back on the shelf and pick another even more interesting.

5)    Rebound love

Hooking up with a rebound love within the first 48 hours of breaking up is very crucial towards healing a broken heart.

While you were in your relationship, there must have been a couple of girls who had been incessantly hitting on you. Call them and hang out with them.

There is a great likelihood they will flatter, worship and treat you like a demigod. Although such treatment will not numb the pain, it will greatly rebuild your self-esteem and make you realize that there are a thousand other ladies out there who find you irresistible.

However desist from taking pictures with your new catch and posting them on social media to show your ex-lover that you forgot all about them and moved on. Your main motivation should rebounding to heal your broken heart not prove a point to your ex.

Flirting also helps you polish your otherwise rusty vibes.

6)    Cut off all communication

It really sucks to suddenly stop getting late night calls from your lover or long romantic texts over lunch. To completely move on, you must cut off communication with your ex-lover especially the first 6 months following the break up.

Joints you use to frequent together should also be avoided at all costs. During moments of weakness you may call or check out their Facebook profiles, don’t be too harsh on yourself after all you are human.

I remember there was a time I would impersonate my friend by using his Facebook account to chat with this lady I just couldn’t get over. I would do this every Thursday evening until someday I asked her how she felt about me. Her response “Leave alone that sad excuse for a man, his parents must be very disappointed to have such a dumb kid!”

That stings right? Well, thanks to her I dropped such uncouth habits and transformed into the kind of guy I am today.

7)    Learn from your past mistakes

For some, breaking up adversely changes their opinion about the opposite sex. They choose to never entrust another soul with their heart, this they block off any chances of future happiness.

Don’t let bad past relationships deny you the joy of finding new love.

More often than not when we hook up we tend to isolate the other people in our lives and spend so much time with the lover. A couple of times you would have your friends tell you how you’ve become a total sellout because you have prioritized your girl over your friends.

However, there is always some truth in what they say. After breaking up ask the friends to brusquely tell you what they think you did wrong and objectively evaluate all what they say. This will help you learn from your past mistakes so you wouldn’t repeat them in future.

Use this period to re-strategize on your life priorities and channel your energy towards advancing your career.

Finally,don’t be too hard on yourself. It takes a while to heal. At the onset you will be thinking about ex every minute you are a wake but after a couple of months they will only be a vague memory.

Share with us how you handled your first break up!

This article was written by Mark Maina. Mark is graduate civil engineer, entrepreneur and a lifestyle blogger at www.markmaish.com.