“I thought I still loved you but then I realized I just love the memory of who you used to be.”
-Morgan Hanthorn
It doesn’t matter if you are eight or eighty, breakups suck! There is just no way to get around the feelings of loss and sadness. And although there is no magic timeline to grieve the loss of a close relationship, over time, it will hurt less and less. But with time, there is also a shading of the situation that might cause you to forget the bad and only remember the positive things that you shared.
It is important not to rush through the stages of getting over someone to get to the point where your new normal is not so sad. Or, to brush off your feelings or bury them. There are various reasons that people miss their exes, some are healthy, and some are not. The important thing is to recognize why you miss the person you used to call “mine” and find a solution to get past the pain to see brighter skies.
What Causes You to Miss Your Ex?
When you are in a relationship, you establish trust and a feeling of support — those feelings of having someone there last after the person has said goodbye. And in their place, it is not uncommon to feel a sense of loss and grief. Even relationships that aren’t so happy can leave you feeling lost when they break up. Unfortunately, when someone leaves your life, good or bad, there is a sense of something missing.
But it is essential not to try to fill that space with someone or something without first considering what happened, why you broke up, and what you want differently the next time you enter into a relationship. It is natural to want to have a connection back, but unhealthy to want to get back together with someone who was not healthy for you to begin with.
Is Getting Back Together With an Ex a Good Idea?
When a relationship breaks up, there is a reason. Depending on what that reason is, there are times when it is a good idea to try to rekindle and other times when it is healthier to see it as a learning lesson and move forward. If you want to get back together with your ex, just make sure that you have a desire for reasons that will better you and your situation. And that you are not just trying to avoid the hurt that can come with a lost relationship. Sometimes a break up can feel like a failure.
And since no one likes to fail, it is reasonable to want to try to make things “right.” But making the situation right isn’t always about fixing the relationship. Sometimes it is about fixing the things that led you to break up. For some, that can mean choosing a mate that has different characteristics next time instead of trying to repair a relationship that wasn’t a good match.
Feelings of Isolation and Depression are Normal
When you feel isolated and depressed after a breakup, it is highly usual to remember all the good things about a relationship and downplay the times that were not so good. But getting back with an ex that created an unhealthy situation will put you right back in the throes of what wasn’t making you happy. And if you get back together, you will probably start the same cycle.
When things don’t work out again, you will be right back to square one and have to go through the same emotions that you are working through now. Getting back with an ex that was not meant to be is like putting a bandaid on a wound that won’t heal. Eventually, you have to rip off the bandaid and let it heal for good.
Moving on From a Relationship
We all have those times in life where we need to reflect and hold off on making any decisions. Before you decide if you really want your ex back or if you just miss the companionship, it is crucial to take stock of the entirety of the relationship, not just how you feel at this moment. Being by yourself, when you haven’t been for a while, can feel odd and insecure.
But make sure that it is really your ex that you miss, not just having someone by your side. Sure, you might miss the way that they smiled or their scent, but over time, those small things will begin to fade. Try to find other things to occupy you and take the focus off of what you feel you lost and give more attention to what you can gain in the interim while you are trying to heal.
Try to remember not what you miss about them, but what you missed while you were with them. Now is a perfect time to reconnect with the things in your life that bring you joy. The reality is that you can’t get them back just hoping or waiting around, even if it is the right thing. And taking some time for yourself will not only give them time to reflect on what they miss about you, but it might provide you with clarity about what you do or do not miss about them.
Examine Your Feelings of Missing Your Ex so Much
There are times when we miss the companionship that we share with someone but not the actual ex themselves. Breakups are never easy, but they are more complicated when we find ourselves making the situation of our relationship something more than it was, or tainting the reality of how happy we were. Not only does it take two people to make a relationship successful, but it also takes two people to make it nonsuccessful.
So if yours didn’t last, then there is no way that you were the sole source of the problem. You likely were unhappy too. It might be that you just spent too much time focusing on the other person instead of examining how it was all making you feel. And if that is the case, now is the right time to do that.
Take this time to focus on you, your needs, and your wants. So that either way, whether you get back together with your ex, or you choose to move along, you know going forward what you want for yourself.
And so you can discover what you are and what you are not willing to sacrifice to be with another person. If you find the person you were before you got together, then you will be stronger on your own and better apt to either make the next to go around more successful or have the strength to move forward and leave this relationship in the past.
Consider Being Alone With You
For many, a breakup can be very isolating and lonely. And being alone goes against everything that we believe we are supposed to do. As humans, we want to be connected to others.
We feel safer in the companionship of those around us. But that does not mean that we should learn to rely on anyone else. In the end, to love someone and be in a successful relationship, you have to love one person first. And that person is you. It might sound cliche, but the only person that you really can’t live without is you.
If you’re clinging to a relationship that didn’t work for fear of being alone, then take time to consider why. Ask yourself why you would instead be attached to someone who made you unhappy than to find happiness from within. There is nothing wrong with wanting someone at your side, but it is not healthy if you are willing to sacrifice what makes you, you, or what makes you happy to do it!
Learn to Love, the Most Important Person
As hard as it can sometimes be to be alone, you have to learn to feel confident and secure whether your ex comes back or not. Now is also not a time to hop into a new relationship to take the place of the old. If you rush into something too quickly, you will probably find that you have the same relationship problems.
Because if you never took the time to examine what the problems were in your previous relationship, you will likely repeat them. Your life is more than just about a romantic relationship. Reflect on the many things you have instead of focusing on replacing what you’ve lost. Learn to love you, and you will always have the companionship that you desire with or without someone else.
Examining why you Can’t Stop Thinking, “I Miss my Ex so Much.”
Breakups are always hard, even if you are the one who is initiating the breakup. It can leave you feeling as if you lost something or even that you a failure. But not all relationships are meant to last. And if yours didn’t, then there was a reason why, and it couldn’t have been all your fault. It is normal to want to be in a relationship, but not if you are doing it purely to avoid being on your own.
No one wants to be lonely, but being with someone does not always cure your loneliness. There might have been times that you were in your previous relationship, and you still felt lonely. And if that is the case, then you need to examine why that would be. It is one thing to be lonely on your own, an entirely other to be lonely while trying to be a relationship with someone else.
Do you Miss Your Ex, or is it Something Else?
If your desire to be with someone feels more like you are trying to fill a void, then there might be some underlying issues that you need to address. If you don’t, there is a good possibility that even if you rekindle with your ex, or you replaced them with another relationship, you are going to experience the same problems. You will probably experience heartache until you get to the bottom of why you need someone at your side as much as you do.
If you are having a hard time with a breakup and wondering why you miss your ex so much, the answer might be simple, or it might not. But if it is causing you a considerable amount of distress, it might help to talk to a professional to sort out your feelings and get to the root of your feelings of loneliness and loss. There is no magic timeline for a breakup to stop hurting. But at a certain point, things will start to feel sane and secure again.
Time Heals all Wounds…Truly
Those things that you miss about your ex will begin to fade, and you will find the strength you once had to pick yourself up and move along. I can’t tell you if you will get back together with your ex or not. What I can tell you is that there is a reason that the relationship broke up to begin with.
Until you get to the root of the problem, you are just putting a bandaid on the situation. If you don’t take time to examine the relationship, things are destined to repeat themselves. If you learn to love yourself, then you can’t ever be lonely, with or without your ex. And if it doesn’t work, then you will have the confidence to know that there is someone better out there for you.
