How to Recover From a Breakup and Get Stronger

A bit over two years ago I was in the same situation as you are in right now.

I wanted to know the exact same thing that you want to know now. I wanted to know how to recover from a breakup. It was October 2012 and for the first time in nearly four years I experienced how it feels to be alone.

To be honest, it felt like shit. 

On the one hand, I was relieved that I finally had the courage to end the toxic relationship that I was trapped in for so many years, but on the other hand, I felt lost. The emotional cocktail that I had inside of me consisted of a bunch of positive emotions, such as a feeling of freedom and an atmosphere of departure, but those feelings were overshadowed by negative feelings, such as helplessness and desperation.

Even though I was the one who broke up, I still didn’t feel the kind of happiness that they always display in movies when someone gets rid of an annoying girlfriend. I mean, we were together for nearly four years. That’s a long time.

All the memories, shared experiences and love that I once felt for her were still running around in my mind. If you spend over 1000 days of your life with a person you can’t just simply leave her and expect that you feel as if the whole relationship would have never existed.

No matter if you have been together with your now ex-girlfriend for ten months or ten years, a breakup can be a painful and a very confusing experience. Deep down you know that you have to do something about it.

 

You know that you don’t want to make the same mistake twice and you know that you have to recover from this breakup.

The tricky question is:

How do you do that?

 

What You Should Ask Yourself Before You Can Recover

Before you can recover you should ask yourself a question. The answers to this question will make it a lot easier for you to overcome the negative feelings that you have.

I personally believe that it is a mistake to directly jump into the recovering phase without even thinking about the reason for the breakup and whose fault it really was. It is easy to blame your ex-girlfriend for everything, especially when she did something that really hurt you, but maybe you should also think about what you could have done differently.

 

Who Broke Up and Why ?

Unless you have Alzheimer’s you know who broke up. In case you have been the one who ended the relationship, I hope that you know why you did it. In case you waited for months with this decision and you eventually came to the conclusion that you can’t take it anymore (like me two years ago), you should be confident with your decision and do everything you can to get over it.

What if the whole thing was a sudden irrational act?

What if the only reason for the breakup was one fight and one tiny disagreement?

Well, then you should think about whether or not this was really the right decision.

What if she was the one who ended the romance?

You know that she was the one who broke up with you and who kicked you out of the house, but do you also know why she did that? She might have told you that she needs more space, that she needs to find herself, or any other completely ridiculous reason that you find in every low budget movie. What she most likely didn’t do was to tell you the truth.

Women are really good when it comes to avoiding conflicts. Before they confront you with all the stuff that you actually did to force her to such a decision, they rather fob you off with some standard line that you can’t really say anything against.

I mean, what more than “good luck!” can you say when she tells you that she needs time to find herself? For God’s sake, she walks around in the same body for the last twenty or thirty years. She definitely knows who she is.

Most women will never admit it, but every woman on this planet knows that those lines are nothing but a desperate attempt to hide the only thing you want to know.

“What’s the real reason for the breakup?”

Invest some time to think about why the relationship had to end. Don’t use this as a chance to blame her and also don’t regard the idea of searching for the “why” as an attack against you.

 

No matter if you fucked it up, if she fucked it up or if you both fucked it up, thinking about the “why” will help you to to find out what you can do better the next time and what qualities your next girlfriend should and shouldn’t have.

 

How to Recover From a Breakup  

Have you thought about the reason why your relationship had to end and have you thought about what qualities your next girlfriend should have?

Great, no matter if you could think about aspects that you could have done differently or that she could have done differently…

…now is the time for a new start.

If you want to know how to recover from a breakup I am pretty sure that you spent the last couple of days asking bookstores and Google for advice until your fingers started to bleed. Eventually, this search led you to my website.

“Okay, another idiot who tells me that I should distract myself with friends, parties and other social events that I don’t really want to go to…”

Not really.

In the same way that I am not a big fan of the fake it till you make it tactic, I am also not a big fan of the distraction tactic.

 

Don’t Fall in the Distraction Trap

I really hope that all the mainstream advice that tells you to meet friends, to go to parties and to become a super social person is well- intended.

However, I don’t think that this is a good way to get over a breakup.

No matter if you play movie games until midnight, hang out with your buddies until midnight or party till midnight, deep down you know that there is only one reason why you do those things. You only do it to distract yourself. None of those activities are beneficial for your healing process. None of those activities allows you to learn how to handle your negative emotions.

Unfortunately, the distraction trap is very popular among guys who want to know how to recover from a breakup.

You can’t cry while you are dancing in a club and you also won’t think about your ex when you play video games with your buddies.

The only problem is that those things only take away the pain for the moment you experience them, while you avoid to work on the core of the whole dilemma.

I guarantee you that as soon as you come home from the party, log into your Facebook account and see the picture of your ex, all the shit that you tried to avoid comes up.

 

Face Your Emotions

What’s better than running around in a club like a chicken without a head?

Stop distracting yourself. In the first two to three days after a breakup you shouldn’t go out, you shouldn’t distract yourself with music, video games and you also shouldn’t go to parties that force you to put on a fake smile. You can do all of that stuff later, but now it’s time to work on your inner game.

Face your emotions!

Get angry, punch against the wall, scream at the mirror, and cry your eyes out.

Yes, it is okay for a man to cry. Let your emotions flow like water and if they literally need to flow in the form of water, then let them flow.

I am still so thankful that I did this back when I had to recover from my breakup. Two of my best friends called me right after the whole thing was over and asked me if I want to hang out with them. I told them that I first need some time for myself.

I know that it is tempting to pretend that you don’t need time for yourself. Especially, because NOT facing your emotions protects your ego and avoids a lot of pain. The tricky thing that nobody tells you is that you need to feel this pain in order to release it.

Even if you destroy your whole freaking apartment, take two or three days in which you let everything out that you don’t want to carry around for the rest of your life.

Facing your emotions is painful, but in the long run you’ll be happy that you did it.

 

Entrust Yourself to a Close Friend

Have you faced your emotions? Good, now you are ready for the next step. Now you can meet your buddies and hang out with them.

But wait a minute. Is playing video games and drinking beer really the best way to cope with the end of a relationship? I think it is no secret that a lot of men are not really good at talking about feelings. I experienced this firsthand when I went through my breakup.

I hung out with a few friends and all I got was a “don’t worry, she was a bitch anyway” and a slap on the back.

Did it help?

Not really.

What I really needed was a friend with whom I could talk about everything. I needed someone who listened to me and who is mature enough to talk about emotional topics. Thank god I have a few really close friends who allowed me to do what I needed to do. Otherwise, I would have gone crazy.

Don’t just call one of your buddies who you only see on birthdays and at parties. Call your best friend who knows you since you wore diapers. Entrust yourself to someone who you can trust 100%. While you are talking with that person you’ll feel how the conversation takes a load off your mind.

 

A Call Would Destroy Everything

Talking with your friend helped a lot. You talked about everything that was on your mind and the first time after your ex-girlfriend said that “she needs more time for herself” you feel as if your future looks bright.

Right before you go to bed you ask yourself if your ex-girlfriend uses the same strategy as you to cope with the loss.

“Maybe she talks about everything with her best friend Ann, or maybe she called her best friend Joseph. Wait a second…”

Even if you don’t want to follow this train of thought, you just can’t stop thinking about all the things she could possibly do right now. Of course, you immediately think about all the activities that she could do while she is together with Josepth.

“What if she and Joseph are more than just best friends? What if she is fucking this asshole?”

While you have to control yourself to not vomit on your bed, you grab your phone. You need to call her to find out what she is doing with this guy.

STOP!

 

Don’t even think about calling her. Instead, stop crying and start taking action. A new life is waiting for you…a better life.

If you call her now, the conversation with your friend and the emotional rollercoaster you’ve been through were a complete waste of time.

The only that happens by calling her and by hearing her voice (if she even picks up the phone) is that all the negative emotions that you got rid of come back within a heartbeat.

In case you had a good reason to break up with her you might even come up with the idea to try it again. Congratulations, you will end up in the same misery for another three years. Delete her number and you won’t feel tempted.

 

Remind Yourself of the Negative Things

It is so easy to remember your ex-girlfriend as a beautiful angel whose smile made your heart thump whenever you looked at her. It is so easy to see your past relationship as a magical romance that should have never ended.

The mistake that you make by thinking that your relationship was actually an amazing time and that you miss every second of it is a mistake that many people make. It’s called glorification of the past and it is something that every human being does to a certain extent. You could say that it is a form of self-protection that protects you from having nightmares for the rest of your life.

In the same way as old people who’ve been through hell during the Second World War tend to say that everything was better in the past, you are tempted to say that your toxic, destructive and life-sucking relationship was heaven on earth. This is especially tempting when she was the one who broke up with you.

Don’t make the mistake and focus solely on the good things.

Focus on the days that were not so happy:

 

Yes, her ass was sexy and you loved to kiss it, but also remember the disgusting smell when you tried anal sex for the first time. Okay, I am a weird guy and that was a disgusting example, but I hope you get what I mean.

Think about all the flaws of your ex-girlfriend, think about how you dreamed of throwing her out of the window whenever she opened her mouth. Think about the hell on earth that you called a relationship. Thinking about that stuff makes it a lot easier to get over your breakup than glorifying every inch of her skin.

 

Delete Every Love Song and Romantic Movie

If you want to learn how to recover from a breakup, you should be willing to get rid of a few things. Getting rid of your girlfriend and your relationship is only half the story.

Delete every single love song you have on your computer, hide every movie with Richard Gere in your basement and promise yourself to throw your TV out of the window as soon as you are watching a romantic comedy movie for more than three seconds.

This stuff is pure poison!

 

 

You might not know it, but the music we listen to and the movies we watch influence us a lot. When you are about to recover from a nasty breakup you shouldn’t hear “I will always love you” and “I can’t live without you” whenever you turn on the TV or the radio.

I hate to say this but listening to some gangsta rapper who talks about fucking hoes and stacking money is ten times better than listening to one love song after another while you bawl your eyes out.

 

To Keep or Not to Keep Her Stuff

During the time I broke up with my girlfriend I also looked for advice on how to recover from a breakup. Back then I found one video (don’t know if it’s still online), where a guy screamed in the camera that you should throw away or burn everything you ever got from your ex-girlfriend.

This sounded reasonable to me, so I began to collect everything I ever got from my ex-girlfriend. The photos, the cards and a little photo book that she made for me. After I collected those things I reached for my wallet, looked at it and remembered how she gave it to me as a birthday present.

I realized that I didn’t have the same emotional reaction when I looked at the photos and the cards she wrote for me, than when I looked at the wallet.

If you would ask me if you should throw away everything that your girlfriend gave you, I would say “no”.

What you can do is to throw away the things that cause a very negative emotional reaction and to keep the things that don’t cause such negative feelings. Whenever I looked at the photos I became sentimental, so I decided that I had to throw them away. Otherwise, they would have haunted me for years. I didn’t feel the same when I looked at my wallet. I still have it.

Do you need a second opinion on that?

Then watch the following video:

 

Become a Guy She Would Want Back 

I don’t say that you should get your ex-girlfriend back, but I do say that you should become a guy she wants to get back together with.

Don’t change yourself for her. Do it for yourself.

While other guys, who got dumped wallow in self-pity, get fat while making comfort eating their new hobby and waste all their time crying in front of the TV, you have different plans. You want to know how to recover from a breakup and you are ready to speed-up your recovery.

You go to the gym, you start to meditate, you learn a new language and you replace your video games with books. You become an awesome person who knows that he deserves to feel awesome, even if he got dumbed one week ago.

It is very easy to mess up your life by drowning in self-pity. If you, however, improve your life and try to become a better person, you’ll soon realize that you don’t need a relationship to feel great.

 

Find Out What You Truly Want

One tip that I would give every guy who wants to know how to recover from a breakup is to take some time for relaxation, reflection and self-examination.

Do you remember how I said at the beginning of this article that you don’t want to make the same mistake twice and that you know that you have to recover from this breakup?

Spending time with yourself allows you to kill two birds with one stone.

It doesn’t matter if you start to meditate, if you go out in nature, if you take a walk in the park or if you just sit on your bed and close your eyes for a few seconds. The effect is the same.

This time allows you to think about what you have experienced in the past, what you don’t want to re-experience and what you truly want in your life.

Eventually, this will help you to think about all the ingredients for a life that makes thinking about how to recover from a breakup completely unnecessary.

How would you feel if you never had to settle for a bad relationship again?

Let me show you what I learned from sleeping with 35+ girls…

 

Summed Up Wisdom

If you want to learn how to recover from a breakup you should first ask yourself a question. You should ask yourself who broke up and why. This will show you what you should have done differently and what she could have done differently. Don’t make the same mistake twice.

When it comes to the process of getting over a breakup it is better to face your emotions, instead of trying to distract yourself in every possible way. Once you have faced your emotions, you can entrust yourself to one of your best friends and talk with him about everything.

Whenever you feel the urge to call her, you should immediately slap yourself. A call would bring up all the emotions that you already talked away. Instead of calling her, you should throw away the stuff that you are emotionally attached to, remind yourself of all the negative aspects of your relationship and delete all the love songs and romantic movies that you have.

Once you got rid of all this clutter, it’s time to work on yourself, to become amazing and to find out what you truly want. If you do that, you definitely won’t make the same mistake twice.