Going through a breakup or divorce can be devastating to your well-being, especially if it’s still fresh. There are many different ways that you can go about coping with it and handling it. You can drown your sorrows in drugs or alcohol (not recommended), eat a bucket of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (if you need to), binge-watch a good show (a healthy distraction from reality), sleep a lot while spending the day in bed, or maybe you just cut yourself off from socializing and society altogether. Whatever cures the pain, you’re likely going to do it.
There are positive and healthy ways to move on from a breakup or divorce. You will go through different breakup stages, but you will eventually get back on your feet. You may think to yourself that you will never be happier than when you were in your relationship, life just isn’t the same without her, and you’re probably wondering what you’re going to do with your life now after you invested so much into your past relationship, resulting in failure. I will go over some healthy and positive ways that have helped me in the past move on from my own personal devastations and failures within my relationships.
Take time to let your heart heal
After my divorce, one of my best friends told me, “Take time to let your heart heal“. It was the best advice that I could have asked for. Sometimes our friends know us so well after years, and they intuitively and tactfully know what works for you. If you have a good friend, it really helps you to deal with a breakup. It was the best possible advice that I could have received at the time, and now I’m bestowing it onto you. You shouldn’t just jump into another relationship before you let your heart heal, and you come to terms with your own emotions. You won’t feel ready. You will be damaging your next relationship if you’re still not over your past relationship. After some necessary time, you will know when you’re ready to truly move on and get back out there.
Spend quality time with your best friends
It’s vital that you still spend quality time with your best friends. You can confide in them, bounce things off of them, they will give you helpful advice, offer encouragement, and you can still have fun without the feeling of loneliness, despair, or beating yourself up in solitude. A healthy friendship will help to get you through your most bitter breakup or divorce. Eventually, after some necessary time passes, you can go out with them and try to jump back on the saddle again or get back on the bandwagon. Don’t be afraid to open up to your friends in confidence, and have meaningful conversations to help yourself. Perhaps they went through a similarly rough time themselves, and they may offer you good advice or ways to deal with your issues because they truly know you the best.
See a therapist
If you don’t have a friend to confide in or feel like you need some professional help, a therapist can help while you’re feeling down, depressed, and going through a breakup. See a therapist that you feel comfortable spilling the beans with, and they are paid to be professional, confidential, and will give you the best advice, as well as coping mechanisms that you can use to see you through. You shouldn’t feel ashamed about seeing a therapist. They’re there to help you, and their advice may be useful to you.
Focus on your job or career
This will be a good time to focus on your job or career. You don’t want to let the painful feelings take you over. Focusing on your job or career will be a good distraction and it’s healthy to do better work. If you’re having problems concentrating at work, you may want to consider taking some days off to help you heal. If you’re simply being too sad at work, you will want to exit so that your coworkers won’t see you in total pain. Once you feel like you can concentrate better, focus on how you can improve your workload or enhance your work so that you won’t feel so stressed out. If you’re unhappy with your job, start floating your résumé out to other places where you will desire to work. You don’t want to compound the negatives while you’re coping with a stressful and painful breakup.
Do what you enjoy
You will want to keep yourself busy doing what you enjoy so you’re not sitting there at home in solitude dwelling on the breakup. Don’t backtrack, thinking, “if I would have said this, or if I would have done this, I wouldn’t be dealing with a breakup.” There are many reasons why things didn’t work out for you both. You can either dwell and be negative, or you can continue to do things that you enjoy that will benefit you. Read some books, go see that movie, go to that restaurant, go visit your friends or your parents. You will also want to acclimate yourself to spending time alone. Even if it feels uncomfortable at first (because you’re used to being in a relationship), the more that you do things alone, the better off you will be down the road. The reason that I say this, is that once you’re more comfortable being single and with yourself, as well as learning to love yourself, this will be more desirable to your potential matches in the future. Learn to love yourself and love what you do for fun. It’s attractive, and you also grow as a person, because you don’t need anyone.
