My Guide on How to Get Over a Break Up

So, I was recently reading this blog post about how to get over a break up (not because I’ve recently gone through a break up and I’m spending all of my time watching Netflix and eating ice cream, but because it was on one of the blogs that I check out every once and awhile). Anyway, this prompted me to write my own blog post on how to get over a break up. I am not claiming to be an expert on break ups, I’ll admit that I’ve only had one girlfriend, but there were multiple break ups involved in that relationship and the last one was a really crazy one.

The blog post that I read (http://byudates.blogspot.com/2012/03/baby-names-and-wedding-dates.html) had five different points that girl says that she learned from experiencing break ups. In case you don’t want to go read through the whole post (and I don’t expect you to, it’s pretty long), here were her points:

1. When it's been serious, you can't just go back to being friends. It's impossible. Sorry. You've got to cut them out. I've sent and received enough needy text messages to realize that it's just better to end things with dignity; not bitterness and self-pity.

2. Give yourself a few days to mope. But then you've got to move on. Make new friends. Develop new habits. Create an identity outside of the couple you used to be.

3. When the moments of sadness take over, don't torture yourself by reading old letters, text messages and pouring over his [or her] Facebook page. It'll hurt you. And you'll continue to identify yourself as someone he rejected.

4. Read your scriptures. Say your prayers. Go to the temple. Throw yourself into your calling. After every break-up I've gone through, those four simple things have helped me more than anything else.

5. Remember who you are, and that you are worth it. No matter what your low self-esteem is inclined to tell you.

Now that you’ve read her views on break ups (and formed your own opinions on them), you get to hear my opinion on her views. I will start from her last point and work my way up.

“Remember who you are, and that you are worth it.” I see this as a valid point. There are some people who totally lose it when someone breaks up with them. They think that there is something wrong with them and that that’s the reason why the person broke up with them. While this is sometimes the case, it’s usually just because you two weren’t a good fit and they just realized it before you did. The only problem with this is that now you probably won’t realize this as easily as they did and you might actually just refuse to believe it.

“Read you scriptures. Say your prayers. Go to the temple. Throw yourself into your calling.” For those of you who are wondering why she put in a point like that, I’ll tell you. She’s LDS (Mormon). I’m LDS as well, so I’m going to address it. For those of you who don’t want to read my views on this, you don’t have to. Just skip the rest of this paragraph. First off, you should already be doing those things. Except I think that a better wording for the last one would be “Magnify your calling.” When she said, “Throw yourself into your calling,” the first thing that came to mind was some Relief Society President who everyone would avoid because they’re constantly trying to do stuff for them and rope them into their insane frenzy of serving everyone else. Don’t get me wrong, serving people is great, but when you become crazy about it, it gets to be too much.

“Don’t torture yourself by reading old letters, text messages and pouring over his [or her] Facebook page.” This is a good point. You don’t have to delete every single photo of the two of you that’s on Facebook. You don’t have to delete their number from your phone. But don’t be constantly reminding yourself of what the two of you used to do together. My suggestion is to get a shoebox and put all of that stuff that you’ve accumulated from your time together (pictures, teddy bears, whatever) and put it in your closet somewhere. There’s no harm in getting it out and looking through it every once and awhile, but you can’t let yourself look at it too much. I’d say that once a month is the limit. And that might even be a little too much. Maybe start with once a month and then progressively look through it less and less until you find that you don’t have to look through it at all.

“Give yourself a few days to mope. But then you've got to move on. Make new friends. Develop new habits. Create an identity outside of the couple you used to be.” This is why you can’t do everything with your boyfriend or girlfriend. You have to have things that you can do by yourself. Your life can’t be one long date. Guys, go hang out with your bros. Girls, go hang out with your chicks. My point is: don’t be doing everything together in the first place. Let’s face it, there are things that your significant other does that you don’t find appealing at all. Rather than trying to force yourself to like what they do and torture yourself in the process, just let them do those things by themselves or with another friend. It doesn’t have to be you. This will make the break up a whole lot easier for the both of you.

“When it’s serious, you can’t just go back to being friends.” On the contrary, you can go back to being friends, but only if both of you are fine with being just friends. If both of you actually want to be more than friends, you’ll end up having a bunch of make out sessions that you didn’t mean to happen and then you’ll just turn into friends-with-benefits. If one of you wants to still be more than friends and the other one doesn’t, neither one of you will be happy. The one who wants to be more than friends will always be sad that you aren’t more than friends while the one who wants to be just friends will not be happy with the other person’s attempts to get back together. This will end up with the two of you having a few fights and then not being friends at all. But if both of you are fine with being just friends, it will work out, I’ve seen it work before.

Well there you have it. My Guide on How to Get Over a Break Up. I hope you enjoyed it.

Tellin’ it how it is,

The Unobtrusive One