Pearl Nash
One of the hardest things about a breakup is when your ex partner starts dating someone else.
Just when you think that you just got over the emotional roller coaster of your breakup, you see a picture of your ex with someone new, or to hear that he is with someone new, or worse yet, to run into him with his new girlfriend, and you are on that ride one more time.
It feels like a second rejection.
Not only did your ex not want to be in a relationship anymore, but he didn’t want to be in a relationship with you.
It can feel personal.
Like you just weren’t good enough.
Don’t worry, we’ve all been there.
But be careful with this line of thinking.
It is only going to cause you more pain.
I’ll take you through some things to consider as this is a blessing in disguise Let’s jump right in.
1) Your relationship has changed
Whether it’s easy to admit or not, the romantic relationship you had with your boyfriend is over.
Watching them be with someone new is just an affirmation that you aren’t getting back together.
I know it can feel horrible to watch them with someone new.
Feelings of envy, possessiveness, and rejection may quickly seep into your mindset.
And worst of all is when your ex’s new girlfriend has attractive qualities and is a genuinely nice person.
It can feel very difficult to be happy with their new status.
It’s quite natural to want to hate them more, to wallow in negative emotions, and to find reasons why their relationship is going to be even better and happier than the one you had.
Why?
Because you probably want to hate your ex at the moment.
If you are holding on to any feelings of pain, it’s very difficult to want something for someone that we associate with the loss.
But watching them with someone new is also a very clear signal that it’s time to accept the reality of your new status.
You are no longer in a romantic relationship with your ex and they are actively pursuing something new with someone else.
Your relationship has changed.
If you enjoy feeling the pain, then it’s easy.
Take yourself through the idea that he never loved you or cared for you, that he is happier than you know, that you want to be that woman with him right now.
But is that true?
Do you want to step back into an interaction that wasn’t working?
Do you honestly want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be in a romantic relationship with you?
Do you want to compare yourself to someone else and base your happiness on what you think you are missing out on?
Watching your ex be with someone else means they are trying something new.
You have no idea what the dynamic is like between them and if it is any better than the joy you felt.
The point here is that the more you concern yourself with their life and happenings and not yours, the more pain you are going to continue to wallow in.
2) You have a chance to find someone new too
Watching your ex go into a romantic relationship can be hard to watch, but it also serves as a reminder and perhaps some motivation for you to find someone new that you can form an enjoyable and uplifting connection.
It can be a clear sign of closure and mark that it’s time for you to move on.
Relationships do come and go.
They challenge us.
They show us new ways of understanding one another, and by doing so we come to know the experience of being human more fully.
When we enter into them, it’s not about winning or losing.
It’s about growing.
Relationships are competitions.
When you are together, it’s not a “win” and likewise, when you are apart, it’s not a “lose”.
Likewise, it doesn’t mean that your partner “won” anything because they are in a new relationship.
It just means that they are going on with their lives and taking on new experiences.
This new stage in their romantic life has not much to do with you.
It can be a chance for you to see also that it’s time for you to start making new bonds and connections and friends for yourself.
So often we depend on our partner to be our best friend, to be the main support in our lives, to be our universe.
But to be honest, the only person who can do that with you is you.
The more you feel a lack of something, the more you will reach out and want to grasp something outside of yourself.
If you feel lonely watching your partner with someone new, it means that there is something deep in your essence that is feeling estranged.
So it’s time to focus on the connections that you have with yourself and that carry with each other.
There are so many vibrant relationships that you hold in your life.
Think of all the friendships and meaningful connections you have with those close to you.
You can find joy and love if you start to allow these new aspects to flood you with their possibilities.
There is so much love and intimacy to find in your life if you are ready to open up to different definitions of it.
So it’s a chance to find someone new, and open up to new ways of relating and loving.
3) You can be honest
If you see that your ex has a new girlfriend and you are having a hard time handling it, you could be honest with your ex about it.
Remember this was a person who you once used to have a connection with.
Sometimes looking right at our fears and emotions, and being honest with ourselves and the people around us can be liberating.
If you are still on speaking terms with your ex, this might seem crazy to suggest, but you can fess up and let them know that you have a hard time seeing them with someone new.
I’m sure they would experience the same thing on some level if you start seeing someone new too.
Usually, the way to get things into the open is to just call it for what it is and have a little laugh or heart-to-heart conversation about it.
It can also take some of the ease off any interactions if you do bump into your ex with their new girlfriend in the future.
As we explore the main reasons why it can be a good thing that your ex has moved on, sometimes it can help to talk to someone with a great deal of experience.
Being honest with a third party, like a therapist or a relationship coach, can also help you to find a way to work through this tension in your life.
Romantic relationships can be difficult to navigate.
They can be confusing and leave us feeling frustrated and unsure of ourselves.
If we turn to our family and friends it can complicate matters because they might know your ex or have a hard time listening to all the details that you want to go into.
Sometimes you hit a point where you don’t know what to do next.
That’s why having a neutral and outside perspective can be like a breath of fresh air.
I was skeptical until I tried it out myself.
Relationship Hero is one of the best resources I found.
Their experienced coaches have seen it all.
You don’t have to feel any ounce of embarrassment opening up to them and they know the perfect questions to ask and how to help you cope with watching your ex dating someone new.
I tried them a year ago when I was in the pit of my relationship despair.
They managed to help me break through my mental suffering and give me real solutions on how to address my issue.
My coach was caring and patient. They took the time to understand what I was going through and gave practical and useful advice.
You can also connect with an experienced relationship coach and get tailor-made advice for your situation.
It never hurts to try new ways to build up your coping tools for emotional crisis like this.
4) You can’t stop thinking of others
Seeing your ex with a new girlfriend can feel extremely hard and it’s also a good reminder that you are in a critical phase of your life where you’re supposed to be growing.
It’s so easy to get so invested in our love lives and our relationships, and the people of our past, that we lose sight of the bigger picture of the person we are becoming and the life that we are living.
When you dwell on your past relationships and think about what could have been, you take yourself out of your present life.
My advice is – to stop thinking about someone else. They are living their life. You are living yours.
There is freedom in this, a power that you can harness.
If you accept the reality as it is, that you are now single and that your ex is no longer with you, then it shouldn’t matter if they are with someone new. It’s not your concern.
The moment you give up on wanting to be with someone else because they’re not meeting your needs (in any way), is the moment that you take charge of your life and become who you want to be.
You have time to put yourself first now.
You can make decisions based just on what it is that makes you happiest.
And this focus is something that we all too often lose in our relationships.
It’s a great moment to reconnect with yourself. To be clear on what you like, what you want, and what you need.
When these areas are addressed in your life, then going into your next relationship will be even easier.
Because you will have a clear idea of how you can relate better and meet your fundamental needs.
So get a little selfish.
Focus on you for the moment.
Take really good care of yourself.
And this can be as simple as eating well, working out, sleeping well, do what you need to do for the day.
Focus on the little things.
Build yourself up again, slowly.
5) Get busy
When you find that you focus on one aspect of your life, like a relationship that causes you pain, it’s a great time to shift your attention to something new. It’s time to get busy.
Get obsessed about something other than your ex.
You can pick up that new class or hobby that you’ve always wanted to take part in.
A sporting competition you want to participate in.
A challenging trail that you would like to complete.
You can throw yourself into some work projects that you’ve let slide.
You can begin doing that thing that you’ve always been meaning to do.
But you have to get busy. Distraction can help to focus your mind on something else in the short term and give you some space so that you can look more deeply into your past relationship when you are ready.
For now, there’s nothing wrong with changing your environment and the ideas that you encounter. It’s a great form of therapy.
You don’t have to go for a marathon run, grueling bike ride, or dive into the deep end of any new pool, but if you feel a desire to do something new and start making a pattern of it, I think it could be a step in the right direction.
New experiences will give you new things to focus on.
It’s also time to take out some books and keep reading no matter what else is going on in your life. Having the chance to take on the drama of a fictional character is also a great escape from your own for a moment.
If you always wanted to learn a new language, this is the time to do it. One of the best ways to get a new skill is by doing it every day and taking it very seriously. Or find a class or tutor to get into some social ways of learning something new.
Any step closer that you take to attaining a goal will help you to release some feel-good neurochemicals into your system, like dopamine. And this can be a quick and effective way to pick yourself up out of a rut that you might find yourself in.
6) You can see new ways of thinking about yourself
If you find that you are having a hard time seeing your ex with a new girlfriend, try to find a new way of thinking about yourself.
Sometimes this new perspective can come from a positive chat with a close family member or friend who loves you dearly and reminds you of all the great things that you do.
It can be easy to put ourselves down when you go through a break-up. But people do admire you and are inspired by you and it can be a chance to see yourself in a different light.
It’s a good opportunity to start thinking about how you are going to move forward.
It’s time to take charge of your life and look at how you treat yourself and talk to yourself.
You can also see an opportunity to see what it means to be your higher self.
So often in relationships, we define our sense of worth and how we feel on the inside, based on what happens outside of us. But ultimately this needs to come from within.
Having a little love and affection from our friends can help to bring us up for a short moment, but remember it’s just that. Real love has to come from you.
Learning to love
For a moment, it’s time to shift the focus away from your ex and who they may or may not be with.
It’s time to learning to love yourself. When we enter into and out of romantic relationships it is never easy. But we are all just here to teach each other lessons along the way.
Each interaction and relationship that we put our attention and affection into has some element of risk. It means that it might not be returned. And if for some luckily moment it is returned, it is never to be taken for granted and expected that will happen indefinitely.
The way I see it is that if you are having a hard time seeing your ex with someone new, you have two options.
You can keep it to yourself, ignore it, and move on with distractions.
Or you can face it, be honest with yourself, go through the experience of the emotions, and learn from it.
Heartache won’t kill you.
But it can make you feel an intense degree of suffering.
The more you hold onto the thoughts of pain and discomfort, the more you are allowing yourself to experience the misery again and again.
But have you ever asked yourself why love and relationships can feel so challenging?
Why can’t it be how you imagined it would?
Why do you hate someone you once love and don’t want them to be happy?
Why no one meets your expectations?
Or at least that love never goes your way?
When you’re dealing with breakups it’s easy to helpless and frustrated.
You may even want to give up on love together.
Before you put your walls up, I want to suggest doing something different this time around.
It’s something I learned from the shaman Rudá Iandê.
He taught me that we so easily sabotage our relationships and delude ourselves for years, thinking that we will find someone who will fulfill us.
As Rudá explains in this free video, many of us chase love in a way that just causes us more pain.
We get stuck in toxic relationships or meaningless flings and never find what we’re looking for.
Then we feel awful when things don’t turn out the way we expect.
When our partner breaks up with us and chooses someone else it can feel even more devastating.
But have you tried to dive deeper into this feeling? What was it that you were expecting from your partner? What hopes do you still latch onto?
We try to find someone who “completes” us, watch it all break down, and feel twice as bad.
Rudá’s teachings showed me a new perspective. He is refreshing. I felt like he understood my struggles to find a deep lasting connection.
If you’re done with unsatisfying relationships and dreams broken over and over, then this is a message you need to hear.
I guarantee you will not be disappointed.
Click here to watch the free video.
When you are ready, you’ll find a way to move on. Either enough time will pass, or you’ll distract yourself enough, or you’ll talk it through, but the emotions will change.
Just remember that each relationship you step into has the potential to dissolve. The better you get at handling this part of romance, the better you will be at going into relationships.
