Are you going through a bad breakup? We’ve all been there before. Unless you marry your first girlfriend, chances are good that you’ll deal with a breakup at some point, and even one that ends on friendly terms can leave you more than a little worse for wear. You probably think that this pain will last forever. Even when you know, deep down, that it will fade, it can be hard to know how to get over a breakup. That’s why your friends at The Art of Charm are here to help you through the tough times after a breakup.
To get over a breakup, step back from your ex, put your time into yourself, and date for fun once you’re ready. This guide takes you through each step in that order, so you always know what to do next while the hurt fades.
Get Through the First Week
The first days after a breakup tend to be the most disorienting, because the routines you shared with her are suddenly empty. What we’re talking about here is giving yourself a few simple anchors so the days have a shape again. You don’t need a grand plan yet. You need a handful of small, repeatable things.
Keep Your Basics Steady
Get up at a regular time, eat real meals, and get outside once a day, even if it’s only a walk around the block. These basics sound small, and they are exactly what keeps a rough week from turning into a rough month. Think of it like physical conditioning for your emotional health: you build strength through steady, ordinary habits.
Lean On Your Friends
Call the people who know you well. Tell them plainly what happened and what would help, whether that’s grabbing dinner, watching a game or just having someone to talk to on a Tuesday night. Friends can fill the evenings that used to belong to the two of you, and they remind you who you were before the relationship.
Cut Contact
Once the first shock settles, the next move is to build some distance from your ex. Understanding that distance is the tool that makes everything after it work is what keeps you from sliding backward.
Stop Checking In on Her
If you’re the type of guy going through her Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms to see what she’s up to, it’s time to quit. If you want to know how to get over a breakup, you need to start creating some mental space for yourself. This means that, at least for the short term, you put her out of your mind.
In practical terms, that means unfollowing her on Twitter, hiding her updates on Facebook and pausing your chats with her. Muting and unfollowing work because each update you avoid seeing is one less thing to replay in your head. You carve out that mental space once you stop checking on how she’s doing and stop sliding back into long conversations with her. When it’s over, it’s over. Maybe the two of you can be friends one day, and that day comes later.
Set a Clear No-Contact Window
Vague intentions fade quickly, so give the pause a shape. Pick a set stretch of time, say a full month, and write the end date on your calendar. Tell a friend about it so someone else knows the plan. When the date arrives, you can decide calmly whether you want any contact at all, and you’ll be making that call with a clearer head than you have today.
Handle the Urge to Text Her
The urge will come, usually late at night or after a song, a photo or a mutual friend’s post. When it does, try this sequence:
- Write the message in your notes app and leave it unsent.
- Text a friend instead and tell them you’re feeling the pull.
- Take a walk or hit the gym until the urge passes.
- Read the note again the next morning, when you’ll almost always be glad it stayed in your phone.
Urges rise and fall like waves. Each one you ride out makes the next one a little weaker.
Prioritize Your Time
Once you’ve stepped back, the next move is to get honest about where your hours go. Think of it as an order of operations. First comes work and career, the things that make everything else possible. Then comes self-improvement, like hitting the gym and picking up new skills. Then come your hobbies, passions and interests, whatever they might be. Only once you’ve made enough time for all of those things do you have time for other people. What’s really important is the order, because it keeps a new relationship from becoming the place where you hide from the last one.
Put the Order on Your Calendar
An order of operations works best when it shows up in your week. Block time for work first. Then schedule your workouts and a skill you want to learn. Then add one evening for a hobby you love. Whatever hours remain are the hours you can offer to friends and, eventually, to dating. Seeing it written out turns a vague good intention into a plan you can follow.
Invest in Yourself
Invest Time In Yourself
There are few better times for self-improvement than after a hard stretch, and few stretches are harder than a breakup. That makes it the perfect time to throw yourself into growth. Hit the gym. Take a class. Do all the things that you thought about doing to improve yourself when you were in a relationship, but always put off. You have the time now.
Understanding that this is a time to invest in yourself is what makes the rest of the process work. Throwing your time and energy into becoming a better version of yourself is a solid way to heal when things have taken a turn for the worse, and it’s also what best prepares you to get back out there.
Do Things That You Enjoy
At the same time, use some of that extra energy and time to do things for yourself that are just fun. Every couple invariably has the things that one partner loves and the other tolerates. Now you can do all of the things that you love but she found tiresome, to your heart’s content. Go for it. You’ll probably find that being single is a lot more fun than you would have thought.
Rebuild Your Routine Around You
A long relationship quietly shapes your schedule: when you eat, where you spend weekends, who you see. After a breakup, those habits need new owners. Choose a regular gym time, pick a weekend morning for something you enjoy, and say yes to the invitations your friends send. Every routine you rebuild belongs to you alone, and that is exactly the foundation a healthy relationship needs later.
Get Back Out There
Eventually you’re going to want to get back out there. Start when you’re ready, and nudge yourself if you keep putting it off. There’s never a perfect time to start meeting women again, so you might have to push yourself a bit. When you do, commit to it fully and meet new people in whatever way makes sense for you. Reconsidering your ex is a separate decision, and if you’ve followed the steps above, this is when you can try to win her back if you so choose.
Know When You’re Ready
Readiness shows up in small, ordinary ways. You can think about your ex without your stomach dropping. You can spend a Saturday enjoying yourself with no phone check for her updates. You’re curious about meeting someone new, and your excitement is about that person and the evening ahead. When most of these are true, you’re ready to start. If only a few are true, keep investing in yourself a little longer and look again in a couple of weeks.
Start With Low-Stakes Social Time
You can ease in. Say yes to the party, the group dinner or the friend-of-a-friend gathering. The goal is simply to talk to new people again and remember that conversation can be easy and enjoyable. A line as simple as “How do you know the host?” is plenty to get a conversation started. Each small, pleasant chat rebuilds the confidence a breakup tends to shake.
Date For the Fun Of It
There’s always a temptation to look for someone to replace the person that you miss when you start dating again. After all, we’ve all heard that the best way to get over a breakup is to meet someone new. However, that’s a recipe for failure. Dating purely for enjoyment is the way to go. There were doubtless times when you had a girlfriend that you wished you were single. Now is the time to enjoy being single, to go out and meet new women.
Sure, eventually you might want to get back into a relationship. Take your time with it. Use this stretch to have some fun, meet a variety of people and filter the wrong people out and the right people in. Take all that you’ve learned about what you want and what you dislike in a relationship and apply it. Doing so means you’re going to have more fun dating, and you’ll have a much better chance of a strong relationship when you get into one.
Have Fun Filtering
Now that you’ve been through a breakup, you probably have a better idea of what you want in a partner, as well as what you want to avoid. Feel free to filter people out, and stay open enough to filter the right people in, even if you worry about getting hurt again. Have fun with it.
Write Down What You Learned
Take ten minutes and write two short lists. On the first, put what you valued most in the relationship. On the second, put what you’d change or look for differently next time. Keep the lists on your phone and read them before you go out. They turn a painful experience into a practical guide, and they make it easier to recognize someone who fits.
Be Direct About What You Want
Filtering gets easier when you say what you’re looking for in plain, friendly language. On an early date, a line like “I’m enjoying meeting new people right now and keeping things light” sets an honest tone. You learn quickly whether the other person shares that pace, and you spend your energy on people whose goals fit yours.
Let Each Date Be Its Own Experience
Treat every date as one evening of good conversation with a new person, and let that be enough. When you stop measuring each date against your last relationship, you enjoy the moment more, and you notice the qualities that matter. Over time, the right kind of connection becomes much easier to spot.
