While your ex seems to be perfectly fine and moved on already, you’re caught up in this whirlwind. It’s quite frustrating and stressful when you can’t get over your ex. There are a variety of elements that hold you back in the past. You’re stuck in that limbo because you need more time to process your feelings. You might feel lonely and want to get back to that person with whom you felt once loved. The most important thing is to let yourself acknowledge your feelings. 14 reasons why you can’t get over your ex:
1. Your ex gives you hot and cold vibes
It’s hard to understand your ex’s stance when they give you mixed feelings. The moment you can’t cut off your communication completely, that’s when you feel stuck. You get mixed feelings and still fantasize about your future. If your ex keeps coming and going then one day you think that you’re back to reality whereas the other moment they ditch you. This way, your ex doesn’t let you cope with your feelings and take a step back. Under these conditions, it’s hard to reflect and detach from your ex.
2. You can’t get out of your comfort zone
The moment when the relationship ends, you’re still hurt, confused, and refuse to face reality. In this situation, the heart controls the brain and not vice versa. It’s quite understandable that you’re used to this relationship and to your ex already. The love and the intense feelings that you have right now can’t vanish in an instant. It takes time to process these feelings. For some, it might take a month whereas for others it might take longer. In other words, you can’t get over your ex because at this stage you’re afraid of being alone. Being again on your own seems scary. You’re afraid you’ll never be loved again.
3. You keep mentioning the reason you broke up
Rumination is a result of not being able to embrace your feelings and reality. Lack of closure and regret keep reminding you of the reason you broke up. Being in this vicious circle, the anger and pain keep you roaming around your ex. At this moment you can’t let your ex go. You hope that something will change or what could be done differently. You think and feel that you have the power to change the situation. Unfortunately, things aren’t under your control anymore. You can’t heal from a breakup unless you take control only over your feelings.
4. You’re anxious and you feel lonely
What prevents you from moving further is your mindset. Through the first stages of a breakup, you’ll feel anxious, lonely, and lost. It doesn’t mean that you’ll feel the same every day. One day you’ll feel relieved whereas the other day you’re afraid of being on your own. The moment you feel lonely, that’s what triggers the negative feelings and you keep reminiscing. You can’t let go of your ex or these feelings because you can’t just push them away. In this case, you need to allow yourself and embrace these feelings. Once you accept that it’s okay to feel lonely, it won’t hold you back.
5. You bottled up your feelings
You have “erased” all your feelings and you still ask why can’t I forget my ex. You can’t forget your ex just by erasing the memories or feelings. It won’t work that way. Once you push away your feelings and don’t let yourself feel them, you’ll get stuck in the past. The brain has that power that sends you signals of suppressed feelings. These are the signals that you need to let your body know these emotions. If you don’t feel sad, angry, lonely, and cry out the pain, you can’t move on from your ex. You can’t change the behavioral pattern in your brain if you choose to ignore what you’re feeling. If you get to know your feelings and your brain activity when you feel in love, sad, or alone: you’ll get over your ex.
6. You’re surrounded by your ex’s ‘presence’
Until you break the pattern of being around your ex, you can’t move on. Familiar odors, clothes, pieces of furniture, and familiar faces, trigger the memory. The intense feelings are released when you encounter one of those elements. You might still keep your ex’s things or visit the same places. Even hanging out with mutual friends will prevent you from moving on. That’s why you need to break this ordinary pattern. Hang out with different friends, remove your ex’s things, and visit new places. Otherwise, you’ll be coming back to your past relationship quite often.
7. You’re forcing yourself to forget your ex
Shifting the focus from your ex to you isn’t a bad thing. Yet, if you do it before processing your feelings that won’t help you to move on. So many people think that if you immediately go No Contact or date new people will help you to get over your ex. That’s not the key to moving on. If you improve yourself just to prove to your ex what he or she is missing, then you’ll get stuck in your breakup. Don’t rush into healing without grieving first.
8. You’re dwelling on your mistakes
Now that you’re out of a relationship, you can reflect on your relationship. You’ll have more time to focus on yourself and look at what you could have done differently. You keep replaying the moment before and when the breakup happened. In the meantime, you experience unpleasant and dark emotions. What I advise you to do before reflecting on your mistakes, you should reflect on your feelings. First, you need to feel the pain and then improve your life and love skills. If you jump immediately to reflect on all that burden, you’ll never get over your ex.
9. You’re caught up on your past trauma
Being out of a toxic relationship and dwelling on the past, you can easily mix being in love with a trauma bond. In this case, you might have never felt confident and secure on your own. You’re reliant on your ex and you need their presence or validation. You know that your ex has impacted you negatively but feelings can’t understand it. You still have some hidden feelings for your ex. It’s like going back to an old habit, you know that’s wrong but you have the urge to do it. Going through a lot of pain and manipulation, that’s what keeps you going to that dark place.
10. You still keep in touch
Keeping in touch with your ex is the most common mistake that people make. No matter if you ended the relationship on good terms or not, being still in contact prevents you from moving on. Having feelings for your ex and being around them, won’t help you to forget your ex. Every little activity that you do will remind you something of your relationship. Thus, you can be confused by their behavior and take it as them being interested in you again. In this case, it’s better to use the No Contact Rule. You’ll take a step back and conclude what you want and what you need.
11. You still have feelings for your ex
After a breakup, feelings can’t vanish immediately. Because you’re not together, doesn’t mean that your feelings will be erased immediately. This one is the most crucial factor that you can’t move on. If you haven’t sorted your feelings yet then it’s impossible to move on from that relationship. If your ex has already moved on then you’ll only imagine scenarios about your future. Try to focus on moving from everything that reminds you of your ex. Work to be the best version of yourself, then you can discover what you feel about your ex.
12. You feel that the last relationship was perfect
It’s hard to move on once you feel that your ex was the one. You feel like you’ll never find love again and you won’t be able to be loved ever again. This situation is created when you have high expectations for a certain partner or a relationship. Try to write down or reflect on the reasons that your relationship didn’t work. This way you’ll let logic overpower your feelings. Once you’ll embrace reality, you’ll be able to move on and forget your ex.
13. You’re not balancing good/bad memories
Another reason that prevents you from getting over your ex is being stuck either in good or bad memories. It’s pretty common for some people to handle the breakup and pain just by focusing on one of them. It’s better to balance the feelings and thoughts at this time. Even if you focus only on good or bad things, neither will help you to move on. It will either make you either bitter for the next relationship or you’ll fantasize about your future.
14. You’re not certain about your feelings
After being on your own, you feel like you don’t know yourself anymore. Even if you’re the dumper or the dumpee, you’ll have uncertainty about your decisions. You’ll wonder: Why do I still care about my ex? Am I doing the right thing? That’s quite normal. You still care about your ex because you are uncertain. You don’t know what you feel about your ex: Is that love, hate, compassion, or a combo of three. This keeps you from moving on further with your life. To get over your ex and decide on what you feel and need, you have to distance yourself. Remember to not interact with your ex until you sort out your feelings. Focus on yourself. See if you feel better on your own or in that relationship.
How do you let go of an ex you still love?
You can let go of an ex you still love, only if you take a step back and focus on your emotional wellbeing. You need to pin down exactly what love means to you. The reason why you can’t move on is that you think that you still love your ex. To know how to distinguish love and let go of your ex, here are a few steps:
- Cut off your contact. If you’re not around your ex all the time, then you’ll have the time and space to reflect. It’s important to not meet or talk to your ex after the breakup since you’re hurt and vulnerable. When you’re vulnerable, you’ll act based on your ego and not on your logic. You need to detach slowly emotionally from your ex, so you can move on.
- Grieve, cry, let your feelings out. You need to let yourself feel the emotions. You can play sad movies or songs, go for a walk, or do whatever it takes to let your feelings out. Talk about how you’re feeling. You can talk either to your friends, family, or even a therapist. Find a support system where you can purge your emotions.
- Don’t create false hopes about your relationship. Even if you have feelings about your ex, you take a step back to see reality. Creating false hopes and fantasizing can have a negative impact on you. At this point, you’d better start to spot what didn’t let your relationship work. By pointing out the flaws of your relationship, you get a new perspective on your ex and on yourself. You’ll understand if that’s true love and you’ll recognize your feelings.
- Know that having still feelings for your ex is quite alright. You should not blame yourself or be ashamed for still loving your ex. Let this relationship be an experience that shaped you. Moving on from a relationship that didn’t work out, doesn’t mean that you can erase your feelings. By embracing your feelings and distinguishing them, you’ll be a step closer to accepting reality.
- Don’t rush into a rebound relationship. The worst technique to move on is to jump immediately into a rebound relationship. Creating a relationship just because you want to erase your feelings will bring you other issues. You’ll be caught up in a whirlwind of emotions.
- Respect your ex’s decisions. You can let go of an ex, the moment you don’t hold grudges. When you respect his or her decisions, you can let them go. Even if you love your ex, holding grudges won’t keep him or her near you. This will only create some type of misery for you, both.
Why can’t I get over my ex even though I’m in a new relationship?
You can’t get over your ex if you enter a new relationship too soon or you aren’t over them yet. There are various reasons why you can’t move on from your ex. It could be you, your feelings, your new partner/relationship, or your ex. You find it hard to move on from someone. Either if you’re the dumper or the dumpee, catching and releasing feelings is the same. If you were part of a long-term relationship then you need a longer time to process feelings. Once you’re vulnerable and close with someone for so long, it’s impossible to do the same with someone else. You entered the relationship too early. You might have felt lonely when entering this relationship and not healed, that’s when the mistake was made. If you haven’t processed the pain and love from your last relationship, it’s impossible to feel something new. You entered this relationship to make your ex jealous. If you started this new relationship to make your ex jealous then you’ll never move on. Once you have feelings about your ex, you can’t feel the same for someone else simultaneously. You never had closure. When you don’t have closure that will torture for the rest of other relationships. If something negative happens in this new relationship, you wonder if you’re the problem. That’s because, without closure, you tend to blame yourself and keep going back to your ex.
- Will feelings for an ex ever go away? The feelings for an ex will never go away. They will always be present but will be replaced by new ones. I can point out that the intensity will not be the same as when you’ve been in the relationship. Yet, these feelings won’t fade in a minute. The more you love your ex and put any effort into that relationship, the longer it will take.
- Is it possible to never forget your ex? Let me tell it this way. You’ll never forget your ex, but you’ll get over them. It’s just the circle of life. You’ll encounter multiple people that will trigger you or remind you of your ex. Yet, what will be different are your feelings about your ex and your stance. You’ll get to the point when you won’t feel the same anymore.
To conclude it all: Why can’t I let go of my ex?
You can’t let go of your ex because you’re hung up on this idea of perfect love or relationship. It’s hard to get over an ex if you don’t reflect on your situation properly. Avoiding your feelings and restraining nourishment will prevent you from moving on. It’s not about trying to forget your ex, it’s about learning to let go. When you finally let go of your ex, you go through the roller coaster of emotions and you find love within yourself. Tight hugs, Callisto
