It feels like you got shot in the gut, you're confused, and you don't know what to do. I know there's a ton of proficient material out there on this, merely this commodity is different for ane reason: I simply got dumped too, and yes, information technology fucking hurts.

I'm writing this for myself as much every bit I am for you lot. I'g no genius, no expert. I'k only a hurt guy next to you lot. And nosotros're gonna pull each other out of this mess. What nosotros practise right now, bloodied and battered, is what defines united states. We can cull to be weak, lay on the cold basis and await the artillery shelling of emotion, or nosotros can cull to become the stuff of legends.

So tie a rag around that fresh wound, know it's going to give y'all hell, and let's get the fuck out of this miserable place. We're charging ahead, limp and all. Feel the hurting similar a sprinter feels the burn of that last lap. Feel information technology! Have its presence. Yes, it exists. Yep, it'due south intense. But it exists to be conquered, and you're the just person that tin do it. Don't back downwards, don't dorsum off. Y'all're built to overcome this. Aye, information technology's damn tough, but so what? It's the difficult things that develop us.

Take responsibility for your own thoughts and feelings, pull upward your britches, and never forget this is for the best. I promise. Your mission is to prosper without him or her, to exist independent. The manner yous handle this emotional scar will determine if it becomes a corking personal story of overcoming adversity or a permanent emotional deformity.

Antoine de Saint-Exúpery said in Current of air, Sand, and Stars: "What saves a man is to accept a stride. And then another step. It is always the same step, just yous have to have it." So permit's take the adjacent few steps together:

Information technology'southward over, man. They're gone. This is the hardest role. Even if she comes back, do I really want a daughter who rejected me? Y'all should never take someone who doesn't want to be your partner. If Eva Longoria doesn't meet my potential, she's not correct for me. It's that simple. If they dumped you lot for shit you need to make clean out of your life, then you need to fix it not for them, but for yourself.

Every time I catch myself thinking about her, I repeat out loud: "Neediness leaving the body." Don't wallow in your loss. Exist thankful for the expert times yous shared, and use information technology as motivation to find the next one! Your worth has nothing to practice with their approval of you. If you retrieve well-nigh it, nosotros don't really miss them, we miss the idea of them.  We miss a lost wax casting of them. We don't miss them as much as we miss their effect on us. We miss beingness with someone who is bonny, smart, funny, and likes us. But guess what? That'southward not them anymore. The irony is, if nosotros ever end up with them once more, it tin but exist because nosotros prospered without them.

It'southward so tempting to jump down the rabbit hole and captivate over "What if I did Ten or didn't do Y? Would things be unlike?" Frankly, it doesn't affair. Information technology'southward part of the past, and the by is dead. We are who we choose to be today, and that is the only thing nosotros can control.

Guilt over the by and worry over the future are both useless emotions that retard our ability to live today in relaxed confidence. I yell out loud "Cease! Stop! Finish!" every time I begin to entertain thoughts of self-pity. Don't let anything interfere with your power to bask today.

Sad man in a truck with his head on the steering wheel

Just remember: on the timeline of your whole life, this is likely a modest outcome, even if information technology doesn't feel similar it.

They may still want to be your friend. They may hate your guts. They may send mixed signals. They may call and text all the time. They may never contact you again. They may act aristocratic, and still telephone call you to wish yous a happy birthday (this happened to me at the time of writing). They may be dislocated and injure and practise all of the above. None of information technology should affect you.

Public Enemy #ane is to overreact. About people will behave out of anger or feet—both are forms of unearned worship. Take him or her off the pedestal and don't read into their actions. Don't endeavour to effigy out why they would practise this or that. There are too many variables to know the motivations behind that detail action at that detail time. Over-analyzing never added a 2d to anyone's life. Yous're going to be fine with or without them. If y'all accept to alter your identity to win them back, and then yous're not really winning annihilation.

Be cool and focus on what's in your control, not what they're doing. Don't get out of your way to talk to them, and don't go out of your way to avoid them. Both are reactive. Let yourself a narrow range of laid-dorsum reactions to them, because information technology's not about them anymore. It's near taking care of you.

A skilful dominion of pollex here is to scale back your interaction according to the severity of your pain—the more you hurt, the less y'all should talk. If they go along calling you, calmly tell them, "Hey, I appreciate it, but I don't run into the signal in us talking anymore. I don't see yous as only a friend, so please respect that."

Success here is defined by the extent to which they don't affect your emotional state. Don't interact with them until you tin can be relaxed and confident nigh it.

Non only does this bulldoze them away, but it reveals a neediness and desperation. That's not what relationships are well-nigh. Psychologist Wayne Dyer sums it up perfectly in Your Erroneous Zones:

A relationship based on love… is one in which each partner allows the other to be what he or she chooses, with no expectations and no demands. It is a simple clan of 2 people who love each other so much that each would never expect the other to be something that he or she wouldn't choose for himself. It is a union of independence, rather than dependence.

She is who she is, and yous shouldn't try to change her. Respect her choice, and don't be deluded into interim like she's the only girl for you. She may have had chemistry with you lot for that period of time, but she's non the last cup of water in the Sahara. You don't need her. You may experience like you practise, but you don't. Y'all need food. You demand air and water. Yous need an unconditional faith in yourself. You lot don't need a particular man or adult female.

Likewise, believing that he or she is amend than anybody else is an insult to literally millions of other people that y'all would observe attractive and intelligent. I remember when my girl walked away, it felt like that unabridged demographic of girls walked away with her.

"I'll never discover someone like her." Don't believe that shit! Any her characteristics (black, white, athletic, Christian, Muslim, intelligent, funny, caring, driven, laid back, etc.), THERE ARE More Similar HER.

Fuck that, there are more better than her.

Your lack of discovery in no way makes her special.

Disclaimer: I highly recommend taking some fourth dimension off to go over your ex before jumping back in the dating scene. The timing is different for everyone, but generally, you should wait until yous tin can avoid comparison the new person to your ex. The new person deserves as much of a blank slate as possible. The worst matter you lot can do is immediately get-go dating a new person in society to "fill the void" the ex left behind.

Every day on my commute, I pass 3 road signs for an exit adorning her start name, followed by some other exit with her nationality. These factors are out of my control, and I requite them a Jay-Z brush off my shoulder every time. Everything that's in your control? Get rid of it. You demand to get your mind off this daughter. Life is as well short to sacrifice even one 2d of your sanity, and so change the station immediately when Gavin Degraw's "Not Over You lot"—or any other shitty breakup vocal—comes to haunt your ears.

The past is dead. Leave it in the grave instead of reliving it.

Don't compare yourself to the people they talk to and date. Their choices reflect only on them, non yous. Your cocky-worth is more important here, how y'all feel about yourself for yourself, non compared to some random other sap. Jealousy is a result of allowing something out of your control to dictate your emotions.

Never evidence signs of jealousy. Allow them go. Ironically, that's the most attractive thing you can practise.

Cocky-explanatory. Exhaust your contacts listing until you lot've hung out with everyone who lives in boondocks and talked on the telephone with everyone who doesn't. Friends are a wonderful resource to keep your spirits upward.

If you lot can resist looking at their social media profiles, and then unsubscribe from her Facebook updates and so information technology doesn't appear on your News Feed. If y'all tin't resist, quietly unfriend them. Don't make a large deal out of it, and don't tell anyone. If anyone brings it up with y'all, admit you unfriended them and you did it considering you felt like you needed to. At that place's no shame in pain. Y'all don't owe anyone further explanation or justification. It's your choice and yous live past your ain standards.

Take something on your bucket list and do something today to take a step toward it. You accept no excuse! Every large undertaking ever achieved was broken down into steps small-scale plenty to be done in a single day. If yous want to be a airplane pilot, find a plan and research classes. If you desire to go skydiving, call and commit to a solar day. If yous want a six-pack, focus on eating make clean and working out today. Take a step each and every solar day toward your goal, and how can yous not reach it? Don't let money constrain you. Create a savings account and eolith a set amount each month (before y'all even spend anything on food!) until yous take enough. I'd rather die hungry than accept dreams unfulfilled.

The intensity of your goals should at least match the degree of your emotional investment in the girl. If you're still obsessed with her, you're not busy and focused enough.

Dr. Dyer sums it up perfectly:

You accept go habituated in mental patterns that identify the causes of your feelings as outside yourself. You lot accept put in thousands of hours of reinforcement for such thinking, and you lot'll need to residuum the scale with thousands of hours for new thinking.

Pull the lesson from information technology and motility on, but never search for the lesson at the expense of moving on.

Call up, it is never the at-home seas that reveal the strength of a vessel. The style you weather the tempest shows what material you're made of. Yous'll make information technology.

(Embrace image: "A Portrait in Darkness" by Sean McGrath is licensed nether CC BY ii.0)