What To Do In The First Week Of A Breakup

By

Esti van Rensburg

We’ve all been there, laying in bed, watching The Notebook and eating a tub of ice-cream. Or duplicating this scene in Legally Blonde:

But I have never allowed myself to cry over some sag-assed man for longer than 7 days. And here’s how I did it:

Cry your heart forsaken eyes out. Get your girlfriends together, eat too much, cry too much, vent and hate.

Now it’s time for recovery.

Unfollow them on Facebook. Go to their profile, and where it states Friends, click unfollow. That way you won’t remove him from Facebook and be forced to have that talk with him when he asks why, but his feed won’t show up on your news feed for you to be upset about it. And don’t you dare stalk his profile every few minutes, that shit will be the end of you. If you don’t have the necessary discipline in your pocket, unfriend him.

Forget about being friends. There’s a 0.5% chance that you’ll ever be friends again. If he suggests it, tell him you’ll think about it. Everything in your being will want to say yes, because you don’t want him out of life yet. (Big) But: Don’t. say. yes. Act like the chilled cool-girl that you are, tell’em you’ll think about it, and then don’t think about it.

Cry when you need to. Don’t let it pile up inside. If you’re sad, let it out. Every time I’ve cried about a guy, I was 10 steps closer to getting over it.

Ignore his texts for the week, and don’t text him. By day 7 you’ll be over it, and won’t feel the need to text him anyway. And oh dear sister, if you’re drunk, your friends better chuck your phone in the ocean to avoid 02:00 am drunken texts okay!?

Exercise! First of all, it releases endorphin’s which makes you feel good. Second of all, you’ll look better, which makes you feel good. And thirdly it preoccupies your mind, which makes you feel good. Take out all the rage and sadness you have on that barbell at the CrossFit class. It can only be beneficial.

Don’t go looking to get back at him, rather work on getting yourself back. We tend to lose a lot of ourselves when we’re in a relationship, especially when it's with the wrong person. So focus all your time and energy on rediscovering who you are, and what makes you the amazing diva that you are.

When you’re lonely, reach out to your girlfriends, parents and siblings, or whoever will truly be there to support you. Don’t call him, he’s the reason you’re in this state in the first place.

Don’t splash your heart on Facebook. The only thing your Facebook friends has to know is “(Insert name here) is now single”. Don’t post quotes of heartbreak and moving on, or photos of you and some guy, or I hate the world statuses on Facebook. Keep it clean, you’ll be happy you did it in the end.

If you know he’ll be somewhere where you’ll be, try to avoid going. It’s simple, being in a crowd of friends or at the same club will make things complicated especially if you get half-ass drunk and make out with him, only to restart this whole process in the morning when he reminds you it’s still over.

I realized I was better off when I suddenly had the time to see my friends, and I enjoyed being with them more, and they enjoyed my company more.

And finally. Accept it. It’s over, which means you shouldn’t be together anymore. Believe in yourself to know that you don’t even deserve your own sloppy seconds. He is in the past, and so are the memories. Cherish them, but don’t wish them back.

You deserve exactly what you believe you deserve. Don’t run after someone that walked away. Lift your head up baby girl. Day 7 will be a whole lot brighter than day 1.

It took me 7 days to deal with a breakup, it might take you longer. But embrace who you are and that you are able to be a strong individual without someone else. The memories might make your heart ache. But you have so much free time to make better ones now.

Breakups are hard and there's no set timeline on when you'll feel better, but there are steps you can take to feel better faster and mend in a healthier way. We worked with wellness, mindfulness, and mental health experts to create the How To Mend From Heartbreak program which covers every step of the mending journey, from how to do an ex detox to getting ready to date again...and everything in between. As a loyal blog reader, we're offering you 50% off Mend's online programs. Use code BLOG50 at checkout. Sign up to start mending.

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