How indeed? How do you let go of someone you love who can’t be with you? Well, gather your strength and what heart you have left, and read on. We talked to counselors Prerna Dhingra (M.A. Clinical Psychology) and Shazia Saleem (Masters in Psychology), who specializes in separation and divorce counseling, about this. And we’re here to help you pick up the pieces and heal your heart.
How To Get Over A Broken Heart When You Still Love Him — 11 Ways
Detaching from someone you love deeply is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. There will be days of tears and wallowing, grief and rage, denial and resentment, and pure sadness and loss. If you’re trying to get over a relationship you ruined or get over a breakup you caused, you’ll also be blaming yourself, trying to figure out what you did wrong, even as you battle to get over someone you love deeply. Prerna says, “Emotionally detaching from someone comes with a lot of challenges because it’s not just the individual we have to detach from, but also parts of ourselves that we now associate with the person. For some people, diving into work and hobbies turns out to be fruitful till they feel ready to work on letting go of their attachment. “For others, working toward a systematic breakdown of their attachment can prove to be helpful. Either way, addressing the part of us that’s holding on to the other person, what purpose this hold has, and how it’s serving us currently, is what eventually helps. “For instance, if the attachment is because both of them were together for a long time and it’s the habit that’s difficult to let go of, then to work on slowly creating new memories and habits would help, so as to bring about the association and attachment back to ourselves from the said partner.” Shazia adds, “Getting over heartbreak is all about understanding that emotions are not constant traits – they keep changing depending upon other external and environmental factors. Once we recognize, acknowledge, process, and channel them in a positive manner, things start falling in place. Rather than focusing or stressing about how to detach in a relationship, going with the flow and prioritizing our own happiness will surely make a difference.” How to get over a broken heart when you still love him is a painful and long process, but it’s not impossible. We’ve come up with 11 ways to help you cope and let go of a relationship when you still love them.
1. To move on from a painful heartbreak, you need to cut off contact
We’re starting with an incredibly hard one, aren’t we? But if you’re going to let go of a relationship when you still love them, you need to adhere to the no-contact rule. This means no “miss you” texts, no drunk calls, and no driving past their house. If you can deactivate your social media for a bit, do that as well. Letting go of someone you still love does mean actually letting go. Looking at their pictures on social media over and over, or sending that one seemingly harmless text is only going to make it harder and give you false hope that maybe things aren’t really over. “This was the hardest part for me, the cutting off,” admits Tatiana, who had a messy breakup with her partner Adrian. “I found myself constantly reaching for my phone, wanting to text him, to call, or even just to look at his name in my contacts list. After a point, my friends deleted his name from my phone and wouldn’t let me look at social media. It was really, really tough, but I had to do it.” You’re going to have to do some tough love therapy as you navigate getting over a broken heart. Get your friends involved if you can, you’ll need someone to take your phone and car keys when you’re determined to send a “friendly text” or “just take a drive to see if he’s home”.
2. Take time to wallow, you can’t get ‘rid’ of a broken heart
While tough love is needed, you also need to take time to grieve. Do the wallowing. Order a cheese pizza with all the toppings, order an entire cake and watch mindless TV, let yourself do whatever helps with getting over a broken heart, especially when you’re moving on without closure. Be unreasonable and dramatic occasionally (“I will never love anyone ever again!”) and let your angsty, teenage self take full flight if it helps. Let’s face it, we’re all adolescents at heart when it comes to love. Have a night out with friends or stay in with their warm company, plenty of wine, and delicious cocktails and chocolate while you sit around, trash men, and talk about how utterly useless they are (you’ll be back to loving them in no time anyway). Simultaneously, look at photos of shirtless Chris Hemsworth and talk about how he’d be a much better match for you. While getting over a broken heart, you’re going to have to be sensible and accept that the relationship is over at some point. But right now, give yourself the sustenance you need. If lying around in sweatpants with boxes of cookies and tissues are part of your process, you go right ahead. Wallow away, bring on all the tears and snot that you can muster. Sometimes, to get over someone you love deeply, you need this. Remember, this is a limited-time offer, though. Wallowing indefinitely just means you’ll wake up one day and realize you haven’t washed your hair in a month. Feel your feelings, but pick yourself up one day at a time. “The healthiest way to cope would be to not resist your emotions,” says Prerna. “To cry when you feel like it, to share your feelings with your loved ones when you’d like, and to allow yourself time to grieve something that meant so much to you, the same way you allowed yourself time to fall in love in the first place.”
3. Know that it’s okay to love them, but from a distance
It’s time for some complex soul-searching. As much as we often wish love was a well-behaved faucet you could turn on and off at will, love is in fact a sneaky, leaky faucet that drips and leaks when you least expect it. To put it plainly, the answer to “how to get over a broken heart when you still love him?” is not to stop loving him. No matter how much you fight it, how much you convince yourself that you’re over him, there’s a good chance the love will remain. Guess what, that’s okay. Letting go of someone you still love is exactly what it sounds like. You’re letting go of the relationship you had with them, you’re letting go of the romance and all that came with it, except the love. This could actually be a great thing. When you’ve finally gotten to a place where you no longer burst into tears at the thought of them, when you’re in a brand new relationship and feeling great about yourself, you’ll always think of them with tenderness and goodwill. You’ll wish them well and want them to be happy. Maybe you’ll even bump into them one day and be truly happy about it. “Meeting your ex again is a tricky one,” warns Prerna. “This doesn’t get easy if you haven’t done the work and have only suppressed your feelings in order to avoid feeling the pain of your breakup. “If you’re getting over someone you see every day, it’s even tougher, but try to gauge what options allow you to feel your feelings while maintaining a distance. Maybe having a buffer person in the room, or changing your route for a few days till you move on from a painful heartbreak will help. “Based on how your relationship ended and if you decided to be cordial or not, you can give your ex a friendly hello if you think that’s the right thing to do. After you’re out of the situation, hit your friends up, and do what you need to do in order to feel your feelings. Don’t let your feelings pile up because they’ll all come out in a burst eventually, which isn’t healthy.”
4. How to get over a broken heart: Show yourself some love
Self-love is our favorite kind of love. Honestly, one of the best ways to let go of someone you love who can’t be with you is to shift your focus off them and onto yourself. If you’re a working person, throw yourself into work. Maybe even look for a new job, a change of pace and role, something that challenges you and takes your mind off the breakup. Also, hopefully, you’re done with your wallowing phase now, so show yourself some love. It will help you in getting over a broken heart. Get a new haircut, go shopping, buy that sexy pair of heels or that cool-looking tie you’ve been eyeing for ages. Redo your house, buy yourself flowers, dress up, and take yourself on dates to nice cafes and restaurants. “I was so terribly low after my breakup with my partner,” says Lois. “I felt lost and unworthy of love and I didn’t do anything to make myself feel good. Then, for my birthday, a friend booked me a massage and a mani-pedi. There was such joy in someone massaging all the kinks and sadness out of me, in seeing my toes painted bright pink. I felt like I finally had a separate self to love, outside of the relationship and the breakup. “While I was feeling sorry for myself, I would’ve done anything to get rid of a broken heart. Who knew a spa day was all it took? Well, at least it got me started on my journey of recovery,” added Lois. “Self-love and self-care will help you heal. This includes setting up healthy boundaries and allowing yourself to endure and embrace the pain of loss and being open to change and positive things,” Shazia advises.
5. Learning something new will help with getting over a broken heart
Your relationship and your man were your passions all this time. Now that they’re gone, you’ll be feeling empty after the breakup. Don’t sink into the void of feeling depressed after a breakup. Find a new passion and sink your teeth into it! “I kind of always wanted to learn how to ride a motorbike, but never did,” says Joanne. “And then, my partner of 4 years broke up with me and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was spending my days in a daze, crying, plotting revenge, almost begging him to come back…none of it was healthy.” Joanne then found a women’s riding club online and signed up for it. She learned how to ride a motorbike, how to care for it, and was soon taking off on long jaunts by herself and with the group. “It’s been 8 months and I feel like a new me. I still get sad sometimes, but learning something new has reminded me that there’s so much to live for. Plus, I get to wear the coolest leather jackets and riding boots!” she smiles. You needn’t go looking for the nearest Harley Davidson showroom, unless that’s your thing. Join a book club, a cooking group, or learn a new language. There’s a whole world out there for you to explore, and your heartbreak shouldn’t stop you from doing that. Come to think of it, it’s the perfect motivation. So, if you’re wondering how to get over a broken heart, the answer might just be as simple as dusting off the dirt from that old guitar you forgot about. The point here is to find a healthy outlet so you can distract yourself from the negative thoughts that never seem to end. Remember, the process of getting over a broken heart can be different for different people, so if indulging in old hobbies doesn’t help, try something else.
6. Get rid of memories
We know you’ve got that blue shirt he left at your place hidden in your closet, and you frequently take it out and smell it. His toothbrush is probably still in the mug in your bathroom. Maybe there are pictures of the two of you around the house, and the coffee he likes is still in the kitchen cupboard. It’s time to declutter your home and your heart. It’s no good for anyone if you have daily mementos of your ex all over the place, reminding you day in and day out of what used to be. There’s no way you’ll get over a broken heart when you still love him, if his face and his belongings are peering out at you from every corner of the house. You know you can’t get over your ex when you still see them everywhere. Pack up whatever he’s left at your place and send it back to him. If you’re not in a place where you can do that, give them away or throw them out. It’s time to build a whole new life and you don’t need remnants of the old one everywhere. A physical cleansing and erasing of memories will also help cleanse your mind a little. It will help you let someone go emotionally who clearly doesn’t serve to make you happy anymore. It’s perfectly all right to keep some of the happier memories from the past in your head, but remember to make room for new ones.
7. Make peace with the past
When you’re letting go of someone you love but it hurts you, it’s easy to get so caught up in the past hurt and battles that you cannot think of days gone by without anger and sorrow. The deal is, unless you’ve made peace with the past, you’re not going to be able to move on after a breakup. When the breakup is fresh, every thought of your past relationship, past words said, and past deeds done will give rise to deeply negative feelings. You’ll constantly be caught up in sadness, resentment, and anger and since you will be thinking of the past quite a bit, this negativity will become a vicious cycle, catching up with you every time your mind wanders to the past. Soften a little. Acknowledge that what’s done is done, that it may have left scars you’ll have to deal with for a long time. Appreciate that while your past relationship has broken your heart, it’s also left you stronger and more learned in the ways of love. Learn to look at your own past self, and your past love peacefully, and maybe even with a little affection. Of course, you may always feel that little twinge of pain, but there’s no reason it has to be entirely painful. Prerna says, “Everyone’s coping mechanisms are different and to limit them to a few would be unfair. Some may try prayers for getting over a broken heart, some may want to wish it away. Although some might have healthier working mechanisms to cope with their grief related to heartbreak, it’s only normal to go through some not-so-healthy ones as well. “One is to get closure from within ourselves. To understand that just because it ended, doesn’t necessarily mean that it didn’t hold value when it existed. Having a support system of family and friends is definitely helpful and strongly encouraged, so that the outlet to express one’s feelings is there. “In case there were hobbies or activities that you stopped doing or couldn’t find time for when you were in the relationship, I would strongly suggest getting back to those slowly,” Prerna says.
8. Think about how you could change
If part of your heartbreak is trying to get over a relationship you ruined or get over a breakup you caused, don’t keep going over the things that went wrong, or where you think you may have fallen short. Instead, think about what and how you could change in the way you navigate love and relationships. What positive, new things can you bring to the future love that will come your way? None of this means there’s something catastrophically wrong with you. Remember, everyone makes mistakes in love. Maybe you and your ex-partner weren’t on the same page about the relationship. Maybe you fought dirty and didn’t make up right. There is a lot you could go on thinking about, but change your perspective. Instead of “what did I do wrong?”, consider switching to “what can I do right the next time?” This just means you’re not spending hours and days berating yourself over a failed relationship, but actually being proactive about how to do better next time. When you’re letting go of someone you love but it hurts you, it’ll hurt a whole lot more if you’re blaming yourself over and over and looking for everything that makes you unworthy of love. Be kind to yourself as you process your grief. Prerna explains, “Assess yourself and understand why you did what you did, where it came from, and what was motivating you. If at the end of the day, your partner decided to end the relationship, that’s because they were holding their boundary and there’s nothing wrong with that. “It’s important to remember that you figured out why you did what you did and also how you can stop yourself from doing it in the future. However, that doesn’t take away from the fact that you never wanted to hurt your partner, but you did, and they held you accountable. That needs to be respected.”
9. Don’t rush into moving on
Did someone say “rebound”? Listen, we’re not against some healthy flirting and sex if you think it’ll help. But rushing straight into a rebound relationship or a fling isn’t going to heal your broken heart any better. Give yourself a little time before you start eyeing up that hottie at work or at your favorite bar. Not that your sad and lonely self doesn’t deserve some fun, but like we said, if you’re working on how to get over a broken heart when you still love him, remember that it’s a process and cannot be hurried. Rushing into a rebound relationship doesn’t give you time to heal, which means your angry, bitter, sad self is going into a new romantic or sexual connection without having had time to get better. You don’t want to get into a new love when you’re not your best self and have little to give. Give yourself time, build yourself up again, pick up the pieces of your heart before you offer it to someone new. It’s difficult to heal a broken heart, and the science behind it tells us that it may take up to 18 months to move on, but that generally depends on the length or depth of your relationship and how you process the breakup. So, instead of trying to distract your way through the grief, try to work on bettering yourself before you jump ship.
10. Look to the future
We’ve talked about making peace with the past, but at what point do you actively start looking ahead instead of looking back? When you’ve let someone go emotionally and you’re feeling empty after a breakup, the future seems bleak, as though it’s no use looking toward it. The question, “how to get over a broken heart?”, is the only thing that’s on your mind, and it seems like you’ll never be able to find a definitive answer. Take it one day at a time, or even an hour at a time initially. Think about things you’ll do the next hour, then in the evening, then tomorrow, then next week, then maybe even next month. Plan little pleasures for yourself. A nice cup of tea, a weekend away, a day where you sleep in and lounge, a day where you wander around your favorite bookshop and treat yourself to uninterrupted reading time. Think about holidays you might want to take, things you want to do around the house, even a new outfit you want to debut, and an occasion where you want to wear it. Dressing up is an especially good way to get over your ex when you still see them. Make a to-do list each day if that helps. This will also give you a routine and keep you busy while giving you a sense of purpose for the time ahead. Use some prayers for getting over a broken heart if that helps you, just make sure you don’t let your sadness ruin the upcoming new opportunities life can throw your way. There is a future waiting for you, you’ve just got to walk toward it step by step.
11. Remember, you will love again
We know, we know, it doesn’t feel like your heart will ever recover or come out of its scarred, protective casing again. But, believe it or not, it will. Opening yourself up to new love is perhaps the scariest part of the healing process, but it’s also one of the most vital. It’s so tempting to shut ourselves off, to convince ourselves that love brings nothing but pain and heartbreak, that we’re better off without love in our lives. Trust us. Love – that sneaky, leaky, faucet-like love – will make its way back into your life. Be open to this. Acknowledge that it won’t be the same kind of love that you had before. In fact, you aren’t the same person you were before. Love, heartbreak, and recovery change you as well as your perception and expectations of love. Our understanding of how to heal a broken heart and the science behind it tells us that being optimistic about the future, no matter how hard it may seem, is one of the most important things you can do. Don’t shut yourself off or live in constant fear that allowing love, affection, and desire back into your life will destroy your heart yet again. As we said, every love story comes with the risk of heartbreak – we can’t avoid that. But emptying our lives of love entirely is a terribly lonely and tedious way to live. “Love makes you a better person,” counsels Shazia. “If things didn’t work out well between two people, it does not necessarily mean that they cannot move on and be happy with someone else. Being emotionally aware and navigating your feelings in the right direction will help in overcoming heartbreak. Remember, all healing begins with yourself.” Feeling empty after a breakup is a feeling that gets all-consuming. But never forget that new love, new dreams, and passions will come along to fill in that emptiness. A little faith, some wallowing, and an open, albeit, scarred heart are truly all you need to get over heartbreak.
