How to stop rumination, regret and comparison after a breakup?
November 9, 2024 12:58 PM   Subscribe

About a year ago I broke up with a wonderful partner of 2 years (see here) because it had become clear to me over many months that I only had deeply platonic feelings for him.

I wrestled with trying to use my brain to override my gut for months, attempting to use logic and “loving actions” to generate the feelings of romantic interest I lacked, but ultimately failed. This is the first time I have been the one to break up a serious relationship.

Since then I have really struggled to stop ruminating over this decision. I still go to bed at night trying to soothe myself by remembering all the specific times the relationship felt wrong and still sometimes worry whether I self-sabotaged or just didn’t try hard enough. I feel like I’m stuck in this weird limbo between believing the breakup was the right thing to do, yet still not believing anything will ever match up again. I’m worried there is something fundamentally flawed with me which means I can’t just appreciate a good, healthy partnership. I often look around at other people and wonder why it seems so easy and natural for them.

I’ve been on a number of dates since the breakup, many of them pleasant, but none have progressed. Part of the reason for this is that I’m being super aggressive with cutting things after the first or second date if I’m not feeling a vibe. I think I’m terrified of ending up in another situation where I’ve overlooked issues at the beginning and then realised down the track that those issues meant the relationship couldn’t survive (I’m 32F).

I have been to some therapy sessions but would appreciate any input from anyone who’s been in a similar situation, found a way to stop this relentless rumination and/or found a good way to approach finding a new partner without comparison to their ex.
posted by neverforget88 to Human Relations (5 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
One of the best ways I found to stop rumination was to write it all down and keep it in a notebook next to my bed. When I started ruminating, I remembered that it had all been said before and it was all right there in the notebook.

But in general, I find that when I can’t let things go it usually has little to do with the triggering event. The questions you have about your suitability for relationships were very likely primed and ready to go long before your break up.

So, I think you’re on the right track with therapy. This isn’t about this particular ex, it’s about you.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:23 PM on November 9, 2024 [3 favorites]


A year ago? Didn't this happen in June, going from your prior post (which I commented on as well)?

In any case, a couple of things jump out at me:

I still go to bed at night trying to soothe myself by remembering all the specific times the relationship felt wrong...

It sounds like you're keeping all of this in your head, and it doesn't belong there. Even if you're not into journaling, I strongly advise you to write down all of these specific things. Like, with pen and paper. The physical act of writing them down, in detail, will allow your brain to let go at least a little bit to these ruminations. Go back to that prior post and also write down any of the comments that you connected to the most. Then when you have a good, detailed list, go back to it when you need a reminder of why you cut things off. Then, put yourself in different shoes and imagine that a friend was going through this same thing, and had written down all of these things about a person. Would you think they had made a mistake? I doubt it.

I often look around at other people and wonder why it seems so easy and natural for them.

It's a saying for a reason: comparison is the thief of joy. Even if they're your best friends, you know very little to nothing about the relationships people have. I would bet an irresponsible amount of money that any of these relationships you think are easy and natural are anything but. Please remember that it adds absolutely nothing to your life or this journey to compare your situation to anyone else's...that well is dry.

Lastly, the qualities you liked about your ex are not attached to them; those qualities exist outside of that situation and can be found elsewhere. I suggest instead of comparing prospective new partners to your ex, try the 'yes and' approach. Your ex had lots of great qualities – that's awesome, but you know in your heart that those weren't enough. But you can gather those qualities and put them in the 'must-have' bucket, and then look for someone who has YES those qualities AND the 'must feel a vibe' thing you're looking for. Every relationship you ever have is a chance to learn and curate what you really need and want.

Ruminating in general can be such a time and energy killer, so anything you can do to break out of it will be very good for you. Good luck!
posted by Molasses808 at 1:24 PM on November 9, 2024 [1 favorite]


Best answer: The too good to leave/too bad to stay breakup is a really hard kind of breakup precisely because of its ambiguity. I hope you're giving yourself some credit for that. You do have to work harder to stick by yourself and your decisions because there's not that egregious crossing of the line to point to and say yes, see, I was right.

I hope you're also giving yourself credit for extracting yourself from a situation that other people do and have stayed in for years. One could, if one so chose, see that as evidence that you in fact appreciate good and healthy relating so much that you refused to remain in a situation that wasn't that.

Nothing will ever work again/I am fundamentally flawed/not finding the right person is a reflection of my personal failings are all super common cognitive distortions that happen post-breakup. It's possible that it's easier for some people; it's also possible that in seeing them when it's working out you're missing a whole lot of their not-easy. In any case, these lines of thinking/feeling are very human, very understandable, and, like emotional reasoning tends to be, largely very wrong. (That's good news!)

There are no guarantees here, but consider believing, at least on a trial basis, that, having walked away from the wrong thing, you will eventually find yourself in a relationship where it all lines up and all of this will become retrospectively very clear. Your future self might have something useful to say to you here (you might literally want to engage in some letter writing to present you from them to see what that is).
posted by wormtales at 2:52 PM on November 9, 2024 [5 favorites]


I dont know if it is relevant at all, so feel free to disregard, but i have been appreciating this book lately. Your issue may have nothing to do with attachment stuff , or maybe it does, none of us out here on the internet have enough knowledge of you to hazard a guess ... But, this book (secure relating ) linked above i think addresses the topic much more sensitively than most and is a bit more comprehensive and less pop psych-ish than many others in thr category. Its authors are also the hosts of a podcast called therapist uncensored which has a ton of great interviews w leaders in the field on this an other adjacent topics. I hope it may help in some way !
posted by elgee at 9:22 PM on November 9, 2024


My background is in my Ask history, but for what it's worth I think a very therapy-informed response is to do what you can to draw your focus away from trying to control or stop specific thoughts. In many ways, controlling thoughts is a fools errand. The task, then, becomes getting comfortable with the two stage process of (1) recognizing your thoughts, how they happen, how they emerge-build-peak-recede, how they feel in your body, how they feel as emotional triggers, and so on, while (2) living your life regardless of what your "thinking weather" is doing. This sounds very simplistic, and it's not a quick process to get familiar with these two ways of being, and nevertheless there are a lot of resources avialable to you if you're interested in doing that.

I'm most familiar with this in the form of ACT, which I came to in 2019 as my marriage was ending, but it introduced me to a broader world of meditation and therapeutic approaches to life that are pretty well integrated into the way I live now. In that time, I've experienced another relationship go from start to finish and, while it was by no means painless, I can compare it to the psychological suffering of 5 years ago and recognize that the skills I have from ACT (etc.) have truly improved my ability to be resilient in the face of (unavoidable) ruminative thoughts.

I started with this workbook, and then read this book for broader context. The author has so much material on YouTube and in podcasts, too, and there ar many other voices in this field.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 2:50 AM on November 12, 2024


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