My Ex is Moving On, Why Can’t I?

This happens a lot: The one who is left feeling abandoned has the hardest time moving on – precisely because of the primal pain unleashed by abandonment.

The one who chose to end it has a much easier time moving on. 

Sometimes the original reason for the break-up was that your partner left you for someone else.  This sends you into the torment of heartbreak and obsession, pining away for someone who is blithely enjoying the ecstasy of new love, completely oblivious to your pain. 

But even if the reason for the breakup had nothing to do with a third party, it usually hurts deeply when you learn that your ex has moved on.  “Why can he find a relationship and I can’t?” 

The gets really dicey when you find out he or she is getting married.  “I thought she was commitment-phobic!  How come it could work with someone else but not me?”

As painful as they are, these lopsided situations are very common.  What to do:  

1) Don’t blame yourself.  If you understand the dynamics of abandonment, you won’t fault yourself for taking extras time.  If the tables were turned, it would be your ex who would be still pining away.
 
2) Use abandonment as an opportunity to heal from the inside out.  It has opened you up to the core –a lot like exploratory surgery (without anesthesia).  So while you are flayed open, it’s a good time for some deep cleansing.  Get rid of those negative old notions about yourself.

3) Set your goals.  Reinstate your dreams.  Get back upon the horse and ride into the future.

4) But what about the awful feelings you are stuck with?   Rather than fight them, embrace them.  Become your own loving parent.  Administer to your own wound.  This is exactly the type of painful situation through which the people you admire had become emotionally self-reliant. 

5) The neediness you feel is primal.  Embrace it by replacing your lost love with yourself.  Yes, learn how to love yourself.  Administer to your own needs (through an exercise called Big You/ Little You).

6) Take responsibility for your life – for where your life is at now, how it got there, and what it will take to move it in the right direction. 

7) Break your patterns, i.e. are you an “abandoholic” (only attracted to the unavailable)?  Get whatever help you need to do this.  Do not underestimate how stubborn these old patterns are.  Join a support group.  Get into therapy.  Write with determination everyday in your journal. 

8) Maintain a running inventory of your Outer Child – the part of you that acts out your feelings rather than deals with them.  Outer child is filled with self-sabotage and interferes in your relationships and your goals.  It’s the adult part of you that needs to take control so you can greet your new life without interference. 

9) Step outside of your usual circle of friends and activities to explore your alter ego states. 

10)  Make new connections with a variety of people to strengthen new parts of your emerging higher self.  Do not clamp on to any one person – explore. 

11)  Come clean with at least three new connections – share your culpability about your previous relationship failures – your part in it.  Share your outer child patterns and how you are overcoming them.  Sharing is cleansing. 

12)  Share your higher self with significant others.