How do you get back to dating after a bad breakup? More importantly, how do you know you know you’re ready to start dating again? According to experts, before you begin a new relationship, it is best to weigh all the factors involved carefully.
Breakups can be messy. The tears. The self-hate. The what-ifs that keep striking your mind as you sit there, thinking about what you could have done better, what you could have said that you didn’t, what thread you could have held on to the most.Â
A bad breakup can traumatize you, mangling your view of what relationships really are so that if you manage to enter into a new one, you end up destroying it. For this reason, you should take your time to heal before entering a new relationship. This is how you get back to dating after a bad breakup:
1. Heal
If you have got a bad arm, a doctor will put a cast around this arm and will tell you not to stress or use the very arm heavily until you have healed.Â
This is because using a bad arm before it’s healed completely can further damage the arm, causing deep pain and discomfort.
It’s no different with your emotional health. Breakups cause emotional fractures and injuries. Emotional wounds hurt, like physical ones, and require time to heal before the damaged area can be used again. Â
Before you get back to dating after a bad breakup, it is important that you allow yourself to heal before considering getting into another relationship.Â
This is how you heal after a bad breakup
Cry it out
Bottling in feelings is like keeping yourself from peeing. Soon, the feelings well up inside you and begin to cause more damage than they did initially.Â
So, cry it out. It hurts, and it’s fine. When something hurts, it hurts. Let yourself feel every bit of the pain and disappointment. Embracing these feelings makes you stronger.Â
Do not sulk
The past is the past and should be left behind you so that it has no power to hurt you anymore. While it is normal to find yourself thinking about your ex-lover after a bad breakup, you should try not to wallow in self-hate and self-blaming.Â
Look ahead, and let bygones be bygones.Â
Talk to Someone
Talking to someone about how you feel can help you heal. You can get some therapy if it helps. This is crucial to your healing process because it enables you to build trust again.Â
Opening up to someone is a great way to build trust and will help with your next relationship.Â
This is how you know you’ve healed. How you know you just might be ready for another relationship:
You are beginning to enjoy your time alone
When you start to enjoy your time alone, then you are beginning to heal. Congrats. It no longer hurts that bad. You don’t sit there blaming yourself. Life feels beautiful.Â
You don’t blame yourself Anymore
Move forward with your life after a bad breakup. Remember, you can’t change the past. Focus your mind on other things. It will help you to feel much better.
You don’t hate the gender that broke your heart
We react to trauma by hating and/or fearing. When a person breaks your heart, in the core of the trauma, you might find yourself hating or fearing the person or anyone who reminds you of them.Â
You might find yourself avoiding their gender totally. This changes when you begin to heal.Â
You forgive themÂ
One thing about breakups is that they can take a long time to heal, especially when it ends badly. For this reason, it’s difficult to let go, and you may often think about the past, rehashing old grudges. However, though forgiveness can be difficult, it will help you feel much better when you forgive.
2. Think About What You Really Want: What do you want?
Why do you really want to be in a relationship again? Ask yourself this continuously until you get convincing answers from your subconscious.Â
It is important that a person knows just why they want a relationship before going into one. Your reasons for wanting a new relationship should not be flimsy.Â
You should not go into a new relationship because you’re lonely. It’s never a good motivation. A lonely person is like a thirsty person. They, most times, do not care about the state of water as long as it quenches their thirst.Â
You should also not get into a relationship because you want to feel loved, especially if you don’t love yourself.Â
You should be prepared mentally for relationships and the hustle that comes with being in one.Â
3. Keep an Open Mind
One of the many responses to trauma is locking yourself in.Â
If you scare a child, he is going to avoid you. When he sees you, he will run to get protection; he will slam the door against you and scream for help when you come too close.Â
Emotionally, we are a lot like babies and exhibit this behavior. When considering a new relationship after a bad breakup, you should try as much as you can to bring your walls down.Â
Allow yourself to reach for the world again. Do not be mean to men or women. Don’t turn down friendships and ignore all invitations to dates.Â
Be open to new friendships. Wear a smile like a beautiful dress. Don’t let people have the impression that you are boring and uptight.Â
Be open. Respond to flirting nicely as long as it does not pull you back into trauma.Â
Read: 10 Tips to Break Up a Relationship in peace
4. No Blame Games
When you begin to open up to someone, do not allow yourself to fall into the trap of blaming them.Â
Many times, narcissism is the one reason relationships fail, and—no offense—it may probably be the reason your last relationship failed.Â
Understand that, like everyone out there, you have got your flaws. Your flaws don’t make you ugly. They make you human, and human is beautiful. So do everyone else’s flaws.Â
Learn to see the humanity in yourself and then in others. Also, allow yourself to take responsibility for mistakes.Â
5. Slow Down
When a bad tooth heals, you will be advised to avoid using that tooth to crack hard chunks of food too early.Â
Going into a new relationship after a bad breakup? Don’t give in even though there might be the temptation to latch onto your partner.Â
Slow down.Â
Slowing down while driving helps you take control of the car.Â
You don’t want a relationship you have no emotional control over, do you? Slow down.Â
6. No, They’re Not Your EX
Your new lover or prospective lover is not your ex. You should desist from seeing them that way. Not everyone wants to damage you.Â
There are good people out there, scattered around this world, and your new partner just might be one of them. Allow yourself to be free.Â
7. Don’t Bottle Feelings In
Remember, keeping your feelings in is like keeping in emotional toxins. They build up inside you as resentment and could easily become hate.Â
Entering a new relationship, you may find that you bottle in your feelings just so your new lover doesn’t leave like the last.Â
You may keep his hurtful actions and the effect they have on yourself in a bid to salvage the relationship—the irony. This will only destroy the relationship.Â
8. Don’t Repeat Abusive Behavior
You most probably had a fault in your last relationship. As you get back to dating again after a breakup, try not to repeat these faults in the new one.Â
Cycles of abusive behaviors keep on destroying relationships. In your new relationship, please don’t repeat abusive behaviors.Â
Don’t Cut-off Contact
Ghosting your partner can have a terrible effect on them and make them consider leaving you.
Don’t cut off contact. No matter what. If you no longer want to talk, it’s helpful to just say so rather than just vanish into the clouds for days and maybe even weeks.Â
Don’t Be an Abuser
Do not abuse your new partner, or your prospective new partner, in any way—no verbal abuse. No physical abuse either. Chill, and learn to hold yourself back even when red-hot with anger.Â
9. No Contacting Your Ex
The person who hurt you is not good for your healing process.Â
While contacting an ex can sometimes give you some form of closure, it really is a bad idea to keep contacting your ex, especially if you are considering a new relationship.
Latching onto your ex will not only slow down your healing process but will also make you sulk about getting them back. This is going to damage any new relationships you try to build, as many new partners will not be fine with dating someone who is still obsessed with their ex.Â
Don’t take your ex’s calls and don’t go on dates with him or her. Don’t let them have a hold on you again. Stay away from exes as much as you can so that old wounds are not ripped open again. Â
10. Communication
While humans are many amazing things, we are not mind readers. Before getting back to dating after a bad breakup, it is important that you hone your communication skills. It is important that you become both willing and able to communicate with people.Â
Communication should be free of blame games, and you should teach yourself to listen. You don’t always have to do the talking. Sometimes, listening is all it takes.Â
Communicate with an open mind, realizing that you just might be the one who is at fault.Â
Wrapping Up
As already mentioned from the onset in this article, whether to start dating again is a personal decision you should make after carefully considering all the factors involved.
No one also has the right to try to dictate or to pressure you into starting a new relationship. The tips here will help you transition with ease from a bad breakup and get back to dating if that’s what you’re considering.
Photo by Chermiti Mohamed on Unsplash
