How to deal with your ex moving on with someone else

A complete roadmap to recovery and a bright future

Seeing your ex with someone new, I think we can all agree; that’s just the worst. You might have thought you were over him. Or, at the very least, on the road to getting over him. But seeing him with someone new made the pain and heartache come rushing back. Don’t despair because there are ways how to deal with your ex moving on with someone else that will make you a stronger and better version of yourself. It’s going to be tough and painful, but ultimately, getting him out of your system is the only way forward.

How to deal with your ex moving on with someone else – The crash course

• Step away from the social media train.
• Accept your feelings
• Try and control your mind
• Don’t think about your ex and his new relationship
• Don’t draw any conclusions from the fact that your ex has moved on
• Control your actions
• Time will help you heal
• Don’t use your ex as a way to escape from your own life
• See it as an opportunity to truly move on

How deep is your love?

When we love someone, we love deeply. So, the fact that you are having a hard time getting over your ex is not only about you. It’s also about your biological blueprint.

We are hardwired to bond with another human and even hardwired to put all our dreams and hopes into a shared future.

Mourn the loss

You chose him, and that choice was in line with both your body and mind. You did love him. Acknowledge this truth and cry for the end of the relationship.

Have a ritual to bury your dream. Punch on a punching bag.

Let your feelings out.

1. Step away from the social media train

The first step on how to deal with your ex moving on with someone else is to stop checking in on him on social media.

You don’t want a front-row view of the unfolding of his new relationship. Block his accounts. Stop using your accounts. Delete Instagram, delete Facebook. Whatever it takes.

Social media will make your pain bigger. It’s a real curse when it comes to getting over someone.

Social media doesn’t show the real reality

Especially since we don’t show our real life or true feelings on social media. If you keep him on your social media, you are bound to compare yourself to him and his life.

Your ego has a hard time letting go

The more you expose yourself to your ex and his life, the longer the process of getting over him will take.

Be strict with yourself when it comes to this one. Social media feeds into our ego and our voyeuristic side, and that’s also the side of us that has the most challenging time letting go.

Go no-contact

If the two of you are still in contact, for example, by having phone conversations, you have to do a no-contact phase of at least three months.

That means no contact whatsoever between the two of you.

Be strict about this rule. It will help you in the long run. It’s one of the most important rules when it comes to getting over someone.

2. Accept your feelings

When you are together with someone, an incredibly strong bonding process occurs.

You align your future with their future. The dreams and aspirations you have for yourself become intermingled with the dreams and hopes you have for the relationship.

Make peace with the loss

So when you are dealing with how to deal with your ex moving on, your future is what you have to concur and make peace with.

Your future shifted

To undo this process takes a lot of time. There is no way to escape or make it quicker. When you broke up with your ex, your whole future shifted. It will take time to get used to and accept your new future.

Ask yourself who you are

During this “lost” time, you can focus on things you want to achieve with your own life and on growing as a human.

This is a good time to start therapy, meditation, or any other form of self-improvement. I especially recommend checking out Thais Gibson, she can make sense of anything.

Time is your friend

You can distract yourself by trying to accomplice difficult things. Time will pass. Seasons will shift.

But if you need a Netflix marathon with lots of ice cream (or vodka), that’s also totally OK. Do whatever makes the time move forward.

Time is your best friend when it comes to getting over someone.

3. Try and control your mind

Accepting your feelings is one thing. Feeding them is another thing.

To move on from your relationship, you have to accept your feelings but not spend too much time and energy on them.

Your mind is not objective

If you are still hung up on your ex, you are probably not viewing the relationship in a realistic light.

Instead, you are having a viewing of a perfect romantic movie in your head. Your mind plays a trick on you, it only shows you the positive side of the relationship, and you mourn those sides.

Get over him

To get some well-needed perspective read our article How to get over your ex fast.

Don’t play a romantic movie in your brain

You forget about all the times you felt alone in the relationship and all the times you didn’t feel loved.

Keep your focus on all the negatives with your ex

To deal with this fallacy and move on more quickly, don’t allow the positive movie to play in your mind. When you have a positive thought about your ex, quickly replace the thought with a negative thought. Sure, this is a form of brainwashing.

You are brainwashing yourself to forget about your ex.

4. Don’t think about your ex and his new relationship

When your ex is moving on with someone else, one of the worst things is that you keep imagining the two of them together. In your thoughts, they will be happy, have lots of sex and romantic moments.

You will think she finally gets the best version of him.

Your hurt ego will tell you all sorts of crazy things. With her, he will finally stop all his annoying habits and be the man you always thought he had the potential to be.

His problems are still there

But the reality is that he is the same flawed human as he was with you in his new relationship.

Don’t allow yourself to think his new relationship is amazing and problem-free.

Also, don’t allow yourself to imagine different romantic scenarios between him and his new woman.

His new relationship has nothing to do with you

In fact, ignore that he has a new relationship because his new relationship has nothing to do with you and your grieving process.

Don’t listen to your ego because your ego will tell you all sorts of crazy things and none of them will be true.

5. Don’t draw any conclusions from the fact that your ex has moved on

When you find out that your ex is moving on with someone else, you will ask yourself; what does this mean? Your brain will overflow with questions, and you will think those questions are important.

Didn’t he love me at all?

How come he managed to find someone new so quickly?

Does this mean he is completely and utterly over me?

Those questions are not important

There are no conclusions to be dawned from the fact that he has moved on. Not dwelling on his life is a crucial part of how to deal with your ex moving on with someone else.

Accept uncertainty

He might be over you. He might not be over you. She might be better than you, or she might be worse. There is no way for you to know what him moving on means. You will never know.

His new relationship can be a rebound relationship. But don’t get too hung up on this. He might have found someone better suitable for him. Be OK with that.

He might be a serial-monogamist

Some people are not capable of being alone, and those people always find someone new. If you want to read more on the subject, check out our article Why do guys always leave me for someone else?

6. Control your actions

You don’t have full control over your thoughts, and that’s OK. Sometimes you will slip up. You will do a mental walk down memory lane. You will try and come up with answers to all those stupid questions.

To get over your ex, it’s important that you increase the amount of control you have over your actions.

Create your own narrative where you come out as a smarter, healthier, and more psychologically sane person from the breakup. This way, the breakup will become more meaningful for you, and you will have an easier time moving on.

Become a better version of yourself

Think about what kind of person you want to be and take the necessary steps to become that person. We all have parts of our life we overlook.

Examples of this can be healthier eating habits or becoming more well-read. So, when you want to move on from your ex, try becoming vegan for a couple of weeks. This will give you something new to think about.

Learn how to be single

If you want to get a new haircut and a new wardrobe, that’s also great, material distractions can work to your advantage. You can also read our article How to enjoy being single when it’s time to dip your toe in the dating pool again.

7. Time will help you heal

When you try to improve yourself, you will feel stronger. But you will also have moments when everything you do feels fruitless, and all you want is to have your ex back. This is natural.

Grieving is a process; you will have good days and bad days.

Accept the emotional setbacks and regard them as part of the process.

Go on a journey

Keep on pushing yourself. This is a good time to save up for a journey you have always wanted to take. Think about all the times your ex held you back.

He sometimes stopped you from being that crazy spontaneous, joyful person that you really are, right?

Embrace your inner Indiana Jones

Now is the time to walk the Inca trail or see the Sphinx. The extra work you will have to do to save money will be a good distraction. Jump in, head first, in activities you previously overlooked.

Even if you spend the whole trip crying and being alone, there is something romantic about being heartbroken in a new place.

You can also deal with your ex moving on by finding a couple of new friends. Read our article How to make new friends in your 30s, if you need tips.

8. Don’t use your ex as a way to escape from your own life

If you are too obsessed with your ex, there is the possibility that you use him as a way to distract yourself from dealing with yourself and your own life.

Do you want to know where happiness comes from?

Happiness comes from setting goals that are important to you and achieving them. Happiness is that simple. Find out what’s important to you and invite more of those things into your life.

becoming happy

Right now, all you know is that you are deeply unhappy. But you haven’t taken the steps necessary to become happy. You have been emotionally lazy.

Having an amazing life takes skills

Being obsessed with your ex is easy compared to improving your own life.

An amazing life takes bravery, energy, and intelligence.

I know you got all of those things. But instead of utilizing them to make yourself feel happy, you are stuck in the past. You have a reason for your unhappiness; your ex has moved on with someone else.

Focus on who you want to be

To get over your ex, you have to focus on your own life. Be practical in the steps you decide, focus on things you can control, and try and not spend too much time thinking about everything that’s any way out of your control.

That’s the best way when you want to deal with your ex moving on with someone else.

9. See it as an opportunity to truly move on

You might be upset that your ex is moving on with someone else. You might be upset about how fucking quickly he found someone new.

But him finding someone new forces you to move on. He has already moved on. He is thinking about someone else right now, and you don’t have a place in his heart, and that’s actually a good thing.

He was not the right man for you

Since the two of you broke up, the relationship was not the right relationship for you.

Accepting he has someone new will be hard, but it will also speed up your healing process.

A Final note

When you deal with your ex moving on with someone else, remind yourself that they are your ex for a reason. Make a mental list of all those reasons and keep repeating them instead of questioning why they have found someone new.

Getting over an ex is a grieving process. They have died to you in some sense of the word, and you need to grieve them accordingly.

When you are trying to move on, it is also important you take the steps necessary to become a healthier and happier person, thus giving meaning to the end of the relationship.