In The Mood For Shrug
I'm a 35-year-old guy. My fiancee broke up with me a year ago. I was devastated. We don't have any contact now, but I still love her. I haven't been on one date since our breakup, and I reminisce about her constantly. My guy friends are like, "Move on, dude. Get a life!" But honestly, that's not that helpful. What is the best way to get over an ex besides time?
--Stuck
That which does not kill you makes you crap company on poker night. "Jeez, man, quit crying on the cards!"
Your buddies surely mean well in taking the "just say the magic words!" approach -- "Get over it! Lotta fish in the sea, man!" -- but you're trying to recover from a breakup, not summon a genie. Lingering feelings of love for your fiancee are the problem. As for a solution, research by cognitive psychologist Sandra J.E. Langeslag suggests you can decrease those feelings through "negative reappraisal" of your ex-partner -- basically looking back and trying to see all the "bad" in her. For example, focus on her annoying habits and rude and stupid things she said and did.
When Langeslag's research participants mentally trashed their ex-partner, it did diminish the love they felt for their ex...yay! However, there was a side effect: All of this negative thinking -- not surprisingly -- made participants feel pretty bummed out. But helpfully, Langeslag came around with a second strategy that helped them block out the feelbad: distraction -- answering questions "about positive things unrelated to the breakup or the partner (e.g., What is your favorite food? Why?)."
Probably an even better source of distraction is turning to what Langeslag calls a "secondary task" (like playing a video game). Keep up the negativity and the distracting secondary tasks and before long, you should find yourself ready for a level-three distraction: losing yourself in a forest of Tinder hussies.
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