Breaking up has never been easy. These days it is worse because there are various channels where you can still keep tabs on the activities of your ex-lover making letting go even harder.
Before the introduction of social media platforms and before people had this much access to the internet, when you break up a relationship you could quickly start afresh. The option to relocate to a different environment and cut off all means of communication from the person you were once with was easy to explore.
Though you may still feel hurt, it was easier to finally let go and move on as there would be nothing left to remind you or what you had with the person once you leave (except for a few hard copy pictures which you could actually tear into tiny pieces or set ablaze).
At the moment, once you become the victim of a breakup, the urge to see how the person who left you is doing is always there.
Especially when you still have feelings for them you unconsciously find yourself perusing through their various social media profiles checking out how they live everyday and have fun without you around them and this worsens everything for you because you feel more hurt that their lives are perfect without you or seemingly so.
Somewhere deep down you wish they would be miserable and miss you so much that they come back begging and wanting you back.
But when you find out they moved on with someone else, and they do not hesitate to show the world how much they are in love with this new person by posting pictures of PDA and other romantic stuff you begin to feel miserable and you are emotionally drained.
You start finding it difficult to move on and sometimes you could slip into depression. There have been reported cases of people who committed suicide because they couldn’t take the things they saw on social media.
when going through a breakup regardless of how much company you have around you if you have a keen interest in checking out your ex’s instagram and snapchat activities you will find yourself distracted and crying most of the time five minutes away from your phone change a whole lot of things and writer Dana Hamilton can totally relate as she has been in a similar situation.
In Dana’s case, she couldn’t get over keeping tabs on her ex’s instagram posts and feeling bad until she handed her phone over to a friend. Dana’s friend give her a candid opinion of the things she saw on instagram, making Hamilton view her ex’s new life from different perspective of someone who has no emotional attachment with him.
Dana said her friend’s words were “The last eight weeks are all pictures of him in the woods. That’s an alarming amount of time, Dana. He’s also writing poetry now. So I guess what I’m trying to say is I think you accidentally dated Bon Iver.”
what we can deduce from Dana’s case is that if you can’t keep yourself from going through your ex’s social media have a friend do it for you and give you a candid opinion on what they see trust your friends to always say something negative about what goes on in the life of an ex who has hurt you this will help you detach from such a person and move on with your life faster.
the sarcasm that comes with the commentary your friends would make about your ex’s social media life is a reality check that helps you to understand that what you see is actually not what might be the real thing and instead of crying sometimes you might find yourself laughing because you’re getting the truth about the situation of things without staring into your exercise or asking them questions.
According to Jill Whitney who is an Old Lyme Connecticut based marriage and family therapist, “Having a friend play social media intermediary works because it gives you a little distance from what’s going on with your ex — without leaving you wondering what they’re up to and imagining it’s wonderful.
You get the broad overview without bogging down in details … The key is creating some online distance between you and your ex, just as there’s space between you now IRL.”
If you always have to ask your friend to be a buffer between you and your inquisitiveness regarding the social media life of your ex, you would realise at some point that you really do not need all that information you’re digging up especially when it gets to a point where your friends have to call you to order if they notice you are getting obsessed. Nothing kicks you back to normalcy better than hearing somebody yell “Again?!”.
Something else you can do is to completely block your ex from all social media platforms and make sure not to unblock them for any reason.
Lose their numbers and delete every picture of you and them from your mobile phone. This way, you have less to remind you of all the bad and good memories.
Endeavour to surround yourself with people and get more interested in nature so that you can detach from the virtual world and concentrate on making yourself a better person for the next person u fall in love with and also for the sake of your mental health.
Breaking up with a person doesn’t make them your enemy, although it depends on the circumstances surrounding your split.
You can decide to still be friends with them but make sure its not immediately you break up. Give yourself some time to heal, make sure you are in the right mental and physical state to engage in friendship before anything.
If you have moved on with someone else, consider what your new lovers feelings would be if they find out you’re still friends with the person you once dated.
If you feel that your new partner is comfortable, then go ahead and be friends with your ex but make sure that the you have well defined boundaries. Never allow yourself be fooled by stories your ex might want to bring up as it could ruin what you already have going on for you.
In my opinion, it is never a good idea to remain friends with your ex or check them out on social media. You could just say hi and hello whenever you see them around and that’s all (but then that’s just me it’s up to you to decide what you want).
