Months, or even years after a relationship break up, we will fully realize the fatal mistakes we made right after it happened.
Especially the panic controlled actions that made us appear as a different person – often we don’t recognize ourselves anymore.
It can bring out the worst in us.
It usually happens that we hate ourselves later for the things we’ve done.
This is understandable, but the wrong thing to do.
Not only does it damage our self-esteem, which is urgently needed for the recovery, (what’s left of it), but it also destroys the new concept of self-love we are trying to build up.
Avoid these feelings by telling yourself that the past is the past, and concentrate on the NOW.
There is a famous quote where it says that one should learn from the mistakes OTHERS make and thereby avoid them.
On the other hand:
“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.”
—John PowellStill thinking about your Ex? Click here to take the test to learn how long it takes to heal... and how you can speed up the process.
I believe that there are two kinds of mistakes: the kind that you can learn and evolve from, and the kind that should be avoided.
When it comes to post relationship break up mistakes, there are some which better be avoided.
The following fall into that category.
Here are the main mistakes most people make right AFTER a relationship break up:
Mistake #1: Panic Controlled Actions
Confronted by what we think is the worst that can happen to us, we do anything to fight it off: we plead, we beg, cry in front of our Exes, harass, stalk, write e-mails, IMs, etc.
All these things will make you cringe when you later think about it.
I think that almost every “Dumpee” makes these mistakes – I don’t believe that they are completely avoidable. These are desperate actions by our “animal” part of the brain, fighting for survival.
The sad thing is that they are completely useless. I’ve never heard that a “Dumper” came back after the “Dumpee” wrote them a gazillion e-mails begging to have mercy.
If you’ve made these mistakes, don’t beat yourself up over them.  If you’re about to commit them, try to resist.
Mistake #2: Reassuring Love
We are committed to thinking that if they only KNEW how much we loved them, they would come back immediately, so we keep telling them – over and over again.
The only problem is, they KNOW. They’re breaking up anyway.
Breakups rarely happen because the “Dumper” thinks that they are not being loved. Constant reassurance only leads to humiliation.
Mistake #3: Hoping To Stay Friends
This is a very common mistake that is often made by those having little experience with relationship break ups.
I know that your Ex was your best friend, your intimate partner, the closest person to you. But it is impossible to maintain this kind of relationship AFTER the breakup. Everything has changed – nothing is as it was before.
You can’t count on your Ex any longer because they will harm you more than they would help.
The good news is, you CAN find another support system: Look for old friends who used to be close. Your family should also be of great help.
Use every connection you have for support – you need it.
Mistake #3 leads us directly to the next one.
Mistake #4: Maintaining Contact
The no-contact rule is the number one precondition IF you want to get over your relationship break up fast.Look at it like a drug addict: you can’t get clean with YOUR drug right in front of you.
I talk about this is more detail here.
Mistake #5: Use Your Exes Friends And Family
Out of the ambition to make sense out of all of it, we use their friends or their family. We interview, manipulate and try to use them for our purposes.
Besides the fact that they rarely know anything about the deeper reasons, it is inappropriate to involve a third person in your breakup.
This is something that’s between you and your Ex.
If you do this, you will regret it later.
Mistake #6: Rebound Relationships
Many people leapfrog into a new affair right after their relationship breaks up.
I do not recommend that.
It may appear that this is the best thing to do in order to get over your Ex but, believe me, the opposite is the case.
You will always be comparing to your Ex, everything will remind you of them, and you will be frustrated because NOBODY is as good as your Ex. Â (This is an illusion of course).
It will throw you back, and it will mask your pain, hiding you from the issues your breakup needs to resolve. Don’t deny yourself the opportunity to work these things out.
If you do, you have to face that problem again and again, from relationship to relationship.
For many people, healing will not start until they are alone with themselves, confronting their inner demons.
These are the main mistakes most people make right AFTER their relationship breaks up.
Please don’t beat yourself up if you’ve already made some of them.
Even if they should be avoided, some of these mistakes are part of the healing and learning process.
So even IF you will look back month/years later and regret a few things you’ve done, they might have been necessary to get you to the point you are today.
Now it’s your turn, tell me, which one if these mistakes have you made?
Your friend,
Eddie Corbano
Defo 1,2,3 and 4. – I did think about numbers 5 and 6 but managed to retain a tiny bit of dignity.
I called, texted, emailed, begged, cried, pleaded and totally lost my dignity and self worth. Short of turning up at his front door (it crossed my mind), and got down on my hands and knees I tried everything else for him to change his mind.
Now on day 1 of no contact following our break up 8 weeks ago and hoping I can stay strong this time longest I have gone to date, is 15 days and then got ridiculous drunk and undid all of my hard work and resulted in him blocking my number because I wouldn’t take no for an answer.
I need to remember all of the red flags throughout our relationship and keep telling myself of all the reasons he isn’t right for me.
Did all of these mistakes. Now day 15. Still have strong urges. Barely controlling myself as it’s the only way to get over this. If I start now unable to stop. And Every time it happened it became so much worst.
I have a relationship problem and hope someone could provide me with some helpful feedback and advice. I’ve been dating a man for one year and eight months. Before even thinking or contemplating breaking up with my boyfriend we would have several “conversations” about our relationship issues and how lately I’ve been so miserable and unhappy in the relationship due to his work schedule. My boyfriend is an entrepreneur and has his own business. Recently within the last 5 months his business has been rapidly growing and flourishing. I’m really happy about his success in his own company and acknowledge his ambition and self-determination however, because of the nature of his business, he’s having to work 6 to 7 days a week. This has put a strain on the relationship. Sundays were the only designated day we were able to spend quality time with each other. Please bear in mind we don’t co-habit together and we live in separate households. I consider myself to be a very supportive, understanding and flexible girlfriend understanding his work schedule and that this is his career but recently within the last 3 months he’s been also working Sundays which was suppose be the only day we have spend quality time. I decided to talk to him so we met and I told him how unhappy I was and how he wasn’t meeting my relationship expectations. Spending quality time is a deal-breaker for me and it’s not something I can compromise on. I told him I wanted to break up because this wasn’t working out and that perhaps it was best that we take some time off to give each other space to reflect and work on ourselves. He was very opposed to a break up and wanted to call it “reflections period” and he told me that if that’s how I felt that he would respect my wishes and give me the space I needed. I know that the no contact strategy is so fundamental during a break up and we went 20 days without seeing or speaking to each other until he called me on Mother’s Day to wish my mother and I a Happy Mother’s Day. I thanked him. He also said he’s thought a lot about me and has missed me during our time apart. He mentioned that he wanted to get together for some coffee and just talk about how things ended. I told him I missed him as well but that I wasn’t ready to talk and that I still needed more time to focus on myself. A week passed and I made contact with him via telephone and I asked him if we could meet up for coffee and he said yes. We met up and it was so nice seeing him again. My heart was racing when I saw him and I realized that very moment how much his absence made an impact. I first apologized to him about things I said when I broke up with him. I said some mean and hurtful things to him in the heat of the moment. Then I told him that the break up has allowed for personal development to work on myself to be a better version of me. I also told him I’ve been going to Yoga classes to cope and manage stress and that I had a lot to do with why things failed and didn’t work out. I also told him that this time has allowed me to reflect and put everything into perspective. I told him that I still love him and I want to be able to salvage and reconcile our relationship because I acknowledge I made a huge mistake in breaking with him. When I told him all of this I put myself in a vulnerable situation telling him this too prematurely and actually I got rejected by him. He said he still needs more time even though I’m the one that broke up with him. He said he needs more time because of work situation in order to finalize a project. He said he doesn’t want to commit and then not be able to follow or deliver through on his promises of seeing me and then we end up fighting over the same issue of not being able to spend enough time with each other. I still have hope and faith that our relationship will prevail even though we’re going through a rough patch. Do you think he’s drifted away and he’s scared of getting back with me because I broke up with him first? Do you think he’s moved on? Should I wait until he contacts me since I’ve already reached out and he made it clear to me he needs more time because of work? Is there even a possibility for us to reconcile? Thank you reading and for the advice.
What happened? If you’d written this now I’d say give him time to finish the work project but make it clear what you expect from him if you get back together. Hope it worked out.
A couple of days ago I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I am getting ready to move across country for work, and I wanted to see this girl who I’ve been in love with since the moment I saw her. We’ve been extremely close for about two years. I know some mutual friends from her hometown and I wanted to see her one more time before I’d never see her again. I drove over to her house unannounced three times, each time failing to talk/see her. She found out the third time because her dad came out because it started scaring them. She told me never to contact her again, and deleted me on all social media accounts. I’m aware now that my actions and this decision was dumb, and I regret it to this day. I never meant to cause any harm or hurt anyone. I don’t even know why I drove to her house so many times. This is the first time its ever happened to me. It hurts that I and I alone have ruined the only girl who I ever cared about. Is it a bad idea to apologize wia text or hand written mail, or should I just leave it alone and hope she’ll forgive me. I want to remain friends with her, but considering my actions I think I lost that right. She is truly amazing, and someone I saw a future with. Whats worse is I lied when she asked me if I’ve been driving by her house. Looking for advise on what to do and if there is a chance she’ll talk to me again in the future.
I went out with someone for 5 years. He was in the airforce. I was a student. We met when we were both abroad. He loved me completely and would have done anything for me. I loved him too, but coming from a conservative background was worried about what my controlling parents would think of him being American. When we were together we had so much fun and I’ve never met anyone with so much physical chemistry. We just worked and got each other completely. He wanted to get married. I always thought we would, but my career was important to me too and I felt I needed to commit to that if I was going to make it. It had been my dream since I was 11 and I was determined to qualify into my highly competitive chosen profession. When we were both in Europe the relationship worked. The time apart was hard, but we made it work. When he went to the US he had minimal ways in which I could contact him. I felt frustrated by the distance. He still wanted to marry me, I still loved him but wanted to make it in my career first. After a while the distance and time zones took their toll on me. I felt lonely not seeing him, not being able to communicate with him and seeing all my friends so happy with their boyfriends. It made me question where our relationship was going and how we could make it work.
I was the one who ended it by phone. He initially tried contacting me by phone. Thereafter We tried being just friends, but he couldn’t be just friends. Deep down I didn’t want to either, the chemistry was too powerful. I then refused to take the calls and he was left speaking to my flat mates. I felt like a numb walking shell, but felt I needed space to think. Just because I broke it off did not make the pain any less. I tried ploughing myself into my job to distract myself. I turned down other men as I just wasn’t ready and no one else compared to him. Approx a year after the split he sent me a letter, where he clearly wanted me back. I’ve always regretted not taking the leap and getting back with him, but I was going through a personal crisis with a family member having cancer and a boss who was bullying me and the timing wasn’t right. I always kept the letter though.
Years passed and I never forgot him, but felt paralysed by the thought of rejection and didn’t know where to find him. I also felt I didn’t want to disrupt his life in case he had found happiness elsewhere. At the end of the day all I Wanted was happiness for him (whether it was with me or not). Fast forward several years and I got married and had children. I have never forgotten him though.
Recently I kept having constant thoughts of him and decided to find out what happened to him. I wanted to know he was happy. He was such an amazing person he didn’t deserve any less. Instead I found out that he had died only a few months earlier from cancer. My heart broke and I realised I had never truely let him go as I had always loved him and had there been no distance and had I been braver, I would have married him. He never got married or had kids. I even spoke to a recent co-worker of his who even now knew all about me and how much he loved me. The moral of all this is to be brave. I was weak. I didn’t follow my heart and didn’t marry him. I should have been braver and risked rejection even years after the break up. If I couldn’t be with him, I should have been braver and dealt with the break up. Denying the break up exists does not help you. You must tackle it head on or else it will always haunt you. However it happens, break ups are painful, especially if it’s your first true love.
My ex broke up with me a few months ago days before my birthday. She was gone for three days without calling or letting me know that she was ok. After the third day she texted me to say it’s over. After four years together it was all over. I was heart broken. I needed an explaination for this I called, text repeatedly to have her talk to me face to face about this. She agreed we met I tried to make a case to let her have me back. Didn’t work. She told me she doesn’t love me no more and wanted to move on with my life. To my mind I had a troubly feeling about it. We worked together and things got weird between us mostly because of me. We were still Facebook friends and I kept looking at her page to she wants shes been up to. Then I notice she was sending love posts to a guy she use to work with at her old job and he replies back sending other love posts. I was pissed that she could do this to me. She knew that I didn’t like him because of his bad attitude when he drinks out. So like a crazy person. I looked up to where he stayed at. Went to his house planning on beating this guy up for stealing my girl behind my back. But it all changed when I seen her car parked in front of the house his house. I frozed. My whole body dropped. Is this really what’s been going on this whole time? I was planning to walk away from the house when he came out with his brother with bats threaten me to leave or he’ll call the cops. I went away. Cried as I was driving back home. Shaken, hurt embarrassed of myself. But still wanted to talk to her face to face and have her explain this to me. She never did. She blocked me from Facebook. Her and all of her friends and families. I was lost in my life. Four years I tried to give her the world and now I was lost. I have to start over again. I threw up a few times just for thinking of them together. I emailed her because she wasn’t texting back. Asking her what she wanted me to do now after all of this. Where do we stand at I asked in the email. She replied saying that she wants me to leave her alone for good. She hasn’t loved me for months and I was never (the one) for her this whole time. She wanted me to move on and meet someone that could give me a relationship that she didn’t want to have with me. That email put me into a mental breakdown. Constant pain, deep depression and anxiety very heavily anxiety all kicked in my body and my soul. I didnt want to eat anymore and I couldn’t sleep. If I did slept I’ll wake up knowing that she left me with that guy. Doing things we use to do. I threw up thinking about that. But every other day I gotten better with myself. By meeting people just talking to complete strangers about random stuff not trying to talk to my friends because I know they love me and all but to have them know my issues my healing process wouldn’t have worked. Dating helps too. Just getting back in the game builds myself up. But I still think about her. Knowing that or just me believing that shes just doesn’t know what she wants in her life and she’s so confused and emotionally frustrated with herself that she dumped me and hooked up with her new guy just to have some kind of life changing experience. I don’t need her back in my life. But I want her to able for us to be friends agian one day. Maybe in a year or two? I quit my other job that I worked with her since that might I went to the guys house. Because I knew things would be intense between us. But I’m recovery from all of that. It’s really hard to do it. But I know I have to have some kind of peace in my life. Let it go, move on. If she comes back then let faith decides that. Not me. I know that sucks to even be OK with that but I have to have faith. Let go of it because it’ll eat me apart and I don’t want to be that crazy person again. I have to let go. I have to let her go just for me to have a better life. I have to let her go.
This is all pretty good advice. Though I’ll say that I’ve done twice what might be begging & pleading depending on where that boundary is defined. Both times it worked out in my favor.
I loved this woman recently through out my 30’s.. When she broke up with me I didn’t hide it hurt, I also can see her sabotaging her life. I basically talked to her & expressed my concerns & tried to at least get her to consider she could be self destructing. The most interesting/odd thing would be if I said something her therapist also said like you’re psychological state isn’t sustainable & could collapse someday she would become furious. I realized two things. I wasn’t going to not say some words to a woman I loved before parting ways, & that I also relieved myself later in life, she is 100% responsible for the end of her relationship with me & I’m forever unobligated.
When my sons mother left about 20 years ago I begged her to stay. She was angry & couldn’t stand me. Turns out she is mentally ill. The next 20 years didn’t go like she thought. The developed … a nice criminal record & I became educated & raised my son without her around too much. Of course she’s still angry at me today but for nothing concrete or specific. I remember she insisted on counseling, & I said yes. During the 2nd session she stormed out saying the therapist was on my side. LOL. Even though I embarrassed myself pleading with her there can be no doubt about who made the decision & who’s plans didn’t work.
Both of these women … all women it seems make decisions based on how they feel & how they want things to be. Why they don’t contemplate the likely outcome is beyond me.