First: you are not doing this wrong
If you are reading this, you have probably already been told to "just move on", to get out more, or that there are plenty of other people out there. None of that is wrong, exactly. It is just not useful when you are lying awake replaying the last conversation.
Getting over someone is not a decision you make once. It is a slow change in where your attention goes, repeated hundreds of times, until one day you notice you went a whole afternoon without checking whether they posted anything. That day comes for most people. It rarely comes on schedule.
This guide is for anyone trying to get over someone: an ex, a partner who left, someone who cheated, someone you were never quite together with. It will not tell you whether to go back or stay away. That is your call, and it deserves more than an article. What it can do is help you understand what is going on inside you, and give you small, concrete things to do with the days in between.
If any of this has tipped from painful into not feeling safe, the help section on this page comes first.
Why it hurts this much
When a relationship ends, you lose more than a person. You lose a routine, a future you had half-planned, the person you texted when something funny happened, and often a version of yourself that only existed around them. Your mind keeps reaching for all of those things out of habit, and each time it finds a gap.
That reaching is what people mean when they talk about not being able to stop thinking about someone. It is not weakness and it is not proof that you belong together. It is the ordinary sound of a mind rearranging itself around a loss.
It also explains why the hardest moments are so often small ones: a song in a shop, their name on an old receipt, the time of day you used to talk. Those are the places your habits lived. Knowing that does not make them painless, but it can make them less frightening. They are not setbacks. They are the map of what you are rebuilding.
Loving someone and getting over them can happen at the same time
One of the most common worries is: "How can I get over someone I still love?" As if the love has to be switched off before anything else can happen.
It does not. Many people find that the feeling fades after they have built a life that does not depend on the other person, not before. You can love someone and still decide, or accept, that they are not part of your next chapter. Both things can sit in you at once.
What tends to help is shifting the goal. Instead of "stop loving them", try "stop organising my day around them". The first is not really under your control. The second is, a little more every day. If you want to go deeper on this, our guide on how to stop loving someone looks at the love itself more closely.
Put some distance in place
Almost everything else gets easier with a bit of distance. That does not have to mean a dramatic declaration. It can be a handful of quiet changes:
- Mute or archive, if blocking feels like too much. You do not need to see their stories to heal, and every glimpse restarts the loop.
- Move the reminders out of sight. Not in the bin, necessarily. A box on a high shelf is enough.
- Decide in advance what you will do when you want to reach out. Write the message in your notes app instead of sending it. Read it again tomorrow.
- Limit the checking. If you do look at their profile, notice how you feel afterwards. That feeling is useful information.
If you share children, a home, or a workplace, full distance is not possible, and that is fine. Aim for contact that is brief, practical and about logistics. Our piece on the no contact rule covers the shared-life version too.
Give the thoughts somewhere to go
Trying not to think about someone usually makes you think about them more. What works better for a lot of people is giving the thoughts a place and a time.
Some ideas that are simple enough to do on a bad day:
- A ten-minute worry window. Once a day, set a timer and let yourself think, write or cry about it all. When the timer ends, do something with your hands.
- An unsent letter. Say everything you wish you had said. Do not send it. Many people find the urge to explain themselves loses some force once it is written down.
- A "what I miss / what I don't" list. Missing someone tends to edit out the hard parts. Writing both columns keeps the picture honest.
- Name the trigger. When a wave hits, say to yourself what set it off: "That was the song." It sounds too small to matter, but it turns a flood into something with edges.
Our longer guide on how to stop thinking about your ex has more on this.
Look after the body that is carrying all this
Heartbreak lives in the body as much as the mind. Sleep goes, appetite goes, concentration goes. You do not need a wellness routine. You need the basics, done imperfectly:
- Eat something at roughly regular times, even if it is plain.
- Get outside once a day, even for ten minutes.
- Keep a rough bedtime and put the phone across the room.
- Move a little: a walk counts.
- Go easy on alcohol, which tends to make the 3am thoughts louder.
If you want a fuller list, our guide to self-care after a breakup is written for exactly the days when you cannot face much.
Rebuild the parts of you that went quiet
Somewhere in the relationship, some things probably got set aside: friends you saw less, a hobby you dropped, opinions you softened, plans that did not fit. Getting over someone is partly about picking those back up, one at a time.
Try small experiments rather than big reinventions. Message one friend you have drifted from. Go back to one thing you used to enjoy, even if it feels flat at first. Make one plan for next month that is entirely yours. None of these will fix the ache. Together they build a life with more rooms in it, so that the empty one takes up less of the house.
What tends to make it last longer
No judgement here: almost everyone does some of these. They are just worth noticing.
- Staying "just friends" straight away. Sometimes that works later. Right away, it often keeps the hope alive and the wound open.
- Using a new relationship as an anaesthetic. Company can be lovely. Using someone to avoid feeling anything tends to postpone the feeling rather than replace it.
- Investigating. Reading old messages, asking mutual friends, checking who they follow. It rarely brings the answer you are looking for.
- Keeping a timetable. "I should be over this by now" adds a second layer of pain to the first. There is no correct timeline. If you want to know what is typical, read how long it takes to get over a breakup.
You do not have to carry it alone
Talking helps. That might be a friend who is good at listening, a support group, or a therapist. If you find yourself stuck for weeks, not sleeping, or unable to manage work or daily life, a professional can help in ways an article cannot, and reaching for that is a strong move, not a failure.
Some people find it helps to read other people's stories and realise they are not the only ones. Our anonymous stories about emotional affairs, long-distance relationships and second chances are full of people who felt exactly this lost and found their way through, in very different directions.
If you would like a structure for the weeks ahead, the Recovery Companion gives you a gentle daily plan, a place to track moods and triggers, private rituals like the unsent letter, and a companion to talk to at 2am. You can start it here.