How to Give Up Your Ex Without Burying Yourself Under the Ruins of Love 

Psychologist Walter Rizo has extensive experience working with people who have been stuck in emotional chains while their relationship is long dead.

And sometimes this obsession gets to the point where people for months and even years, think about what their ex-partner did or didn't do. Or she looks for a fictitious excuse for him, never reconciling with his loneliness.

Rizo provides a vivid example of a patient who swore she had long since left her ex-husband. However, every night, the woman would go to bed with a teddy bear, a gift from her ex-partner. Only through this act did she prolong the agony of parting, closing the doors to her on the road to new love.

The main problem is the hope that he will return

The reason many people have trouble giving up on the past, according to Walter Riso, is because of their "hope." In the beginning, the hope is positive, causing us to act and not give up. But after the final parting, this great virtue can turn into the worst enemy.

As long as there is hope inside, it is impossible to break up with your ex-partner or have memories of him. The pain of loss can affect your emotional perception of the world, and then a person begins to interpret the facts based on their desires and not on their real meaning. Hope feeds only this false perception.

The bottom line is that hope can keep you from accepting the loss, even if your ex-partner is no longer interested in you. Thus, due to the non-acceptance of separation, hope serves as a kind of smokescreen, which darkens the reality as much as possible.

Emotional forgetfulness

As an alternative to cognitive forgetfulness, Walter Rizo introduces the concept of emotional forgetfulness. The latter occurs when the memories of someone or something no longer arouse strong emotions in a person. Cognitive forgetfulness, on the other hand, is the inability to remember past facts or events.

For a person to be able to completely break off the relationship with their ex-partner, the fact of emotional forgetfulness is mandatory. How is it done? According to Walter Riso, the best way to do this is to break the chain of thoughts that keeps you connected to the past. If anything reminds you of a person, throw this object away. Otherwise, a whole set of thoughts and feelings associated with them will be activated. In turn, this will invariably lead to only one result: the inability to forget.

Nowadays, emotional forgetfulness also involves removing a person from a list of friends on social networks. These sites were created specifically to keep us informed about events in someone else's life. And if your goal is to forget, then there is nothing worse than leaving these windows open.

Dignity and post-traumatic growth

After separation, it is essential to maintain self-esteem.

The prayers, humiliations, and persecution of the former partner not only contribute to the increase of the feeling of inferiority but are also absolutely ineffective.

If your ex-partner has already left you in the past, but you continue to insist on his return, then you are simply bothering him. Nobody likes to talk to someone who doesn't value themselves. It is difficult to respect someone incapable of self-esteem. And in time, your ex-partner will try to get further away from you.

Rizo says that forgetting has its pattern: self-control, humility, setting new goals and expectations. If you manage to overcome your obsession, accept your loss and focus on finding new motivation, then your life will change. The same goes for your feelings.