How to stop loving someone and start moving on.

It may take time to fully process the end of a romantic relationship. Identifying what you want from a future relationship and acknowledging the importance of your past one are key steps in helping you move forward.

Most people would agree you generally can’t help who you fall in love with. But in some circumstances, you might wish that weren’t the case.

Maybe you love someone who doesn’t feel the same way about you.

“The longing that accompanies one-sided love can affect emotional well-being and cause a lot of discomfort,” explains Kim Egel, a marriage and family therapist in San Diego.

Or perhaps you love someone who continually demonstrates they don’t have your best interests at heart. Maybe you and a partner love each other intensely but have too many differences to sustain a lasting partnership.

Regardless of the situation, love is a complicated emotion. And even when it’s clear that a relationship isn’t doing you any favors, it can feel impossible to simply turn off your feelings.

These tips can help you start the process of moving forward.

Look to the future

Love for an ex or someone who doesn’t return your feelings can limit you. If you stay stuck on someone you can’t have a relationship with, you’ll likely have a hard time finding happiness with anyone else.

Even if you don’t feel ready for anything serious, casual dating can help you realize there are plenty of great people out there.

Once you do want to date more seriously, finding the right partner might still prove challenging. It often takes some time. Dating frustrations can make it especially tempting to dwell on the person you already love.

But commit to looking forward, not back into your past, even if it’s difficult at first.

Spend time on yourself

When you feel head over heels in love, you might make small (or not so small) changes to your appearance or personality to align with what you think they want in a partner.

Consider those parts of yourself you might have denied, pushed down, or altered. Maybe you dressed more snazzily than you’d prefer, started following a sport you had zero interest in, or gave up on your favorite hobby.

Or perhaps you avoided fully expressing your emotions and stopped asking for what you needed.

Do you feel comfortable with those changes? Thinking about the parts of yourself that you could have easily lost in the relationship may help diminish love for someone who didn’t truly love you for you.

Understand it may take some time

Feelings of love can and do fade, but this generally isn’t a rapid process. And it’s very normal to feel a lot of discomfort in the meantime.

Here are some tips to help you through this period:

Have patience with yourself.

Practice self-compassion by telling yourself what you might tell a friend in the same situation.

Accept that it’s natural to hurt.

Remind yourself the pain won’t last forever.

Mourn The Loss

A breakup involves shock and sadness, and the process of separation is painful. It can come with a piercing heartbreak that may seem impossible to recover from. No matter how much it hurts, allow yourself to absorb what has happened and mourn the loss. . Some people try to jump into another relationship to forget someone, but such rebounds can result in an emotional mess. Take your time and resolve to get over it. Do not keep wallowing in your miseries, as they can get addictive.

Do Not Seek Answers

You may think everything was going well, and the breakup came out of the blue. You keep wishing if you can go back to the past and correct what went wrong. You wish you could have seen those signs earlier and saved you this heartache.

If you keep re-imagining past incidents, you will find it challenging to move on. What you need right now is to look ahead and let bygones be bygones.

The best tip on how to forget a person is to stop thinking about the past. Tell your mind that you will think about it only at a fixed time of the day. It will help you push away those thoughts and do something productive.