Dear Reina,

You’re having the big case of ‘what-ifs’ plus your instinctual reaction of wanting to fix something broken, it’s no wonder you’re hung up on your ex boyfriend.

You have not given yourself the space to let go of this relationship that you have placed a lot of hope in, hoping that he is the one. You have not let go of your hope. Though I wonder if that ‘hope’ came from the need to prove something to yourself seeing as there were many “red flags” you arbitrarily chosen to ignore during the your term together and even now, you wish to ‘fix it’.

So it is delusional to think that your ex boyfriend would be happy to try to ‘fix’ this broken relationship? Yes, it is. He had already made his stance, it is you who is not letting go.

You might not want to give up on ‘people’ you love, but if those people don’t respect nor have any affections for you, are you then being kind to yourself or making a desperate attempt for something else? After all, your relationship can be ‘fixed’ or so you hope, but if your ex boyfriend did not make the attempt the first time, then it’s not likely he will make the attempt the second time when he does not have a reason to.

You’ve shown that you love yourself and that you have respect for yourself by breaking up with your ex boyfriend so why would you want to go back on your decision now? What makes him so special when there were so many red flags during your relationship? Red flags you are willing to overlook to fix this broken relationship.

What stories are you telling yourself about this breakup? Take a step back and look at it without reacting to it. Look at it then ask yourself why are you telling the stories in this particular way?

So rather than focus on the fact that you can’t forget him, you should be focusing on why you can’t forget him. That’s probably what you should be focusing on. This is not about how you can ‘fix’ him to ‘fix’ your broken relationship, it’s about what you’re choosing to ignore in favor of regretting over your breakup. Because you are making your ex boyfriend the subject rather than the object in your stories about your break up and its aftermath, you are not addressing your fears nor are you addressing your disappointment, your anger, your hurt about your relationship; none of which is mentioned in your post. If there were many red flags, what were they and what is your real feelings about them? You need to address that and more about your previous relationship and you need to be honest to yourself about each of them. You don’t need to paint your ex boyfriend as the worse human being on earth, but you need to be honest about his actions and your reactions; also, your actions and his reactions. Most importantly, don’t rationalized your feelings, let them be what they will be.

Take it slowly, one thing at a time. It’s not impossible to move forward, but you must allow yourself the time and space, the compassionate and kindness from you to your heart.

Take care of yourself.

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by GL.
• This reply was modified 6 years ago by GL.

I guess its the fact that we are on bad terms and we tried to be friends and he couldn’t do that either he just ghosted and so i feel like thats what’s upsetting me. That we cant be in each others lives what so ever and i cant even ask how hes doing every once in a while. Im cool with all my ex friends and boyfriends i dont like to just cut people off and pretend i never knew them, but he does. So..

This might just be teaching you a lesson that life wants you to learn…. that sometimes you just have to let people go, whether you want to or not. You did what you could and it’s him that doesn’t want the contact, so just work on detaching from him altogether and if he reaches out to you in the future, after some time, continue the friendly relationship then.

Your mind wants to hold onto him because you’re attached. Talking to him makes you feel good and releases “happy” chemicals into your body, so your mind wants more… it’s like an addiction… but as soon as you’re able to detach from him more and find that happy feeling in other things and other people, you won’t feel such a need to want to talk to him and it won’t feel so painful.