Did You Make the Right Decision Breaking up with Your Ex?
By: Carlyn Beccia
Tags: Self Improvement, Breakups, Love, Relationships, Psychology

Why you doubt your breakup

Did you give too much?

In many relationships, one person gets used to giving more. The other person gets used to taking more. This pattern is hard to break. Your brain gets trained to fix every problem by trying harder.

But when you give and give, it becomes a high-pressure hose that no one can turn off. Behavioral economists call this mindset the sunk-cost fallacy — when you continue an investment because you have already invested too much.

And there is another costly side to being the giver. If your ex never gave as much as you, there will be times when you wonder if you were not worthy of getting more.

When I reread the messages that showed how hard I tried, I understand how much energy that relationship took. And how much I accomplished in a year putting that energy elsewhere.

I was worthy of more.

To get to that point, you must invest back into yourself. And remember why you wanted your ex to give more — you knew you were worth it.

Do you have a scarcity mindset?

A scarcity mindset causes you to believe that there will never be enough. In relationships, it causes you to believe there will never be another person who is enough.

You wonder if you were too picky. Maybe your ex wasn’t that bad? Maybe they are better than not having anything. You fear there will never be another great love, so your fears become what you find. This is how scarcity panics the lovelorn and makes them doubt their breakup.

To get out of a scarcity mindset, stop hoarding your heart. You will find someone again. You are one flirtatious handkerchief away from finding them. And no, you will not love that person in the same way. You will love them differently. But I promise it will be just as powerful.

Are you gilding the turd?

Often you will doubt your decision to end a relationship because of euphoric recall. Euphoric recall is remembering past negative events in a positive light. Our brains are equipped to suppress negative events because if we did not, we would be too fearful of getting out of bed. (And we might never have more than one child.)

But euphoric recall can become relationship quicksand, leaving you mired in happy memories while forgetting why you broke up. Instead, never forget the reasons why your relationship ended. Positivity usually makes you stronger but not when it keeps you from seeing your ex clearly.

Do you have ex FOMO?

The opposite of love is not hate. It is apathy. Anhedonia pierces your cells and rearranges your DNA. It makes you invisible.

And nothing hurts more than the thought that you are no longer in your ex’s thoughts. Maybe you have spied on their new fabulous life through social media. Or you have seen them with someone who is not you. There a certain exquisite pain that comes from being on the outside looking in.

First off, you know your ex’s curated life is not reality. You have been in their new partner’s shoes. You know it’s a rough trek.

But it’s natural to feel pain when you see your ex with someone else. That pain does not mean you made the wrong decision. It means you are not completely over them yet.

Are you bored?

We tend to obsess more when we don’t have our usual passions distracting us. And now the pandemic has put lives at a standstill. This stillness causes you to replay your relationship over and over again because you have the time to do so.

The hackneyed advice of keeping busy really does work. But don’t just mindlessly keep busy. Pursue multilayered passions so that those challenges will starve out the ruminations about your ex. As the saying goes, the best revenge is a life well-lived.

Did you get closure?

Humans are built for curiosity, and when our curiosity is not sated, it can turn painfully Pavlovian. Relationships that end with unanswered questions always leave you hungering for more. And nothing feels more lonely than trying to figure out why two people are no longer together from only one person’s perspective.

But closure is overrated. It’s a spinning top that never moves in a straight line. Some things you will never get answers to, and you have to accept that.

What is more important is not why your relationship ended but what lessons you learned from it. How did your ex make you stronger? What mistakes were made that you will not repeat in your next relationship?

The lesson learned is your closure.