Verified by 
After your relationship ends, you may feel okay… until your former love starts becoming intimate with someone else. For many people, this marks a new and painful phase of a break-up. Yup, breaking up doesn’t always mean the relationship is finished. It’s not completely over until you’re completely over it, as in, you’ve adjusted and moved on.
And you know you’ve moved on when you don’t have a painful emotional reaction to the news that your former love has taken up with another. But what if you’ve just failed this test? Now what are you supposed to do?
Related to a past blog post “Coping with Distress and Agony After a Break-up,” I recently received a comment that illustrates this situation. I'm posting it here, along with some ideas for coping with the hurt—and moving on.
Comment:
Our relationship has been rocky for six months but I held on anyway. Then the dreadful day came when she told me she doesn't have feelings for me or love me anymore. I was ok until I found out that she is dating. I'm devastated and all I think about is, "How can she be with another man? We had the most incredible chemistry."
I do realize as I grieve that my grieving is based on her having sex and being emotional with another man. It doesn't make the pain any less but I know deep in my heart that this relationship would have never lasted. Again though, I am hurting so much it's hard to function.
—Anonymous
Dear Anon,
It’s only natural for you and your former lover to move on at different paces and in different ways. But as you’ve discovered, if you’re confronted with evidence that she has moved on and into the arms of another, this can trigger a deeper grief, where you may feel especially alone and abandoned.
And yes, even though you understand that this relationship was rocky and winding to a close, you can still miss and grieve for the good times. And when you reminisce about your great chemistry, it’s natural to feel thrown for a loop when you think about her dating other men.
Here are some tips that may help you gain perspective, break free from intrusive thoughts, and move forward with confidence and gratitude.
Seek counseling. First and foremost, if you are finding it difficult to function—as in take care of yourself, get stuff done around the house, attend to your friendships, be productive at work, and have fun at play—this is a red flag that indicates you may benefit from seeing a licensed therapist (a doctor can refer you to someone qualified).
You can be evaluated for depression and get treatment (counseling; maybe medication, and lifestyle changes) to help you emerge from a hard-to-shake funk and those intrusive, distressing thoughts. The sooner you reclaim your balanced brain chemistry, the sooner you’ll be able to adjust to the break-up and move on in a positive direction.
See counseling as an investment in your future. Counseling may also help you uncover what’s really going on for you. Why are you thrown for a loop by the news that she is dating others? What does this mean for you? How does it relate to your past experiences? And how can you deal with the intrusive thoughts?
Counseling can promote self-knowledge, self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-confidence, all of which can help you move on. Counseling can also prepare you for a more functional and fulfilling relationship with an equally self-reflective, well-adjusted woman.
Mindfully observe your intrusive thoughts. When you are flooded with intrusive thoughts about your former love being with another man, instead of assigning emotions to these thoughts and getting caught up in the hurt and distress, become an objective observer. This can take practice, but you can render these thoughts harmless if you can breathe deeply and think, Oh look at that, I’m obsessing about her again. I have such an active imagination about what’s going on with her. I wonder if this bears any relationship to reality. Who knows? Who cares? Yup, there goes my imagination some more…
By maintaining your objectivity for a minute or two, your physiology will calm down if already triggered, and eventually you’ll be able to let those thoughts pass through your brain without being triggered. Over time, you’ll deflate the power these thoughts hold over you, and devoid of any emotional load, they can simply fade away.
Distraction is your best friend. Engage in fun, interesting, or relaxing activities that occupy your brain or at least put you in a calm or meditative state. What do you enjoy doing? What are you good at? What helps you feel great? Who makes you laugh? Make a list you can easily refer to whenever you start going down the road of thinking about her. Hit the pause button and think: Is this really what I want to be doing with my time and my brain? Then go do something that’s on your Fun List.
Hold onto hope. When you reminisce about your great chemistry, it’s natural to feel distraught when you think about her possibly having "great chemistry" with other men. But don't consider her rejection a dismissal of the chemistry you shared. It was real — just temporary.
Also, it’s not as if she stole the great chemistry you shared and is now enjoying that same chemistry with another man. The chemistry you shared with her was unique, and can’t be replicated — by her or by you — with another. Each intimate relationship has its own fingerprint, and your ability to share great chemistry remains intact. When you’re ready, you’ll get out there and find chemistry again.
Maintain perspective. Whenever you recall your great chemistry with this woman, remember this: if you had nothing but great chemistry, you’d still be together. Hold on to the perspective that great chemistry is founded on the initial attraction and idealization you have for each other. When that infatuation phase wears off, that’s when the going gets tough, as in, that’s when you face each other’s imperfections and you must learn how to get along through thick and thin. And apparently, she couldn’t cut it. See her pulling the plug as a gift that makes you available to meet a more suitable mate with whom you can share not just great chemistry, but also a great partnership.
Trust the process. Your pain underscores the fact that you are still processing this relationship, the break-up, your emotions, and your options. See this time as a valuable part of your personal growth. Yes, growth can be painful--that's why it's called "growing pains." But this pain has a way of making you become wiser, not repeat your mistakes, and try on new ways of being and doing. Take all the time you need to learn the lessons offered by your relationship with her. And trust your resilience. You will prevail.
