My little piece of advice: you don’t have to think about the future, tomorrow, next week, they are all far off. Think about now, this hour, the next 5 minutes, or whatever stretch of time seems manageable. What do you do now? Cook dinner? Watch a show? Cry in the shower? The future might be scary and too much to manage now. You’ll handle it when you get to it. Now, you only have to think about right now.

Verbena tea is calming and soothing. Lavender is relaxing. Green tea for me is a calming ritual.

You got this. Maybe it doesn’t feel like it, but you only need to do one step, and you got that one step.

I don’t think there’s magic one size fits all answer to this, it really sucks you have to deal with it. Avoid destructive behaviours like drinking until you pass out etc, they won’t help in the long term. Do you have any friends IRL you can call on?

Soulmate is a fabrication. You find someone you like that likes you. You can tolerate their downsides and they can tolerate yours. GGG in the sack. Willing to work things out. There is no such thing as the perfect match but there are lots of people out there that will sit pretty high on your list. When you find one of them give it a go, hope it will work out, but it won’t always go the way you want. Eventually it will stick or it won’t, either way you’ve had a good time of it and start the next part of your adventure.

As a highly sensitive person, what I’ve learned for me is:

1. It takes time - years, even - to understand what happened, and why. Which means there’s nothing productive to be done except avoid things you’d regret. Be your best self, even if it’s hard as hell. If you care about this person, give them the space they evidently need; and leave the door open to reconnecting later in until you’ve decided, with a clear head and understanding why, that you’ll never eant them in your life.
2. Prioritize caring for your basic mental and physical needs by getting enough sleep, food, exercise, and time outdoors.
3. Treat yourself like you’re sick with the flu or a cold. Get rest if you can. Find ways to relax. Give yourself time to heal. Mindless things like TV or videogames can be good. Socializing is also good.
4. Partners can ground us; make us feel secure, taken care of, connected to our world, full of purpose and value, etc. In the long term, without them, you need to re-ground and find things that give you those feelings. I had to come up with a list of things that make me feel connected and worthwhile, then take steps to engage in those. It included creative hobbies and dedicating time to good friends. Finding “myself” and things that felt meaningful took work: self-reflection and journaling, forcing myself to do hobbies until I enjoyed them, and becoming inspired by good art (TV, music) I love. Often our roots are in our upbringing, so it can be good to reconnect with things we loved. Once you have a life without your ex, you don’t need them. You don’t need any partner as much, for that matter, because what sustains you is more within your power and identity. And that’s how future relationships can be made safer, and heartbreak survivable.

I told my brother “Hey. I think I’m single now?”

He dropped everything, came over and we ate sad pizza and signed me up for new apartments as my ex and I lived together.

I turned on my computer and started to play mass effect 2… during 48h.
Slept a bit.
Call my family and friends to go out and not be alone.
Continue living.
Two years later I met my actual partner and we have a beautiful life with two incredible kids.
Just remember: losing someone hurts but is not the end, the heart heals.

I’ve tried many things in this situations (seeing other girls, distracting with alcohol/drugs, etc) but they all just seem to alleviate the pain when they just throw it under the rug for a while.

For me, the best way to handle this has been to face my pain altogether. This pain does not come from this event. It is my own ancient pain that has been triggered by my now ex. Staying with the pain, listening to it, feeling it in your body and letting it be there is a transformative act.

I recommend listening to Pema Chödron’s videos or books. Maybe “When things fall apart”. I personally have been helped a lot by doing the “tonglen” meditation.

You feel vulnerable and it’s okay. Sounds like you need to realize you dodged a bullet.

About the question, remember that you are you and the only things that you need to keep going is to breath, to drink water, to eat and to keep yourself healthy. Everything else are probably ideas in your head that can change at any time. If you are struggling, remember to breath deeply. It will be okay.

There are a couple of things here… firstly you’re thinking about him being with someone else - that’s not just a ‘breakup’, that’s worse.

Anyway, I found relaxing to be difficult so I went out and did stuff - also I just met lots of friends and tried not to be on my own. During my last breakup, I had someone to meet every day after work for a week - and that put some distance which made it easier.

The night of the breakup I went to my best bud’s house and talked and smoked for hours. After that, I worked on myself, started reading again, going to the gym again and finally got myself checked out by a psychiatrist and a psychologist. I had been putting all of that off for a long time and if there was ever a more cliche time to start, it was then.

Been about 2 years, half of what I was with her, and I still sometimes wish I had someone like her. I miss the connection I had with her. We went through a lot and at the time I thought I’d marry the girl. Then covid happened, some family tragedies, and suddenly our vibe was off. Sucks, but it woulda sucked more if it happened years later in life.

It was easier for me than it was for her, though. I’ve got issues regarding failure (not sure how else to word it). Whenever something might go tits up, I emotionally distance immediately. Job opportunities, dying pets, relationships, same defensive mechanism. Causes more trouble than it avoids, honestly, because I never know when to trust a gut feeling, or to stop being like this.

I still don’t feel 100%, but I wasn’t 100% when we broke up. Not looking for anything new, or to start up anything old again either.

Throw a fucking party that you dodged a bullet. He was going to cheat on you at some point, better to get this over with now than after marriage and/or kids.

Be happy that you are single and get to live a single life. Do all the things you like to do that he didn’t.

Enjoy life. Fuck that guy (not literally, seriously, delete him from your life)

Quite sudden breakup after almost 16 years. He didn’t love me anymore.

I made it through the first night listening to a recording of my mom reading my two favourite child books to me when I was three (these recordings were originally done on tape, but I digitalised them a few years ago and they are a bit of an auditory security blanket). That helped me through the night. Next morning, completely numb, I went to a bakery and bought something to eat, then I drove over to my best friend where I spent the whole day, crying and cursing but also laughing and most importantly talking. At the end of that, I was in a mindset where I knew this would hurt like fuck but it was better this way.

What followed were six weeks where my ex still lived in the same apartment and slept in the same room (we didn’t split in a fight, it simply was over), I fled to my best friend once per week and worked from there (self employed) and spent my weekends Friday afternoon till Sunday evening at my parents. I talked a lot with friends and family, took lengthy walks and overall just tried to make it through every day.

Once my ex was gone for good, my best friend came over for three days and helped with a deep clean of the apartment and setting up some new furniture to replace what he’d taken with him. Then I started my new life.

All I can say is, it gets better, it gets easier, and in hindsight it was one of the best things that happened to me.

It was in August of 2018, after almost 16 years. In January of 2020 I met my new partner who taught me what I’d missed in all that time.

As I was told by someone, you are going through the grieving process. One moment, you’ll be sad, then angry, then accepting, and then angry and sad at the same time. Your grieving process is unique. Time and distance does help.

When my ex-fiancé ended things almost out of the blue. I slept most of the time. When I was sleeping, I didn’t have to think about being dumped. I reached out to people to get the support system going. I wrote a letter to them, a very angry and emotional letter. Then I re-wrote it. I read that letter to my ex-fiancé to try to get back together. I purged and clean my apartment, made plans to back to school and get a Bachelors of Law, and even started learning a new language so I could move to a new country. Having a plan for the future helped a lot even if it was slightly insane.

They wrote a response letter confirming their decision. I spent the next several months trying to get over the anger that was there. I went solo camping and did a hike. I ate a low dose of magic mushrooms and wrote my response out. I found that a lose dose of magic mushrooms was able to break down walls and allow me to think about everything in different manner. While that helped with the process, it didn’t get rid of the anger. I did eventually send my last attempt letter/here are some things you can grow on too/thank you letter to my ex-fiancé.

I went on a lot of hikes and talked to people about the anger that would never go away. Eventually it was suggested that I write everything out and burn it.

I decided to go camping with someone to a place that was at least 3 hour drive away. Ate another low dose of magic mushrooms and sat in the middle of a water fall writing out the most angry letter ever. Then I burned the letter right there with the original draft of the last attempt letter/here are some things you can grow on too/thank you letter. As it was pointed out to me the symbolism of writing an angry letter right in the middle of water being turbulent was on point. It helped that the river before and after the falls was extremely calm, which represented the before and after the break up. I let all the negative energy be purified by the flame and water.

I went back to the campsite and wrote another letter, however this was all positive about my summer and what I achieved and looking forward too. I preceded to burn it in the fire to release all the positive energy back into the universe. As the magic mushrooms were telling me that needed to be done. The next day, I went on long and difficult hike to help cement the symbolism of moving onto a new adventure.

While the anger tries to flare up once and awhile, I tell myself that there is no need to be angry anymore. I got out of my system.

The final two pieces of advice; if you can, go no contact with them. Having them in your life is going to prevent the healing. I still love my ex-fiancé however having them in my life as a friend would only lead to major problems for both of us. The second piece, you’re never going to truly going to get over it, it’s like the death of a family member or the loss of a good friendship. It’s part of your life now. You learn to live with it.

My partner of just under 15 years left me out of the blue three years ago.

It… wasn’t easy. I understood her reasons, but that didn’t make it emotionally more acceptable, especially having not known about it beforehand as after so many years it was the only big thing, “never keep anything back at all, no matter what”.

But I suspect my case was a bit different than yours, as the problem wasn’t the first night. She had been gone for a week or so for work before, or even 2 weeks for a Mallorca trip with a bunch of friends, so the first 3-4 days were perfectly fine. It hit really hard after about a week, and then lasted for about a month.
What I had to do was significantly change the flat. Not only rip out stuff that was “hers”, but more importantly reorganize rooms so that the association was gone. It helped. Once that part was changed, I could pretty quickly calm down. I needed that constant reminder of “us” gone. As if I had just moved into a new flat on my own, and this was all me!

That being said, there was one other thing. It sounds vain as hell, but I got a fuckbuddy. Sex helps. Happy hormons and all. It didn’t help on its own, but coupled with steadily changing the flat around me and engaging more with my personal hobbies over our shared hobbies, it was enough to get me through it.

Talking to my family and hugging my cats, it sound silly but i felt that my cats knew that i was hurting, so they were extra caring. It will take time to heal, but it will get better.