Break Up - Salvaging A Lost Cause: Is there any hope of reconciliation?

I sit any consanty adk, "Is there any hope of reconciliation?"    

You are on the verge of breaking up, but you know you both still really love each other. While there is not much hope left of salvaging the relationship, you sometimes find yourself thinking about how much you would like to start again. The trouble is you have no idea how to start, or even if it is possible.

If the above scenario sounds familiar, then how did it go so wrong? By now you know that there is a lot of resentment between you, but how did you both let it get so far? Everyone makes mistakes and has done things that they regret. The problem is that once you start making mistakes and doing things wrong, the natural inclination is to cover your tracks.

Dishonesty and lies lead to feelings of guilt and resentment. Feelings of guilt and resentment lead to more lies and arguments. Once you start to get sucked in, this vicious circle kicks in and the lies and arguments start to build on each other. Pretty soon you start justifying your actions. How? By blaming your partner: they don't understand you, they are too snippy and argumentative, and they don't love you anymore. When this happens on both sides of the relationship, you are on a fast track to a breakup or divorce.

In order to turn this around, it is going to take a lot of soul-searching and communication. You have to rebuild the trust between the two of you and let your partner know without a doubt that you love them and are willing to take responsibility for your actions. Even if the relationship cannot be completely salvaged, you will at least make the breakup easier on both of you.

The first thing to do is to realize that there was a time when you really loved each other. Think back to how you felt when you first met or first realized that you had romantic feelings for your partner. Try to go back and actually re-experience those feelings. How your heart skipped a beat whenever you saw them or even thought of them. Think of some of the really good times you had together, when you were happy. Realize that at one stage there really was something special between the two of you and it is at least worth trying to salvage the relationship.

Next, really take a look at all the things you did wrong. Don't fall into the trap of blaming your partner for everything, you played a big part in it too, and at this stage you really need to concentrate only on your actions. It would be a great idea to get a sheet of paper and right everything down. The point of this excercise is to release some of the guilt and resentment you feel towards your partner. In order for it to work, you have to come clean - at least to yourself!

Thirdly, write a letter to your love. Explain to them that you are really sorry about the way things turned out and that you realize that you have had a huge part to play in the fact that the relationship turned sour. Talk about how you felt when you first fell in love and remind them of all the great things that have happened to you while you have been together. In order for them to trust your sincerity, however, you are probably going to have to tell them some of the things you have done that you are ashamed of. The important thing is to take responsibility for your actions, let your partner know how how you feel about them and make sure you tell them that you would really like the chance to make it up to them. Invite them on a special date, for just the two of you, so you can sit down together and clear the air, and at the very least, part as friends.

Once you have completed the above, it is really up to the two of you to sit down and discuss things to see if you have a future together. Don't try to rush things, as trust can take time to build again. But, if you at least come clean about how you feel and make an appeal to your partner's heart, you have a better chance of making it than if you didn't.

Break Up - Coping with a Breakup or Divorce: MOVING ON AFTER A RELATIONSHIP ENDS

It’s never easy when a marriage or other significant relationship ends. Whatever the reason for the split – and whether or not you wanted it 

– the breakup of a long-term, committed relationship can turn your whole world upside down and trigger all sorts of painful and unsettling feelings. But there are things you can do to get through this difficult time. Even in the midst of the sadness and stress of a divorce or breakup, you have an opportunity to learn from the experience and grow into a stronger, wiser person.

Healing after a divorce or breakup

Why do breakups hurt so much, even when the relationship is no longer good? A divorce or breakup is painful because it represents the loss, not just of the relationship, but also of shared dreams and commitments. Romantic relationships begin on a high note of excitement and hope for the future. When these relationships fail, we experience profound disappointment, stress, and grief.

A breakup or divorce launches us into uncharted territory. Everything is disrupted: your routine and responsibilities, your home, your relationships with extended family and friends, and even your identity. A breakup brings uncertainty about the future. What will life be like without your partner? Will you find someone else? Will you end up alone? These unknowns often seem worse than an unhappy relationship.

Recovering from a breakup or divorce is difficult. However, it’s important to know (and to keep reminding yourself) that you can and will move on. But healing takes time, so be patient with yourself.

Coping with separation and divorce

• Recognize that it’s OK to have different feelings. It’s normal to feel sad, angry, exhausted, frustrated and confused—and these feelings can be intense. You also may feel anxious about the future. Accept that reactions like these will lessen over time. Even if the marriage was unhealthy, venturing into the unknown is frightening.
• Give yourself a break. Give yourself permission to feel and to function at a less than optimal level for a period of time. You may not be able to be quite as productive on the job or care for others in exactly the way you’re accustomed to for a little while. No one is superman or superwoman; take time to heal, regroup and re-energize.
• Don’t go through this alone. Sharing your feelings with friends and family can help you get through this period. Consider joining a support group where you can talk to others in similar situations. Isolating yourself can raise your stress levels, reduce your concentration, and get in the way of your work, relationships and overall health. Don’t be afraid to get outside help if you need it.

Source: Mental Health America

Allow yourself to grieve the loss of the relationship

Grief is a natural reaction to loss, and the breakup or divorce of a love relationship involves multiple losses:

• Loss of companionship and shared experiences (which may or may not have been consistently pleasurable)
• Loss of support, be it financial, intellectual, social, or emotional
• Loss of hopes, plans, and dreams (can be even more painful than practical losses)

Allowing yourself to feel the pain of these losses may be scary. You may fear that your emotions will be too intense to bear, or that you’ll be stuck in a dark place forever. Just remember that grieving is essential to the healing process. The pain of grief is precisely what helps you let go of the old relationship and move on. And no matter how strong your grief, it won’t last forever.

Tips for grieving after a breakup or divorce:

• Don’t fight your feelings – It’s normal to have lots of ups and downs, and feel many conflicting emotions, including anger, resentment, sadness, relief, fear, and confusion. It’s important to identify and acknowledge these feelings. While these emotions will often be painful, trying to suppress or ignore them will only prolong the grieving process.
• Talk about how you’re feeling – Even if it is difficult for you to talk about your feelings with other people, it is very important to find a way to do so when you are grieving. Knowing that others are aware of your feelings will make you feel less alone with your pain and will help you heal. Journaling can also be a helpful outlet for your feelings.
• Remember that moving on is the end goal – Expressing your feelings will liberate you in a way, but it is important not to dwell on the negative feelings or to over-analyze the situation. Getting stuck in hurtful feelings like blame, anger and resentment will rob you of valuable energy and prevent you from healing and moving forward.
• Remind yourself that you still have a future. When you commit to another person, you create many hopes and dreams. It’s hard to let these dreams go. As you grieve the loss of the future you once envisioned, be encouraged by the fact that new hopes and dreams will eventually replace your old ones.

For more information on grieving, see Coping with Grief and Loss. 

Am I depressed or having a normal reaction to the divorce or breakup?

Grief can be paralyzing after a breakup, but after awhile, the sadness begins to lift. Day by day, and little by little, you start moving on. However, if you don’t feel any forward momentum, you may be suffering from depression. When grief triggers depression, the sadness can be unrelenting and overwhelming. Some people describe it as “living in a black hole” or feeling numb, lifeless and empty.

To learn more, see Understanding Depression.

Reach out to others for support through the grieving process

Support from others is critical to healing after a breakup or divorce. You might feel like being alone, but isolating yourself will only make this time more difficult. Don’t try to get through this on your own.

Reach out to trusted friends and family members. People who have been through painful breakups or divorces can be especially helpful. They know what it is like and they can assure you that there is hope for healing and new relationships.

• Spend time with people who support, value, and energize you. As you consider who to reach out to, choose wisely. Surround yourself with people who are positive and who truly listen to you. It’s important that you feel free to be honest about what you’re going through, without worrying about being judged, criticized, or told what to do.
• Get outside help if you need it. If reaching out to others doesn’t come naturally, consider seeing a counselor or joining a support group. The most important thing is that you have at least one place where you feel comfortable opening up.
• Cultivate new friendships. If you feel like you have lost your social network along with the divorce or breakup, make an effort to meet new people. Join a networking group or special interest club, take a class, get involved in community activities, or volunteer at your school, synagogue, or church.  

Children and Divorce

If you’re a parent, you may be worried about the effect of the divorce on your children. While divorce can be hard on kids, you can help them through this difficult time.

Helping your Child Cope with Separation or Divorce 

Co-parenting After a Separation or Divorce

Taking care of yourself after a divorce or relationship breakup

A divorce is a highly stressful, life-changing event. When you’re going through the emotional wringer and dealing with major life changes, it’s more important than ever to take care of yourself. The strain and upset of a major breakup leaves you psychologically and physically vulnerable. Treat yourself like you’re getting over the flu. Get plenty of rest, minimize other sources of stress in your life, and reduce your workload if possible. 

Learning to take care of yourself can be one of the most valuable lessons you learn following a divorce or breakup. As you feel the emotions of your loss and begin learning from your experience, you can resolve to take better care of yourself and make positive choices going forward.

Self-care tips:

• Make time each day to nurture yourself. Help yourself heal by scheduling daily time for activities you find calming and soothing. Go for a walk in nature, listen to music, enjoy a hot bath, get a massage, read a favorite book, take a yoga class, or savor a warm cup of tea.
• Pay attention to what you need in any given moment and speak up to express your needs. Honor what you believe to be right and best for you even though it may be different from what your ex or others want. Say "no" without guilt or angst as a way of honoring what is right for you.
• Stick to a routine. A divorce or relationship breakup can disrupt almost every area of your life, amplifying feelings of stress, uncertainty, and chaos. Getting back to a regular routine can provide a comforting sense of structure and normalcy.
• Take a time out. Try not to make any major decisions in the first few months after a separation or divorce, like starting a new job or moving to a new city. If you can, wait until you’re feeling less emotional so that you can make better decisions.
• Avoid using alcohol, drugs, or food to cope. When you’re in the middle of a breakup, you may be tempted to do anything to relieve your feelings of pain and loneliness. But using alcohol, drugs, or food as an escape is unhealthy and destructive in the long run. It’s essential to find healthier ways of coping with painful feelings.
• Explore new interests. A divorce or breakup is a beginning as well as an end. Take the opportunity to explore new interests and activities. Pursuing fun, new activities gives you a chance to enjoy life in the here-and-now, rather than dwelling on the past.

Making healthy choices: Eat well, sleep well, and exercise

When you’re going through the stress of a divorce or breakup, healthy habits easily fall by the wayside. You might find yourself not eating at all or overeating your favorite junk foods. Exercise might be harder to fit in because of the added pressures at home and sleep might be elusive. But all of the work you are doing to move forward in a positive way will be pointless if you don’t make long-term healthy lifestyle choices.

Tips for Getting Better Sleep Healthy Eating

Exercise for Exercise Haters Stress Relief

Learning important lessons from a divorce or breakup

In times of emotional crisis, there is an opportunity to grow and learn. Just because you are feeling emptiness in your life right now, doesn’t mean that nothing is happening or that things will never change. Consider this period a time-out, a time for sowing the seeds for new growth. You can emerge from this experience knowing yourself better and feeling stronger.

In order to fully accept a breakup and move on, you need to understand what happened and acknowledging the part you played. It’s important to understand how the choices you made affected the relationship. Learning from your mistakes is the key to not repeating them.

Some questions to ask yourself:

• Step back and look at the big picture. How did you contribute to the problems of the relationship?
• Do you tend to repeat the same mistakes or choose the wrong person in relationship after relationship?
• Think about how you react stress and deal with conflict and insecurities. Could you act in a more constructive way?
• Consider whether or not you accept other people the way they are, not the way they could or “should” be.
• Examine your negative feelings as a starting point for change. Are you in control of your feelings, or are they in control of you?

You’ll need to be honest with yourself during this part of the healing process. Try not to dwell on who is to blame or beat yourself up over your mistakes. As you look back on the relationship, you have an opportunity to learn more about yourself, how you relate to others, and the problems you need to work on. If you are able to objectively examine your own choices and behavior, including the reasons why you chose your former partner, you’ll be able to see where you went wrong and make better choices next time
.

Break Up - Life After Love: A self-healing process...

So, you've found out that Mr. or Miss Right isn't the soul mate you've always dreamed about. Now what? 

The period of loss and pain doesn't have to extend on to an eternity of what ifs. After spending a few days wallowing in self-pity, you'll probably want to start making a few steps towards life after love. To help ease this transition, try a few of the following ideas.


Keep a daily journal.
Letting loose on your emotions is a quick and self-healing way to recover from incidents of loss and pain. This is especially true of keeping a journal. Make a commitment to write for at least a few minutes every day.
Learn at least one new thing a day.
Keep your mind busy with new information. Whether you decide to learn a new word or how to do something new on your computer, it will help you keep moving forward instead of looking back.
Take a daily walk.
Get yourself out and about with a 20 to 30 minute walk. Just the constant, repetitive motion of moving your legs one after another is enough to help you put things in perspective.
Go out with yourself.
Just because you are not attached to someone doesn't mean you can't enjoy going out. Think of it as a chance to go to all the places you've always wanted to go.
Develop a hobby.
Maybe there is something you've always wanted to learn how to do. Now is the perfect opportunity to develop it! Try anything from bicycling, joining a walking club, sewing, bodyboarding or surfing, learning how to watercolor, or cooking.

11 Tips For Getting Over Your Ex:

Universal Pictures

• What You Need To Know
• This is one of the few times you can get away with bad-mouthing your ex.
• Look at the bright side: You have more time to hang out with your buddies.
• Go ahead -- sleep with another woman (it'll make you feel better).

"

First things first: Stop acting like your ex was God's gift to men. 

                                      ...She wasn't perfect.

Getting over your ex is one of the great dilemmas of manhood. It’s rarely a quick and easy process, and it’s often complicated by all the things that the two of you still have in common, like friends, favorite hangouts and even living quarters. Maybe the most frustrating thing about the whole process is that even if ending the relationship was the right thing to do -- even if she cheated on you -- it can still be hard to bury all those memories and move on with your life.  
Here at AskMen, we’re in the business of getting you back in the game, so we’ve put together a list of the 11 tips for getting over your ex. Follow this program from start to finish, and you’ll be back to your old self in no time. 

1- Take Her Off That Pedestal

First things first: Stop acting like your ex was God’s gift to men. She wasn’t perfect. If we’re being honest, she probably wasn’t even close. Make a list of her annoying traits. Let your buddies bad-mouth her. Do whatever you have to do -- just take her off that pedestal.

2- Get Closure

Step two for getting over your ex: get closure. If you’re going to end this thing, end it. Make sure you’re both on the same page. This is a breakup, not a “break.” The two of you are moving on, which means potentially seeing other people. If you feel the need to do a relationship postmortem, do it now. You won’t be seeing her again for a while.

3- Don't Contact Her

This may be the most important of our 11 tips for getting over your ex. After you’ve gotten closer, don’t contact her. Go cold turkey. Seriously. Maybe you said some crap about trying to stay friends, maybe you made some idiot vow to “always be there for each other,” but forget it. By staying in touch with old flames, you’re asking for months (if not years) of on-again-off-again uncertainty. So, throw out her phone number, stop texting her and unfriend her on Facebook. Imagine how freaked out you'll be the first time you see some strange dude in her profile picture, and you'll see why a clean break is essential.

4- Work Out

Without a girlfriend gobbling up hours out of every day, you may be wondering what to do with yourself. Now that you’re single, we suggest hitting the gym or taking a jog. It’s a healthy way to work out all of that post-breakup frustration. Getting in shape is also a good way to boost your self-esteem. And don’t forget: The gym is a great place to meet women (plenty of reasons why working out makes our list of 11 tips for getting over your ex).

5- Avoid Her Friends And The Places She Hangs

If you want to avoid the temptations that come with bumping into an ex, you might have to make some sacrifices. You might have to cut ties with some of your mutual friends. You might have to avoid some of your favorite haunts (because they’re her favorite haunts, too). Trust us, it’s a small price to pay for peace of mind.

We have 6 more tips on how to get over an ex next...

Forget about all that stuff you left at her place. Consider it gone.

6- Throw Away Anything That Reminds You Of Her

That dopey-looking teddy bear she gave you for your birthday, the sappy love letters she wrote, the adorable pictures of the two of you -- chuck ’em. Throw it all away. The sooner you get all that junk out of your house the sooner you’ll get over her. 

And before you ask, yes, it’s fine to keep items that don't evoke any emotional connections. If she bought you a copy of Call of Duty 2, keep it. But clothes, jewelry, keepsakes, and the like should be ditched. 

7- Don't Try To Get Your Stuff Back

By the same token, you don’t want to try to get your stuff back. You can’t have a relationship relapse if you don’t allow yourself to see your ex. Forget about all that stuff you left at her place. Consider it gone. The $50 you’re going to have to spend to replace a few DVDs is a small price to pay to avoid an ex-girlfriend who could be either desperately needy or irrationally angry.

8- Hang Out With Your Friends

One of the things you had to sacrifice when in a committed relationship was time with your friends. Girlfriends are notorious time-bandits, always greedy for more and more of your attention. But now that you’re single, you can reconnect with the buds you left behind. Not only will it be fun, but it will also be therapeutic because hanging out with your friends is one of the most rewarding of our 11 tips for getting over your ex.

9- Exercise Your Newfound Freedom

Relationships are about compromise. Being single should be about doing whatever the hell you want. Look, you’ve ditched the ball and chain. You’re free. So stay out until four in the morning, hop on a plane to Vegas with your brother, or just sit on your ass and watch basketball all day. Taking pleasure in all of those things that you couldn’t do as a boyfriend is a great way to get over your ex.

10- Remember The Bad Times

It’s pretty common for guys to idealize their significant others after a breakup. You’ll just be going about your business, and then, suddenly, you’ll remember an inside joke or a great date. Then you’ll grin, thinking about a cute personality quirk she had, and before long, you’re fantasizing about how great your sex life used to be.
 
Snap out of it. One of the most important of our 11 tips for getting over your ex is to remember the bad times. Focus on the fights and the problems. Recollect her bad habits and shady behavior. It’s like taking a cold shower. 

11- Sleep With Another Girl

The most foolproof method for getting over your ex is to sleep with another girl. It’s the fastest and most efficient way to get an ex-girlfriend out of your system. One of the reasons we equivocate about leaving an ex behind is because -- no matter how confident we are -- we worry we won’t find someone new. That’s what sends us crawling back to our familiar, comfy, dysfunctional exes time and time again. Finding a new love interest, even for one night, is the best method of countering all those self-defeating thoughts.

Bonus: Make Sure Your Next Girlfriend Is An Upgrade

One last thing you want to be certain of is that your love life is moving in the right direction. If your rebound girlfriend is a train wreck, you could end up moving backward and reconnecting with your ex, only to waste another year or two of your life on a relationship that’s doomed to fail. So be sure that your next girlfriend is an upgrade.

Banish Her From Your Mind

If you follow these 11 tips for getting over your ex, we’re certain you’ll be back in the saddle in no time. It’s never easy, but with a solid plan and a lot of willpower, you can forget the past and focus on your future.