I like and support all of your advice. I had a comparable experience and a comparable approach.
Decide you don’t want to get back in the relationship.
For me that wasn’t a decision. It was the ‘logical consequence’ from the question of whether there was any way she’s still love me. If there was I’d have persevered. But it wasn’t so.
Litany of Gendlin: “What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn’t make it worse.”
Once I realized that it was like you you: My unconditional love drained
...by day 3 I was 60% over it. Two weeks later I was 99.5% over the relationship,
And I could act again! I saw opportunities. But yes
Revisiting memories becomes painful, things you used to do together are suddenly tinged with sadness.
For me it helped to to accept the shared past experiences as good in themselves. If it were happy moments then, why shouldn’t they still be happy memories? Somehow I managed to detach their effect of reminding me of the loss. Probably because I dealt with the loss first—as you did.
And I fully second your recommendation:
Internalize any gains I had made over the course of our relationship or any lessons I had learned from the break up
It was very helpful for me to read your wiki about your break up, some very good advice there! I think it is also very helpful to see people who have gone through difficult break ups and returned to their normal level of happiness. Impact bias makes it hard to remember that very few things have lasting negative effects on happiness.
What you did is awesome! Break-up and still help.
I like and support all of your advice. I had a comparable experience and a comparable approach.
For me that wasn’t a decision. It was the ‘logical consequence’ from the question of whether there was any way she’s still love me. If there was I’d have persevered. But it wasn’t so.
Litany of Gendlin: “What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn’t make it worse.”
Once I realized that it was like you you: My unconditional love drained
And I could act again! I saw opportunities. But yes
For me it helped to to accept the shared past experiences as good in themselves. If it were happy moments then, why shouldn’t they still be happy memories? Somehow I managed to detach their effect of reminding me of the loss. Probably because I dealt with the loss first—as you did.
And I fully second your recommendation:
It was very helpful for me to read your wiki about your break up, some very good advice there! I think it is also very helpful to see people who have gone through difficult break ups and returned to their normal level of happiness. Impact bias makes it hard to remember that very few things have lasting negative effects on happiness.