Hello guys/gals, I need some guidance, or at least - some advice.

I'm sure 90% of us here have at one stage or another been involved in a break up that tore at our heart strings, leaving us a lump of emotion-filled putty. I'm curious as to how you dealt with said problems. I know everyone is different, and as such, deals with their problems in different ways. Some drink themselves nearly into a coma (me) whereas others sleep with anything that moves, and some simply disappear in their home for 3 months until they are ready to come out and greet the world again.

Which is you - if any?

I'll start.
About 6 months ago, me and my Ex broke up - she broke up with me, with the legendary 'I need some space' line, only for me to find out two weeks later she was with another guy she worked with. I thought I was over her, until a few days ago I started getting strong feelings of loneliness - and I began missing her. Memories came flooding back, and before I knew it I longed for her to be with me again. Even though I know it would be incredibly stupid of me to do so. What should I do? I have had break ups before, but I've never been as close to my partner as I was to her, and therefore it effects me far more.

For a long while your going to be lonely. This period is caused by the loss as your life is now so different and empty feeling. It's not always that you want "them" back, just that you want the feeling of being with someone amazing back. You can only really ride this out. Think about it when you can. Work out why your sad each time, what you miss. By exposing you self to the negative and the painful you'll except it and in time get over it quicker.
Having a friend who is close enough to listen to you talk about how you feel is a great help. Even if all they do is listen and give you something to lean on. The more you accept your reality the faster you will get over it and move on.
Don't repress what you feel. Get it out, get over it at a good pace. And get well soon.
Good luck mate.

TerribleTerryTate:
I'm sure 90% of us here have at one stage or another been involved in a break up that tore at our heart strings, leaving us a lump of emotion-filled putty. I'm curious as to how you dealt with said problems. I know everyone is different, and as such, deals with their problems in different ways. Some drink themselves nearly into a coma (me) whereas others sleep with anything that moves, and some simply disappear in their home for 3 months until they are ready to come out and greet the world again.

May I have your attention for a few seconds, please?
My apologies for not having any actual advice for you, but I just have to beg of you, for the sake of everything pure and just, spare me the dreaded 'heart' metaphor!
I enter a state of epileptic, nauseous spasms whenever I hear it.

Drink too much, spend every hour possible with friends (many of whom i'd neglected a bit previously as being overly wrapped up in whatever break up i was in at the time) eventually calm down, meet another 'nice' girl be on top of the world again for a while until said 'nice' girl screws you over and then start the whole process again, rinse and repeat.

Bloody hell I am getting old and cynical.

How to deal with it? Simple answer is don't. Accept that your relationship wasn't what either of you were looking for, and move on. She has, and quickly, too, I might add. and don't drink yourself into a coma, because alcohol is a depressant, and just makes things worse. Go see a movie, play some GTA IV, or break some of her stuff she left behind. Or better yet, get outside and get some physical activity. Nothing says "breakup remedy" like a few rounds in a boxing ring!

I've been on both sides, and now I'm happily married with an awesome 2-year old gamer in training. And it took a lot of break ups to get here.

In the end, clean breakups are good breakups. No marriage, no kids, no hassle except for a little bit of mental trauma for a few days/weeks.

Take this opportunity to have some 'TerribleTerryTate Time'. Do what you want to do, when you want to do it. Accept that 'over' means 'over' and move on, but not too fast of course. Go on a few dates, find someone that better compliments you and forget this chick ever existed.

Worse comes to worse, she realizes it was a mistake and she comes crawling back. But don't be waiting there with open arms, because she'll do the same thing again. And be happy it happened sooner rather than later.

Drong:
Drink too much, spend every hour possible with friends (many of whom i'd neglected a bit previously as being overly wrapped up in whatever break up i was in at the time) eventually calm down, meet another 'nice' girl be on top of the world again for a while until said 'nice' girl screws you over and then start the whole process again, rinse and repeat.

Bloody hell I am getting old and cynical.

I like you, Drong; you appear to be thinking exactly what I am, except in a more frontal and crude manner. That doesn't make your expressions bad, however; quite the opposite in my opinion. Still, I agree. The OP should listen some of this, go out, get trashed and respect the cycle of relationships by at least attempting to turn on the ignition again, especially if he ain't outta gas yet.

I can't help but sit here and think your just so much better off with out her if she had such a lack of compassion for you to do something like that. You feeling lonely doesn't has as much to do with her as you'd think. Humans are very social creatures and you need to view the whole situation from that point of view from time to time. Clearly she wasn't worth your time and the love you had to offer her. So why the left over feelings? No one wants to be alone and when we feel alone we start to reach back wards to what we had in the past. Your just looking for something to fill that void, be it with her, another girl or a bottle. I know you know that she did you wrong. The only thing I can tell you is being bitter isn't going to get you anywhere. Rejection in any form is hard to take but it's just another part of life. We all are going to get hurt from time to time, it's the small price one has to pay to find true love. (can you tell I'm a hopeless romantic?) Take the lesson and pick your self back up. It's the only thing anyone can do. Spending time on the bottom isn't something to be avoided, a loss is a loss, spend time grieving because you've earned that right. Don't take it so personal in the end if you can help it. Face the fact that not every girl you try your hand with is going to be a match. If it was that easy love wouldn't be worth having. Realize love takes time and effort. You have to work at it and learn to compromise. So many people just give up and start over. Love is something you have learn. You spend most of your life living for only yourself, it's hard learning to live for another. Just know it will get better. Something like that is how I always try to approach it anyways.

^_^

Thanks for the replies. I totally agree with everything that has been said, and understand that the loneliness and missing her is very likely down to the fact, that at that time I was somewhat bored - had a friend mentioning how she was getting on, and therefore I started thinking about her.

'No one wants to be alone and when we feel alone we start to reach back wards to what we had in the past. Your just looking for something to fill that void, be it with her, another girl or a bottle.' - This is so true, just needed to read it from someone else to fully realise it. I don't miss her, it's the companionship and being with someone I miss.

She definitely did me wrong, I won't go into details, but I didn't warrant such treatment from her. Having said that however, I pity her more than feel anger or hatred towards her, as I realise that she'll never be happy if she continues to act the way she has so far.
Thanks again for the replies, genuinely did help! <3.

Using some old clothes, craft materials and lots and lots of newspaper, make a raggydoll based on your ex. The more life-sized and realistic, the better.

Punish said raggydoll through whatever means you see fit. A particularly favourite method of mine is to sit the doll at the dinner table, light some candles, lay out some cutlery, then set about cooking some lobsters. However, rather than eat them, as is usual in a romantic meal, I grab them and club the doll to the floor with them. If I'm feeling particularly vicious, I use the candles to set fire to her hair. If froth starts to appear at your mouth, you know the healing has begun...

...oh dang, I was supposed to take my pills a good half-hour ago.

Ah man, that would be hilarious to see j-e-f-f-e-r-s.

But seriously, you've just got to ride it out, and try not to dwell on it. Drinking will just aggravate the crap you're feeling; you've just got to hope it doesn't last too long

Good luck dude

I took joy in the fact that my ex ruined her life by "Falling in love with" a man ten years older than her within days of meeting him. Some day, she is going to realize that she threw her life away and will hate herself afterwords because she was a money grubbing whore... But yeah, vengeance and whatnot aside, just let it go. Anger will only hurt you more than anything else. Let it go and life will get better quicker than if you constantly allow yourself to be brought low by it. It takes time, but it is easier than feeling bad about it...

Drong:
Drink too much, spend every hour possible with friends (many of whom i'd neglected a bit previously as being overly wrapped up in whatever break up i was in at the time) eventually calm down, meet another 'nice' girl be on top of the world again for a while until said 'nice' girl screws you over and then start the whole process again, rinse and repeat.

Bloody hell I am getting old and cynical.

Except for the drinking, that sounds like me... Yep, you must be about... 23 maturity wise, because that is how old I am and you said everything I was thinking.

I don't have help for you, Better to have loved and lost then to never have loved at all, but how would I know that?
...I'm so lonely.

J-e-f-f-e-r-s... You never fail to crack me up.

Never suffered a breakup, but in my Heinlein-esque outlook on relationships, I don't believe a relationship is like ownership.

What you need to do is get right back up on the horse...and have sex with it.

I give awesome advice.

Go on a three month binge of heavy drinking. Write an entire album and then later realize it what whiny crap that should never see the light of day. End it all by propositioning your best friend's girlfriend while drunk at a nightclub. Wake up with your key chain around your neck and no pants on. Not that I would know anything about breakups...

I don't know if this is a girl thing, but there is generally some furious housecleaning involved, including going through all the closets and drawers and other crap depositories in the house and throwing out everything that can possibly be thrown out. Especially if it came from or belonged to them. There's nothing more satisfying that dragging a big bag of trash out to the dumpster and heaving it in with a hearty, "So long, bitch!"

EDIT: This is followed by stern self-lecturing on the futility of trying to make someone else happy if they aren't already, the stupidity of dating dry-drunks and addicts who don't happen to be using at the moment, and cursing people who have decided to work out their parental issues on their hapless girlfriends/boyfriends.

As the 'King of rebound relationships'®, I can tell you from experience that getting together with anyone at this stage is a bad idea. You'll invariably take the issues from the previous relationship into the new one and end up screwing it all up and hurting someone else in the process. Picking up a girl for sex will take your mind off it for a while (as will drinking) but as soon as it wears off you'll be miserable again and, while no one else is getting hurt, you are hurting yourself in not dealing with the issues involved in the breakup. What you need is quality time alone, doing the things that YOU like doing and reconnecting with friends who you've neglected through the course of the relationship.
After a while you may start thinking about your ex, and your brain (probably to cushion the blow of the failure of the old relationship) starts romanticing your old relationship and you start thinking "hey maybe it wasn't so bad after all". If you follow that to the logical conclusion and manage to get back together with them, 9 times out of 10 you realise that yes it was as bad as you remember and both parties feel "ripped off" and dejected.

Just remember that all this is very normal and 99% of the populations goes through it, and in most of the cases, lives through it. Unfortunately I usually snap under the strain of depression and do one of the things above that I've said not to do and that's why my life is the train wreck it is now. *sigh*

Oh and Terry Tate, how are those commercials working out for you? ;-)

honestly. consider yourself lucky, you have the option to hate said girl.
whats worse is loving someone who is breaking your heart into a billion peices
because you cant blame them
you can only just sit there saying "but i love you"
as they stab you over and over.
shit i need to go drink myself.
*is envious of you!*

My goodness we have a lot of F. Scott Fitzgeralds here.

Khell_Sennet:
J-e-f-f-e-r-s... You never fail to crack me up.

creepily chuckles to oneself

You don't want to know what I do with the cutlery.

...god dammit, why do I keep forgetting my meds?!?!

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:

You don't want to know what I do with the cutlery.

...god dammit, why do I keep forgetting my meds?!?!

Get a watch with multiple alarm functions - works for me.

Nothing gets you over the last one like the next one. Although for me I would rather just detatch myself, deal with the loneliness with the help of my friends, forget women altogether and hide for a few months. (I dont drink, alcohol tastes disgusting ><)

I am actually starting to hate women, I have found if given the choice of being honest and having everything be allright or lying and having the typical Ex blowout, they will still choose to lie.

I think giving into your vices helps a lot.

Not in that it's good for you, but it allows you to place control or purpose in something else for a while, so you're not focusing on the regret.

You'll get sick of it after a while and you'll be left fresh as a daisy. Time heals all wounds, so to speak.

mshcherbatskaya:
I don't know if this is a girl thing, but there is generally some furious housecleaning involved, including going through all the closets and drawers and other crap depositories in the house and throwing out everything that can possibly be thrown out. Especially if it came from or belonged to them. There's nothing more satisfying that dragging a big bag of trash out to the dumpster and heaving it in with a hearty, "So long, bitch!"

EDIT: This is followed by stern self-lecturing on the futility of trying to make someone else happy if they aren't already, the stupidity of dating dry-drunks and addicts who don't happen to be using at the moment, and cursing people who have decided to work out their parental issues on their hapless girlfriends/boyfriends.

I'm sorry to hear that you were in relationships like that. I almost did once but luckily slapped myself back to reality in time.

Anarchemitis:
I'm so lonely.

Welcome to my world...

Since I'm in no position to give out advice, I'll refrain from... It won't help you anyways, 'cos if the woman was so cold to dump you and date another guy in 2 weeks, then she isn't worth it.

The Ultrajoe school of breaking up chicks

1) Take a giant lead pipe and...

oh... Breaking up WITH chicks, that could have gotten bad fast

1) Take an absolutely massive lead pipe and brain the sucker all over your wall, bag the remains and make a pie

2) Act as if your broken up, and then when she asks why, tell her 'oh right, you, knew i forgot something, were over'

...oh... oh... After breaking up with chicks

1) clean up

ok, serious now

for guys, tell all your mates, because you know they'll be itching to help you get over her with all the hate they built up towards her over the years/months, no guy likes a friends girlfriend... not even the ones who think they do. Then go out and bag a new one as soon as possible, infuriates the old chick and you get a new one!

For girls, call me, ill make everything alright

Dang, this server already has a dark humoured funny guy

Oh well, might as well be a 'serious' contributer... <_<

Dude, I know this sounds weird but you know what works? Chainsaw sculpturing, Its like normal sculpturing but faster and much more dangerous :P

Plus, if you sculpture the asshole that your girlfriend is with, you can cut his minature self up! Seriously, try it.

So far, a breakup has always resulted in a long period of depression and omni-hate with me. I'm a sensitive bloke when it comes to relationships.

My cure for it however, is to hang out a lot with other people, even when not feeling like it (which is all the time), do a lot of gaming and do a bunch of things you wouldn't normally do. Allow yourself to go insane for a bit.
In my experience, excessive drinking only leads to a stronger depression feeling, be it during or afterwards. I wouldn't recommend it.

Time for a well constructed wall 'o' text lol.
Funny you should mention break ups TC cause my ex just broke up with me on the 1st May(you could say new month, new start really lol). Anyways straight afterwards she started dating one of my friends, whats even worse is that he was one of those friends i could really talk to about anything so you can imagine how i must've felt.

nom_lah i was in the same position, i was breaking her heart into a billion pieces, i dont know the specifics of your situation but i was insecure about myself, im not exactly the most handsome guy and i never thought someone as beautiful as her could accept me let alone love me like she did. alot of the things i said and did to her(minus physical abuse, im not like that)hurt her alot and wats worse is that i never stopped to think or stepped back and told myself "this is wrong". dont get me wrong i loved her, she was my first gf but the things that happened said otherwise. ive had trust issues of ppl for years(even my parents)but i neednt have not been able to trust her. I was a scared little boy tbh of completely committing myself to the relationship because i always thought she wanted something from me(money etc, anything physical really), that was a selfish thing to think, me being scared of her breaking my heart ended with me breaking her heart.

when she broke up with me she said she couldnt believe she had put up with me all this time(6 months), that was how much she loved me and accepted me, she was willing to put up with all my crap because she loved me, she had never loved anyone as much as she had loved me, i felt like a complete ass, jerk, whatever names you can call me i thought i was. she could never see herself being with me ever again because she thought i could never change who i was.
suffice to say since then ive actually become alot more open and not so closed around ppl(including my parents)and my true friends who were there for me all the time yet who i somewhat ignored when i was with my ex. your friends really are your life line.

my friends have known the guy who shes going out with now for quite a while, well before they started high school, they say it wont last cause hes an ass basically, a bigger one than me which is saying something and that she will come back to me. several of my friends have been in the same situation and their exes have come back, that gives me hope. but i guess what my advice is, how i got over her was to go out with my friends, talk to them, i have loads more friends who listened to me about what had happened, alot more than that guy ever could(the guy my ex is going out with). when you have an ex like that who loved you like that its hard to let things like that go, what i did to her was unforgivable, i wont be able to forgive myself, even if we did get back together but i have learnt from my mistakes. she will see the good times we had and want to have those again. i know it may sound big headed of me but i(and im sure she does too)know that she cant have the same type of fun with him that we had, even if the bad times did outweigh the good, those good times were the best we could have ever had together, she will remember those times and come back.

im not saying she'll come back like crawl back but she will miss me, i miss her too and this time we're apart and not talking to each other(havent said a word to each other since we broke up)she will remember, i guarantee it.
im not sure about you but the way i look at it is to me realistically i must move on, have fun with my friends and grow up abit and that is what im doing, but in fairytale land(in my head)is where we are together. im lucky that i can tell the difference and not get bogged down by the fact that shes not actually with me anymore, i am secure in the knowledge that she will come back but i wont be waiting for her, i will date other women and go out and have a life but there will always be a place for her by my side when she comes back. like my mate put it, "she'll need you way before you need her" and i found that true, i woke up today after two weeks of nothing but thinking of her and i didnt think of her, there just comes a time where you accept it and get on with your life. im not so cynical to say ive forgotten about her, far from it but now i know whats real and whats not and right now i have my education and my degree to focus on.

she only broke up with me about 2 weeks(rounded up)ago and i think ive handled it quite well. been doing alot of talking with my friends, just getting opinions, advice, just help and it has helped a great deal, i cant thank them enough that im not an emotional wreck right now lol. life goes on. another piece of advice my mate told me when i told him about her coming back to me is, "you maybe right and things like that do normally happen but prepare to be wrong", which i am(prepared that is) by not pining over and latching onto memories that are dead and buried right now.

so my final advice to you TC would be talk to your friends, go out and enjoy yourself, show her you dont need her, if anything that'll make her more interested in you. its my exes bday on the 23rd and im gunna send a text to tell her happy bday just so she knows i still care, that im not completely heartless or cut her out of my life harshly, she hasnt done that, her going out with this guy straight after is childish and she will regret it, she has to make her own mistakes, just like i did and learn from them.

addendum: im 19, she is 16, im at uni, her at college, our two groups of friends are quite close together so gossip goes around alot.

mitsoxfan:
How to deal with it? Simple answer is don't. Accept that your relationship wasn't what either of you were looking for, and move on. She has, and quickly, too, I might add. and don't drink yourself into a coma, because alcohol is a depressant, and just makes things worse. Go see a movie, play some GTA IV, or break some of her stuff she left behind. Or better yet, get outside and get some physical activity. Nothing says "breakup remedy" like a few rounds in a boxing ring!

Why? Why would you play GTA III source?
BUT, to get to the point, I'm like you, comatosed for about a month. I'd just go about my daily ways, like a normal person. Then cry for hours at night 8D

I just do my grieving, longest is a week, and then I just think "alright, it's water under the bridge now, time to cross."