Obsessing about your ex wastes all your time and keeps you in a rut that you can’t get out of until you take hard steps to disconnect from them completely.
That involves a lot of will power and determination. But when you get your life back, it will have been time and energy well spent.
I get a lot of really hard stories to digest, and some of them involve people who can’t stop thinking about someone who’s no longer in their life. These obsessive thoughts can take over your mind and make it nearly impossible to move forward. In this article, I want to talk about what happens when you can’t let go of someone, even when you know the relationship is over.
Obsessive thoughts aren’t always bad. You can obsess over something positive, like a new hobby or a goal you’re working toward. But the kind of obsession I’m talking about here is the painful kind – the kind where you’re constantly thinking about someone who doesn’t want to be with you anymore, or someone who treated you badly but you still can’t get them out of your head.
This is the draining kind of obsession. The kind that makes you weak and keeps you stuck in the past. When you’re obsessing over someone who’s gone, you’re not making room for anything new in your life. You’re not making room for someone who will treat you with the respect and kindness you deserve.
The Hard Truth About Acceptance
I’m sorry to be so direct here, but it’s important to understand that if you’re obsessing over someone who left you, someone who chose not to be with you, you need to accept that they’re gone. They made a choice. They chose not to be with you, and that choice has nothing to do with your worth as a person.
When someone leaves, you have to accept that they are completely out of your life. I don’t mean accept it in a casual way where you say, “Yeah, I guess they’re gone,” but you’re still checking their social media or hoping they’ll text you. I mean truly accepting that this person is gone and will not be coming back.
One way to do this is to imagine that person as if they died. I know that sounds extreme, but think about it. If someone dies, you grieve, you process, and eventually you move forward because you know there’s no chance of them coming back.
When you are obsessing about a person no longer in your life, you have to treat the end of that relationship the same way. The person you’re obsessing over is gone from your life and they might as well be dead to you because the relationship you had with them is dead.
I know that sounds so cold! I’m not trying to be cruel. I’m trying to help you see that as long as you hold onto hope that they’ll come back, you’re keeping yourself stuck. You’ll prevent yourself from healing and moving forward. Acceptance is the first step, and it’s one of the hardest steps you’ll take.
When you truly accept that someone is gone, you stop waiting for them. You stop checking your phone hoping they texted. You stop driving by their house or looking at their pictures. You accept that what you had is over, and you start focusing on what’s ahead of you instead of what’s behind you.
You’re a Great Catch
One of the biggest reasons people get stuck in obsessive thoughts is because their self-worth is tied to the other person. They believe that if this person doesn’t want them, then they must not be good enough. They think their value as a human being is determined by whether or not someone else chooses to be with them.
That’s not true. Your worth is not determined by someone else’s choice to leave. Your worth is inherent. You are worthy simply because you exist, because you’re a human being who deserves to be treated with respect and kindness.
When someone leaves you, it doesn’t mean you’re not good enough. It means the relationship wasn’t right. Maybe they weren’t right for you, or maybe you weren’t right for them, or maybe the timing was off. There are a million reasons why relationships end, and most of them have nothing to do with your value as a person.
I want you to think about this: If your self-worth comes from within, if you know that you’re valuable regardless of who’s in your life, then you won’t be devastated when someone leaves. You’ll be sad, you’ll grieve, but you won’t question your entire existence. You won’t obsess over what you did wrong or how you can get them back.
Building self-worth takes time, especially if you’ve spent years believing that your value comes from other people. But it’s essential work. You have to learn to love yourself, to treat yourself with the same compassion and kindness you want from others.
One of the questions I ask people is, What would you do if you had absolutely no fear of the consequences?
When you ask yourself that question, the truth you need to follow usually comes out. That’s your truth, and your truth is usually the right path.
If you’re obsessing over someone and you ask yourself that question, you might realize that if you had no fear, you’d let them go. You’d move on. You’d focus on yourself and your own happiness instead of waiting for someone who doesn’t want to be with you.
Clearing Mental Space for New Possibilities
When you’re obsessing over someone from your past, you’re not making room for anyone new. Your mind is so full of this one person that there’s no space for someone who might actually be good for you, someone who will treat you with respect and kindness.
I want you to think about what you actually want in a partner. Not what this person gave you, but what you truly want. Make a list of characteristics. What qualities are important to you? Kindness, honesty, respect, someone who makes you laugh, someone who supports your goals? Write it all down.
Now compare that list to the person you’re obsessing over. Do they have those qualities? If you’re honest with yourself, probably not. If they did, you wouldn’t be in this situation. They wouldn’t have left, or they wouldn’t have treated you in a way that left you feeling this broken.
The person you’re longing for doesn’t match what you actually want. You’re not missing them – you’re missing the idea of them, or you’re missing the good moments and ignoring all the bad ones. You’re idealizing a relationship that wasn’t actually that good.
When you let go of the past, you make room for the future. You make room for someone who will meet the criteria on your list, someone who will treat you the way you deserve to be treated. But as long as you’re holding onto this person who’s gone, you’re blocking that possibility.
I’ve had people tell me they can’t imagine being with anyone else. They say this person was the only one for them, the only one who could make them happy. That’s not true. That’s your brain lying to you because you’re in pain and you want the pain to stop.
There are billions of people in this world. The idea that only one person can make us happy is ridiculous. What usually happens is that we’ve convinced ourselves that this person is the only source of happiness. That belief will definitely keep us stuck!
Practical Steps to Stop Obsessing
Now let’s talk about what you actually need to do to stop these obsessive thoughts. This isn’t going to be easy, and you’re not going to like some of what I’m about to tell you, but if you want to move forward, you need to do this work.
First, you need to cut all ties with this person. Block them on social media. Delete their number. Get rid of anything that reminds you of them. If you have pictures, put them in a box and give the box to someone else to hold, or throw it away. If you have gifts they gave you, get rid of them or at least put them somewhere you won’t see them.
I know this sounds extreme, but every time you see something that reminds you of them, you’re reinforcing the obsession. You’re giving your brain a reason to think about them. You need to eliminate those triggers.
Second, stop checking up on them. Don’t look at their social media. Don’t ask mutual friends about them. Don’t drive by their house. Every time you do any of these things, you’re feeding the obsession. You’re keeping yourself connected to them when you need to be disconnecting.
Third, you need to reframe the memories you have. When you think about the good times, you need to step outside of those memories. Imagine watching yourself in those moments from a distance, like you’re watching a movie. Make the image smaller, dimmer, further away. This helps dissociate you from the positive emotions attached to those memories.
At the same time, when you think about the bad times, the times they hurt you or disrespected you, step into those memories. Make them bigger, brighter, closer. Feel the emotions you felt in those moments. This helps you remember why the relationship ended and why you shouldn’t want this person back.
This technique comes from NLP, and it’s about changing the way your brain processes these memories. Right now, you’re probably doing the opposite – you’re stepping into the good memories and making them big and bright, and you’re pushing away the bad memories. You need to reverse that.
Fourth, you need to fill your time with other things. When you’re sitting around with nothing to do, your mind will wander back to this person. You need to stay busy. Pick up new hobbies, spend time with friends, work on projects, exercise, do anything that keeps your mind occupied.
And finally, you need to work on yourself. This is the most important part. You need to build your self-worth, strengthen your self-esteem, and learn to be happy on your own. You need to become complete within yourself so that you’re not dependent on someone else for your happiness.
When you’re complete on your own, when you know your worth and you love yourself, you won’t obsess over someone who doesn’t want to be with you. You’ll be able to let them go because you’ll know that you deserve better. You’ll know that there are other people out there who will treat you right, and you won’t settle for less than you deserve.
This process takes time. It’s not going to happen overnight. You’re going to have setbacks. There will be days when you want to reach out to them, when you want to check their social media, when the obsessive thoughts feel overwhelming. That’s normal. But you have to keep pushing forward.
Every day that you don’t contact them, every day that you work on yourself, you’re making progress. You’re healing. And eventually, you’ll wake up one day and realize you haven’t thought about them in a while. You’ll realize you’re happy again, that you’ve moved forward, and that you’re ready for something new.
The person you’re obsessing over is not the only person who can make you happy. They’re not the only person you’ll ever love. They’re just the person you’re stuck on right now because you haven’t done the work to let them go.
Do the work.
Accept that they’re gone.
Build your self-worth.
Cut all ties.
Reframe your memories.
Fill your time with other things.
And most importantly, be patient with yourself. Healing takes time, but it does happen.
You are worthy of love. You are worthy of respect. You are worthy of someone who will treat you well and make you a priority. But you have to believe that about yourself first. You have to love yourself enough to let go of someone who doesn’t love you back.
When you do that, when you truly let go and focus on yourself, you’ll be amazed at how your life changes. You’ll be amazed at the peace you feel, the happiness you find, and the new possibilities that open up for you. But it all starts with acceptance, with letting go, and with doing the hard work of healing.
You can do this. I know you can. It’s going to be hard, but you’re strong enough to get through it. Take it one day at a time, and keep moving forward. That’s all you can do, and that’s all you need to do.
