What to Do When You Can’t Stop Obsessing Over Your Ex’s New Relationship

In general, having exes is hard.

Coping with the loss of someone you care about can be challenging and demanding enough, but it's made exponentially worse when your ex moves on before you do.

Unfortunately, obsessing over your former S.O.'s new relationship is bad for everyone involved, most of all yourself. Keep scrolling for our best tips to rid yourself of your fixation on your ex's new romance.

Monitor Your Thoughts

Although your obsession may extend to social media stalking or incessantly talking to your friends about your ex's new relationship, it all starts in your own mind. The actions are just symptoms of your own overactive imagination assigning too much personal meaning to this romance.

Therefore, ending your obsession starts with monitoring your own mind. Recognize where your thoughts are going, acknowledge them and slowly work to change your mindset. The more conscious you are of how you feel, the more prepared you'll be to deal with your negative emotions, which will eventually help you stop those thoughts all together.

(Crazy Ex-Girlfriend via The CW)

 

Be Realistic

Once you've become skilled in identifying your thoughts and feelings about your ex's new romance, you can begin to shift your thinking. Oftentimes we're flooded with fear that this new partner is claiming your place in your ex's life.

In reality, the harsh truth is that you no longer have that place in your ex's life—that's what a breakup means. Instead of assigning a sense of betrayal to this new relationship, try to logically think about how their new romance affects your life. Chances are it's your own thoughts that are affecting your situation, as their actual relationship likely doesn't have any real bearing on your day-to-day existence.

 

Start Small

Stopping yourself from obsessing over your ex's new relationship is going to require real effort on your part. However, simply demanding that you not think about it any more isn't going to work—it's too big an ask. Instead, start with small changes you can stick to. Don't look at their social media for a whole day or refrain from bringing it up with your friends for one conversation. Starting with smaller goals gives you chance to make some real changes. As you meet those small tasks, you can start increasing what you want little by little. Eventually, letting go of those troublesome thoughts will become a natural habit and not an insurmountable idea.

 

Block Early and Often

For some reason, blocking people on social media is considered a bad thing. It's consistently called petty or ridiculous to remove people from your digital sphere, even if seeing their posts causes you pain. We definitely don't take this view.

If images of your ex's new relationship are upsetting, don't be afraid to hit that block button. If you can't stop stalking their new partner's profile to learn more about their relationship, block them too. Blocking allows you to separate yourself from a situation that upsets you and removes triggers that could send you spiraling into a pit of worry. As long as you're taking care of yourself, it shouldn't matter who you choose to block and when you choose to block them.

(Crazy Ex-Girlfriend via The CW)

 

Figure Out What's Missing

Oftentimes, people obsess over their ex's new relationship because it sparks feelings of insecurity or inadequacy. Instead of dealing with what's missing in your own life, you transfer all those feelings onto their relationship, blaming the fact that they moved on for the way you feel.

Therefore, the best way to truly stop yourself from worrying about what your ex is doing is to figure out what's missing from your own life. If it's a relationship, consider jumping back into the dating scene. If it's a sense of boredom, invest your energy into a new activity. Not only will it allow you to fill that void that's making you so worried, it will also shift your attention to yourself and your needs, instead of what your ex is doing.

 

Looking for more advice on moving on from an ex? Click HERE for tips on how to shift your negative mindset after a breakup.