jade green, just know that you are not alone. Breakups are so hard and it takes a lot of time and patience with yourself to be able to move on. Don’t beat yourself up for not being over it yet – it’s only been two months and he has been in your life for five years. Don’t feel guilty for still being attached when he has turned to someone new – you are still healing and becoming stronger.

First things first: block all ways for you to contact and see him. You’ve got to break off the part of you that identifies with him. There’s a quote from another Tiny Buddha article that I think holds true universally – you cannot write the next chapter of your life when you’re still rereading the last one. Let your emotions wash over you, and if what results is a breakdown, do it! Cry and let the grief of what has past out of your system. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but your separation when it happened is what is best for the both of you. Grief hurts so much, I know, but those are the same feelings that will ultimately heal you.

Don’t put yourself in his shoes and think about what he must be feeling – not only is there no way that you can really know how he is feeling, but the things that you tell yourself are just making it harder for you to love yourself because inherent in the phrasing is this feeling that there was something wrong with you, that you did the damage of what your relationship has become, and this guilt for not being over someone who has hurt you deeply. It’s okay to not be over someone who has become hurtful and I really believe that it’s even harder to get over someone who has betrayed/lied to/cheated on you because you must mourn the person you thought he was, the type of person who would never hurt you but has ended up causing you unspeakable pain. You doubt yourself and think that you should have known what you absolutely could never have known. All I can say is to be patient with yourself, journal, FEEL, don’t think. You are so strong, and every day you are a step closer to healing, even if it doesn’t feel like it, because every day is one more day that you have lived without the person you never thought you would have to live without.

Kate, that strong, confident, loving person you were still exists. You were a whole, complete person before you knew him, and you still are now. He didn’t make you whole and it wasn’t because of him that you were strong.

I know it doesn’t feel that way when you wake up miserable and constantly ruminating about how your life has come to what it is right now, but that’s just because the pain of loss and the struggle of rebuilding your life without someone you never thought you’d have to live without is blinding you. Science literally shows that what the brain goes through after a breakup is very similar to the withdrawal that cocaine addicts experience when separated from the drug. It’s you going through the process of kicking your addiction that makes you feel weak and incomplete right now. Add to that the stresses of being in a new country without any support system or employment, and anyone would be feeling the way you do right now. But here’s the thing – life is still happening and you are moving along with it. You’re seeking out healthy ways to heal and looking for support from places like this. That is how you know that you are INCREDIBLY strong and that’s how you can and should definitely still take pride in your strength. Because you ARE living without him, and even though there are still lots of obstacles for you to overcome, every day that passes, no matter how brutal, is one more day you’ve lived without the person you once counted on and sacrificed so much for – that is proof of the strength that you have inside you!

He wasn’t willing to show you the same love and fidelity and basic human courtesy that you showed him and it’s going to take time and self-love for you to “let that go.” That’s okay – there’s no timeline for you to let things go, you are allowed to feel what you feel, when you feel it, no matter what. The bottom line is that you deserve someone who DOES show you that love and fidelity, and that is how you know that you were meant for much better than he could give you. Even if you’re not religious, all you need to have faith in is yourself, that you are enough and loveable. That being alone is much better than being put through the same heartache and betrayal and hurt that continuing a relationship with him would cause. Remember that you would be stuck perpetually dealing with even more of his shit if you two were still together. Instead you get to fall in love with yourself, you get to be selfish rather than continuing to sacrifice for him, and you get to start a new life in a new country where you are free to do anything you want. Revel in that – he’s some other poor girl’s problem now.

I just wanted to echo what sara80 said above – neither of you two are alone in this struggle or this situation. Even when we know that the people we thought we knew or once loved are bad for us and don’t deserve our presence in their lives, it’s really difficult to dissociate ourselves because you must mourn both the person you thought would never hurt you as well as the future you’ll never have. And even when they’re scum, when they’ve made it clear that they don’t “want you” there’s this part that asks, well if they’re so awful and don’t deserve me anyway, why don’t they want me??

Allow yourself to do that mourning and feel that sadness. Don’t hate yourself or fight yourself for still wanting it to work out in your heart because you’re grieving a real loss – the person you thought you knew has died, is never coming back, and it’s okay to miss him, but know that the him that exists now is nowhere near the same person you once let into your heart. I think there’s a guilt that comes in recognizing that you do miss someone who people says you shouldn’t. That you should be too angry and stronger than to still have any feelings for a lying cheater. But that’s just not the way it works – you’re not weak for missing him, you’re just human.