It really does get better, I promise.

A little background on my breakup. I am 28m and my ex-fiance is 29f. We dated for just over a year and a half and then broke up. We broke up about 4 months ago. I initiated the breakup, but I think she realized it was for the best, so lets call it a mutual breakup. Now, just because I initiated the breakup does not mean I was able to walk away from the relationship like nothing happened. It was pure hell. In fact, I fell into a major depression. You can see from my past posts that I was in a really really bad place. My world fell apart and I was in a terribly low and dark place. I still am not 100%. I still get depressed at times and my worldview is still tainted from the breakup. However, I am doing so much better.

Here are some important things that I learned that I think everyone who is going through a breakup should know:

1) The initial shock of the breakup will likely be very painful. It might take a bit of time for it to sink in, or it might sink in all at once when the breakup occurs. You will start to realize more and more that your ex was a really big part of your life. Things that you do everyday and the way that you think about things everyday will change due to your breakup. For example, when something cool just happened during my day or if I saw something interesting, I would text or call my finace about it and just chat. After the breakup I would find myself reaching for my phone out of habit to call her. It hurt a lot. So just understand that you will get hit in the gut at first. Since the feeling is so new to you, it will hurt like hell. Be ready for this and know that its normal. You will be in a ton of pain. Know that this is to be expected and is normal. It may be the worst pain you have felt in your life. I know for me it was.

2) You should create a rational thinking mind within your mind. That sounds confusing and weird, and it is a little weird but let me explain. Depending on the breakup itself, you may find yourself going through moments of clarity and clear thinking. During these moments, you feel great. You are able to see the relationship through an unbiased filter and the breakup makes sense to you. You MUST take advantage of these moments of clarity. Write down what your thinking, make a list of reasons why the breakup makes sense and is actually a good thing, make a recording on your phone or computer of you telling yourself all these things. The recordings are great because you can listen to one when your feeling down. Speak to yourself as if your another person, reassure yourself, tell yourself that things will be okay and that you will be better off. Tell yourself all the great points that you came up with while thinking clearly. Its very important to set a few "undebatable truths." Write down things that are total facts, no matter how you might be feeling. For example you may write that you and your ex would have never worked out because you two were not compatible on a few key issues. Write down that no matter how you may be feeling when reading this, just know that this is a 100% fact that was written down while you were thinking clearly. There is no debating this. It is fact, end of story. Take advantage of your moments of clarity. Dont let them just pass, use them.

3) The memories will get easier to experience. I had a lot of trouble with this and still do at times, but am much much better than I was at the beginning. You will think back to wonderful times that you had with your ex and your mind wont be able to handle the fact that the person who you experienced all this with is no longer part of your life. You will find it so sad to think that one time you and your ex went away for the weekend and walked around that beautiful garden holding hands, talking about how much you love each other and how your both excited about the future, and now that person is a stranger to you. Well let me just tell you that these memories will get much easier to comprehend. Your mind simply needs time to adjust. In time, your mind will be more rational and will be able to say "remember that weekend you spent with your ex walking around the gardens? That was really fun. Its funny how the two of you were talking about your future together. It shows you that you need to really be careful in life and always expect the unexpected. Well it was a really fun weekend." Give your mind time to adjust to this new landscape that no longer includes your ex. Its okay to think about the past, but dont do it too much. Also, its VERY important to try to not romanticize the memories. I did this. I would think back to things we did and I would make them better than they really were. For example, that weekend. I would allow myself to forget the little fights we got in that exposed some of the compatibility issues that lead to our breakup. I forget about the little things she did and said that made me wonder. Or the things she did and said that pissed me off. In my mind the memory was heavenly and perfect and amazing and totally unrealistic and not based in reality. Your mind will stop doing this as well, though you need to help your mind with this too. Try to be conscious of your thoughts and use your clear thinking mind (from item 2 above) to remind yourself that those memories are romanticized. Romanticized memories can be very destructive to you and your healing process.

4) No contact. It seems almost unnecessary to list this here since its mentioned over and over and over again on this subreddit, but I think its the most important part of the healing process. I did not do no contact at first and it cost me a lot of time and emotional pain. The relationship is over, dont contact your ex anymore. Also, no contact includes any knowledge or information regarding your ex. So checking on them online is included in that. Here is a really great post regarding checking on your ex online and why it is a terrible idea: http://www.reddit.com/r/BreakUps/comments/1enu7x/is_no_contact_the_key_to_my_problems/ca21w10 This doesnt mean that you will never see or talk to your ex ever again. For some people, it becomes ok to talk to their ex. You will have to decide this on your own. For me, I think that it could never happen? If you think it could happen, I would advise to consider thinking differently. First of all it will mess up with your healing. You will be thinking of the time when you and your ex will communicate again and you will be living for that coming moment. Also, whats the point? It will bring nothing positive to you. This is up to you but be cautious. If you went no contact and are healed and feeling better, dont risk throwing away all that progress by being in contact with your ex, because it will destroy progress.

5) Time will heal. A lot of what you experience and go through at the beginning of a breakup is really painful and truly some of the worst emotional pain that you may experience in your life. It will seem totally impossible to ever get out of the pain. Just know that time will heal. Your clear thinking mind should reassure you of this. Time WILL heal and time WILL make you feel better. Every additional day that you go will be one day closer to you becoming the real you again. Have faith in time and trust time to do its magic.

6) Keep occupied. As mentioned in the last item, time will do its magic. However, time can also be your worst enemy if you dont keep yourself occupied. If you spend your days in sadness and sorrow thinking about your ex and how your life sucks, you will make your life a living hell. You need to keep busy. Obviously you can only keep yourself so busy, in fact here is a thread I started on this very topic: http://www.reddit.com/r/BreakUps/comments/1ekttn/i_can_only_keep_myself_busy_for_so_long/ Basically, keeping yourself busy is important because it shows you that there is more out there. I made a big mistake of not keeping myself busy enough and what it did was very destructive. It placed me in a bubble where my entire world consisted of me, my depression, my sadness and my ex. Nothing else existed in my world. This elevated my ex to a very high level of importance in my life and it made me miss her. It made my life seem incomplete without her. Beware of this bubble! If you feel yourself entering this type of bubble mentality, get out there! Go out with friends, go workout, go to nearest busy city and just walk around. Do anything. The world is huge and you cant trap yourself within a small false bubble that simply makes you a weaker and more depressed person. Dont let time be your enemy because if you turn time into your enemy, it will beat the crap out of you. Even if you dont feel like going out to do something, just do it. And then do it again and again. It will help you, I promise!

7) Do not do anything stupid!! If your thinking about telling your ex how he/she is the love of your life and you cant live out them, STOP. If your thinking about sending your ex flowers or a gift of some kind, STOP. If your thinking about going to see your ex at work or at school and surprise them with your love, STOP. I had the urge to send my ex flowers, but I thankfully didnt. Looking back on it now, I am so happy that I didnt. It would have done nothing good for me or for her. You need to trust your clearly thinking mind and know for a fact that doing anything like that for your ex will not have a good outcome. You might know for a fact that its the right thing to do and you might know for a fact that your ex will welcome it with open arms and that when you do it the heavens will open and doves will fly around you two, but your wrong. Your not thinking clearly. Do nothing. Dont think that you live in a movie, this is real life. Actions have consequences for you and your ex. If it seems like it MIGHT be a bad idea, dont do it. Sleep on it.

8) Your ex is no longer a factor in your life. You need to move on from your ex. Do not think of them as a factor in your life. Dont prevent yourself from doing things because your ex may not approve of it or because it might kill all chances of you and your ex getting back together. You and your ex are not together, so move on. Your not restricted to do anything anymore, you are your own person and you can do as you wish when you wish. No longer think of your ex when your living your life, think of yourself only. If you want to do something, just do it. Dont think of how it might affect you and your ex. Your single now, act like it.

9) Get back out there. Go out with friends, enjoy life, get a break from being so down and sad. For me, it was hard to go out to bars and parties and things like that. And thats ok. I was just not ready for that yet. However, I still went out with friends and spent time with them and hung out and saw movies and went to restaurants and even bars (getting out of your comfort zone is important). When you go out with friends it soothes your mind and lets you know that life goes on and you can experience life without your ex. Now I know that you may be telling yourself "there is no way I can go out with my friends, I am a wreck and I will hate it and I just want to stay in bed." This is destructive. Get yourself out there. Take your own car if you have to, so that you can leave whenever you want. But you will likely not want to leave because you will be leaving good friends in order to go back home and be depressed. Nobody would choose that when in the moment and your friends will help you from making that choice. Your mind may tell you not to go but once you actually go, you will enjoy it. It wont heal everything, but it will be a big factor in you moving on.

10) Use this opportunity to make yourself a better person. Your sad, you have time on your hands, you feel weak and dont want to do much. Well then use this time to make yourself a better person. Think about the relationship and how you could have been a better person. Look within yourself. You will learn a lot about yourself through this process, so be smart about it. Come out of this experience a better and more whole person. Experience things that you never have, meet people you have never thought to meet, do things that you always wanted to do.

11) Write. Keep a journal or diary of your feelings and what your doing. Writing things down has helped me cope with the hurt. For some reason, when we write things down it eases our thoughts. Its almost as if we spoke to someone. Getting the thoughts and feelings out of our minds and onto paper is therapeutic and it also creates a record of our thoughts and feelings which will likely be an interesting thing to come back to and read. Your going to learn a lot about yourself.

12) Things honestly do get better. I am not even that far into my breakup and I can already tell you that things get better. Thoughts and memories and fears that were at one point very very painful and difficult to deal with become easier and more normal. It all comes back to time. The more time our minds have to get used to this new life, the easier it all gets. The easier it is for our minds to accept this new life that we have. Even things like accepting the fact that your ex will be intimate with another person is something that will become easier. Reading that last sentence may have made you cringe and cry if your fresh into a breakup, but just think of this. One day you will not care AT ALL about that. Not even a little bit. I promise. Please feel hopeful knowing this. I will include a bit about me here: I was in bad shape. I was really depressed and really sad over the whole breakup, where my life was due to the breakup (alone), had bad thoughts about the future, didnt know what to do with myself...etc. Some of those feelings are still there and I know by this point that I can be good for a little while and then BAM I am back to feeling like crap, so I say this with caution but I am doing so so much better. I helped myself get here using some of the tips above, but overall it was really time that allowed me to get here. Everyone is different and the circumstances of every breakup are different, so your experiences may be better or worse than mine, but just know that time really does fix a lot. I went from feeling like total crap to feeling good and feeling even a little excited about the future and about dating and about my life.

tl;dr - basically to quickly sum up the important parts: be ready for pain, go no contact, let time do its thing, dont make the healing process harder than it should be, time will heal, give it time, time is powerful. TIME! You will be just fine, I promise. GIVE IT TIME!!! YOU WILL BE 110% BETTER (110% because you will actually come out of this whole thing better than you were before)

You can PM me and I will try to respond as much as I can, as quickly as I can.