Should I still be friends with my ex-boyfriend or not?

Breakups are the worst! They can be brutal and can leave you with a hole in your heart that only he can fill. There's a feeling of emptiness and loss. Your days are all gloomy, you don't see the sun rise up any time soon, you're lost in the fog. Sounds familiar? Are you going through the aftermath of a breakup? Are you dealing with it, or are you just numb with pain still? To what degree are you missing him?

Going through a breakup is like going through a mourning process. You mourn the potential of what could have been, so you grieve and you cry and you cry some more. You want him back right now but for your own sake, right now you should focus on you. You need to deal with those feelings of missing him, they can be pretty intense.

These feelings could and will subside but you need to have a recovery plan. Nothing will happen if you continue to brood and cry your eyes out. So, first of all, give yourself time and space; this will give you a new perspective from where you can start to heal. Your emotions are all over the place so it won't be easy but you can deal with all the twists and turns. Do these for things.

As long as you don't let the missing direct your actions, is OK and even natural to miss him. Love is a drug, it works in the brain as an addiction. Habits are another reason you miss him, while you were dating you spend a lot of time thinking about him, talking to him, being with him. Getting rid of all that is not easy, but if you have acknowledged it, then you're on your path to recovery, just give it time.

Whenever thoughts of your ex-boyfriend want to invade your brain and cause you to miss him, you need to evade and replace those thoughts. There are things you can do, you can focus on something else, something that you like and can distract you. You can go out, do something for you like going to the gym or just take a walk. You can get involved in other people's projects, start new hobbies or activities that can be part of your daily routine. Completely distract yourself from missing him.

As much as your brain and your heart are screaming that you miss him so much so you just need to listen to his voice. DO NOT contact him. You both need time to heal and some much-needed space. It's not going to be easy but you need to be firm on this one step to your "recovery".

Now's a good time to focus your energy on you, on improving yourself, on becoming the best version of you. Is there something you've always wanted to do but haven't? Now is the time to try it. Go spend time with your friends (the ones you neglected while dating him). Take a vacation and go to an amazing place. Invest in yourself.

So, you're dreaming about your ex-boyfriend? Why is he showing up in your dreams? It's kind of unnerving and it isn't helping with your getting over him. What do all these dreams about him mean? Don't worry, dreams about your ex-boyfriend are not a rare occurrence, they're actually pretty common and it doesn't necessarily mean that you're still interested in him. 

He can show up in your dreams for lots of reasons, it depends on what kind of dreams you're having. Here are a couple of examples and meanings.

Dreaming about how you want him back could sometimes mean that you still have strong feelings for him but it can also mean that you miss being in a relationship, you miss feeling wanted.

If you're dreaming of getting back together with him it does not necessarily mean that you want to try again to be with him. This reunion dream could be based in a longing you have in your real life. Or, if you're in a new relationship, this dream may be triggered by some major changes that are occurring in your current relationship.

Are you on the right path to recovery from breaking up with your ex-boyfriend? Getting over your ex is not easy, it's really hard (sometimes it seems nearly impossible). Underline the word nearly, it's hard but doable if you really have the will to do it. 

How you move on?
 

The first thing you need to do is accept that the past cannot be changed and that the future depends largely on you, on what you want to make of it. So if you're set on moving forward, do it by changing your narrative. Don't ask questions like: "Why me?" "Why this happen to me?" "Where did I go wrong?" Those questions are not going to help you, they are related to things that happened in your past.

Instead, ask yourself questions that can heed useful answers, that can help you re-invent yourself. "What can I learn from this experience?" "What is the purpose of this lesson? "What things can I do differently?" These kind of questions are going to help you move forward. 

Get busy. Avoid sinking into depression, you need to pack your day with lots of activities that you enjoy or that'll keep your mind busy and away from any actions that'll prevent you from moving on. Seek other people (friends and family) and do things with them. Do a daily routine of exercises, enroll in a cooking class or in a book club. Go to someplace nice for the weekend. You'll need 30 days to form new neuropathways in your mind, to reconnect with yourself and have a new perspective. 

This is a good way to train your brain not to go back and forth between missing him and being angry with him. You can move on by acknowledging that he was not a prince but he also wasn't a total jerk. So when you start to thinking about the things you'll miss about him, instantly focus on the things that you definitely won't miss

Seek the company of people that loves you, don't stop having a social life. This company will remind you that you are loved and that'll help you heal and move on.

That's a difficult question to answer. It requires an individual assessment of your relationship with your ex. Some women might choose to stay friends with their ex-boyfriends because they're willing to embrace the good and forget the bad. Other women will prefer to cut all ties with them and move on. In any case, you need to proceed with caution. 

Staying friends with your ex-boyfriend might seem like a good idea if your breakup was somewhat amicable and if you were friends before you became a couple. But if one of you still has feelings for the other one, it could be hurtful if one of you decides to move on with another person. If the relationship was abusive or toxic, you need to cut the ties completely, you can't be friends with this man.

If you decide to stay friends with your ex-boyfriend, take this advice into consideration. 

Don't jump into the friendship right away, give yourself space. You both need to heal and grow. You may fear that if you let some time pass by, you won't able to reclaim the friendship but don't listen to fear, it doesn't give good advice. 

On again, off again relationships are not conducive to a friendship between exes. If you want the friendship to work you need to end the relationship.

If you want a healthy friendship with your ex-boyfriend you need to stay in the present. Holding on to "could have been" is not going to let the past go, it could misguide your memories and make you afraid of the future.

Once you make the switch from girlfriend-boyfriend to friends you can't share as many intimate details as you did when you were a couple. You can't confide in him the same way, the boundaries need to shift, they have to be clear to the both of you.

You might be tempted to bring him to work parties or to weddings but resist the temptation. This only leads to confusion and misleading.

Your recovery path after a breakup is full of ups and downs because getting over a breakup (as we stated before) in nearly impossible. You need mantras or reminders or inspiration to lead your heart through the tunnel and into the light.

Here are some quotes that'll come handy as you move on.

"Those awful things are survivable because we are as indestructible as we believe ourselves to be... We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreparably broken." -Miles Halter, Looking for Alaska

"A heartbreak is a blessing from God. It's just his way of letting you realize he saved you from the wrong one." Unknown

"One relationship ends but life goes on. Your ex was just a stepping stone to something better." -Susan R Sharma

Missing your ex-boyfriend and wanting to get back together are normal things to go through after a breakup. If you want to move on from that you need to buckle up and change your narrative, it's not going to be easy but if you follow a plan, you'll get there. Staying friends with your ex-boyfriend is a decision that you have to think carefully and be mature enough to pull it through. But basically, if you want to move you'll do better if you cut the ties completely.