If you’ve recently broken up or are about to break up, you probably want to know what to do when you and your boyfriend break up. You’re curious about whether you should talk, unfollow each other, hang out, hang out with the same group of friends, return each other’s belongings, get rid of reminders of each other, and share the custody of the pets.
Breakups complicate the relationship between you and your ex-boyfriend, so you definitely shouldn’t keep acting like everything’s fine and can carry on as if nothing’s changed. If you pretend the breakup never happened and behave as before, you’ll likely feel emotions you don’t want to feel and complicate the already complicated situation.
You’ll confuse each other and wonder why you stayed close to each other.
As exes, you shouldn’t keep interacting and holding on to each other. You should keep some space from each other and focus on different people, hobbies, and interests. That way, you will slowly regain your identity and fall back in love with yourselves. Exes who ignore the need to disconnect from each other make healing and moving on very difficult for each other.
Dumpers usually feel suffocated, angry, and bitter—whereas dumpees tend to stay anxious, scared, depressed, and hopeful. They keep thinking their ex might come back around if they demonstrate that they can be trusted and a worthy investment.
Hence, it’s super important to know that dumpees and dumpers have different wants and needs and that they can’t and shouldn’t try to be friends, friends with benefits, or anything in between. They should consider the breakup the end of their relationship and focus on things that make them happy.
This can be anything that takes their mind off their relationship and reduces post-breakup pain, self-blame, and obsession.
There’s a lot you can do when you and your boyfriend break up. Probably the most important thing you can do is to reflect on the relationship; especially your mistakes and shortcomings. Think about the times you behaved impulsively, selfishly, and inconsiderately with your boyfriend, and come up with healthier ways to deal with those situations.
Consider writing the solutions down as writing may help you focus, learn, and improve. Journaling is a great way to deal with anxiety and grow as a person. You can go over your notes whenever you feel like it and engrave the changes into your brain.
Other than journaling, you should also keep as busy as possible. Talk to friends and family, make new friends, focus on work or studies, travel, learn new skills, take up new hobbies, and do things that give your life meaning. You want to make sure your life has short and long-term goals and that it keeps moving forward.
If you don’t have much to do in your life, you could question your purpose and self-worth and feel like a failure. It’s important to be a productive member of society. You need goals to work toward whether you’re focusing on a career, getting a degree, or looking after your children or parents,
You need a reason to get up in the morning and do something. A productive lifestyle prevents you from putting yourself down and falling into depression. This especially applies to dumpees. Their self-esteem has been damaged, so they need to work on something that makes them feel accepted and fulfilled.
They should engage in healthy and productive hobbies that allow them to build their self-love from the ground up. Dating doesn’t let them do that. Another person tends to disappoint them because they look for a replacement for their ex.
So don’t look for another person to take over your ex’s role. Don’t do it even if you’re a dumper. The moment your ex learns you’re in a new relationship, your ex will take it personally and suffer immensely. Just like your dumpee ex, you should also focus on self-improvement. You may not feel like it, but you should think about your flaws and errors.
It will let your ex blame him/herself less and also help you maintain your future relationship.
Dumpers often feel super relieved and excited after the breakup. They want to show the world they’ve made the right decision and that they’re happy without their ex. That’s why they post happy selfies (often with other people) and join dating apps.
They don’t know that their actions hurt their brokenhearted ex and that they’re missing out on self-growth.
Because they ignore the need to grow, they usually make the same mistakes in the future, fail romantically, and feel forced to change when it may already be too late to fix the relationship.
So if you want to know what to do when you and your boyfriend break up, do everything that helps you become a better person and partner. Invest in your shortcomings, mental health, hobbies, and ambitions that help you now and in the future. Take the breakup seriously so you don’t find yourself in a similar situation in the future.
You want the breakup to educate and guide you rather than make you stagnant and cause you more problems later down the road. You can avoid problems later by investing in yourself now. Your ex may not want to do the hard work (especially if he or she is the dumper), but that doesn’t mean you should do the same.
After the breakup, you’re both individually responsible for your maturity, well-being, and success. You decide whether you’re happy with your relationship performance and if you want similar experiences in the future.
In this article, we shed some light on what to do when you and your boyfriend break up. We talk both about dumpees’ and dumpers’ responsibilities.
What to do when you and your boyfriend break up?
Depending on who left who, someone may feel tempted to beg and plead and change the course of the breakup. That someone is the dumpee – the person who gets dumped. He or she may feel tempted to guilt-trip and reason with the determined and detached ex. By trying to manipulate the dumper into giving the relationship another chance, the dumpee may come across as desperate and unattractive.
He or she may scare the dumper when he or she asks for friendship or checks up on the dumpee.
As an ex-couple, you’ve got to help the dumpee accept the breakup, process it, and avoid confusion, self-blame, and insecurities. You’ve got to be mindful and treat the dumpee empathetically and respectfully. Likewise, you must avoid pressuring, guilt-tripping, and annoying the dumper with questions and problems that no longer concern the dumper.
The dumper left the relationship to self-prioritize and feel free. He or she doesn’t want, nor expect to be forced to do things that drain his or her energy and time.
Therefore, both the dumpee and the dumper must act maturely and considerately of each other’s feelings and emotional capabilities. They must both keep their distance and respect each other’s boundaries. If boundaries aren’t respected, they may argue and/or think poorly of each other. They may even say or do things to hurt each other and receive validating responses.
To avoid drama and complications, you must stop interacting with each other. In other words, you must go no contact. No contact will prevent you from saying, doing, and expecting things that aren’t helping your situation. The indefinite no contact rule is the most important rule you can follow as an ex-couple.
The quicker you go no contact, the quicker you can avoid hurting each other, making each other feel uncomfortable, and delaying each other’s healing and happiness.
So don’t treat the breakup like a relationship and try to hold on to each other. The breakup requires you to follow a completely different set of rules, also known as the rules of no contact. These rules must be respected until you’ve both processed the breakup and realized you still respect each other and want to communicate/be friends.
If you try to be friends too early, the dumpee will feel hopeful and the dumpee pressured. This can be prevented simply by adhering to no contact and finding ways to be happy without each other.
Unfortunately, some exes ignore each other’s feelings and try to cheat the system. They think they owe each other friendship or that they may be able to reconcile after a while. Such exes make each other feel difficult emotions and often bring out the worst in each other.
Oftentimes, they ignore, block, ghost, or verbally attack each other.
That’s why it’s best to leave each other alone and live separate lives. Learn to rely on yourself for various wants and needs and encourage your ex to do the same. When you regain your independence, you’ll see that no contact has helped you get your lives back in order.
The time after the breakup is meant for you to process your emotions and grow as an individual. Don’t waste it by befriending your ex, chasing your ex’s approval, stressing your ex, changing your ex’s mind, gifting your ex, or seeking revenge. You’ll feel much better if you focus on yourself and get rid of any remaining reminders of your ex.
This includes deleting conversations, discarding photos, letters, and gifts, unfollowing your ex, and doing everything in your power to avoid your ex. If you know your ex will be where you’re going, don’t go. You’ll feel better if you don’t see your ex and feel forced to interact. That’s because you won’t analyze your ex’s body language, words, and intentions.
You’ll simply keep healing and letting go of your ex.
If you handle the breakup right, you’ll process unhealthy emotions and see your ex for the person he or she truly is.
Having said that, here’s what to do when you and your boyfriend break up.
What not to do after breaking up?
The most important thing not to do after breaking up with your boyfriend is to stay in touch and expect things from him or her. Don’t expect your boyfriend to tag along for the ride even though he or she is no longer your partner. Although some exes are okay with it (usually due to separation anxiety and fear of being alone), most exes aren’t.
Most exes who try to stay friends suffer because of it.
They develop a pattern of talking to their ex and feeling confused, misunderstood, and unfulfilled.
Talking is for friends and partners, not ex-partners. Exes should converse only when they need to. And they need to when they have (moral) obligations such as a lot of anxiety and kids. Other times, they shouldn’t be anywhere near each other. Space helps them rebuild their confidence and self-love and makes them stronger.
You also shouldn’t date other people. Dating can feel empowering but only while dumpees are hurt and crave validation. When dumpees get used to the new person, they once again start to miss their ex. As for dumpers who date, they hurt their ex and skip the self-improvement phase.
Both dumpees and dumpers should put off dating for a few months. Dumpees should delay it longer to get their ex out of their system.
Another thing you shouldn’t do is talk badly about each other, especially to mutual friends. Friends will have a hard time staying neutral if you try to make each other look bad. They might pick sides and even stop talking to the person who presents him/herself as the biggest victim.
If you want to do the right thing, don’t make each other look bad. You can talk about your problems and feelings, but not about each other’s bad behaviors, habits, and traits.
Another common mistake is that exes often overprioritize things they’re good at and underprioritize things that need improving. For example, they spend a lot of time socializing or making money and not enough time investing in self-awareness and communication. They get through the breakup, but they don’t improve much or enough.
As for those who do improve, they often stop improving when they deal with pain, guilt, or shame. Many times, they slowly revert back to their old selves and face similar issues. It’s important to monitor your growth and work on it continuously. Self-development shouldn’t stop when you’ve dealt with the breakup and found someone else.
You needn’t overanalyze everything, but do stay aware of your mistakes and actively work on them. Your goal should be to evolve and do better with your next partner.
Did you learn what to do when you and your boyfriend break up? What do you think you should and shouldn’t do? Post your comment in the comments section below.
However, if you’d like to talk about your breakup privately, subscribe to 1-on-1 coaching. We’ll go through your breakup together and devise a long-term plan.
My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.
