How To Cope With Your Ex Dating Someone New?

There’s no denying that breakups can be extremely stressful for both the body and mind. But if there’s one thing that makes them even more stressful, it’s when you see your ex dating someone new and having a good time with that person.

That can quickly become one of the most traumatizing moments of your life as seeing your ex with someone else brings out your worst fears. It reminds you that you can no longer have what you used to have and that someone else is receiving those benefits instead of you.

As a person who’s still in love with your ex, you don’t want some random person your ex found on Tinder to take your spot. That spot belongs to you (at least in your mind), so you want to fight for it and regain what is rightfully yours.

There’s just one problem though. Your ex doesn’t want you to fight for love. Your ex wants you to accept the breakup and let him or her focus on the new person. It’s what your ex wants right now, so you don’t really have a choice but to give your ex and the new person room to breathe.

You have to do it out of respect for them as well as for yourself.

So if you’re wondering why it hurts so much to see your ex dating someone else, it’s because you’ve been secretly looking for hope. Hope that your ex still respects you and feels something for you.

But instead of stumbling across signs that your ex still loves you which would make you feel better about yourself, all you found is proof that your ex is moving on and that he or she feels very little for you.

“Very little” is of course just a euphemism for nothing as dumpers usually feel close to nothing. They experience occasional self-doubts, fears, and even feelings of guilt, but that is almost never enough for them to change their minds and come back.

What changes their minds after the separation is when their one and only plan burns to the ground and the harsh reality of their actions makes it impossible for them to enjoy their lives.

That’s when they usually run back to their ex at lightning speed and for the lack of better words, throw themselves at their ex’s feet.

Dumpers do this because their fears and anxiety consume them (become too difficult for them to manage), so they look for a person who’s strong, confident, and easy to rely on.

That person is usually an ex because to them, exes are backup plans for times when things go south and all hope is lost.

So if you’re trying to learn about how to cope with your ex dating someone new, give yourself some time to process what you just saw. Try to understand that you just found out something you weren’t hoping to find and that you’ll now need to work through the pain and suffering your ex has caused you.

In this article, we’ll talk about the necessary measures you need to take to heal and to avoid getting your heart pierced again.

How to cope with your ex dating someone new?

If you’re having a difficult time coping with your ex dating someone new, you’ll need to do the opposite of what your broken heart is telling you to do.

Instead of talking to your ex, demanding explanations, accusing your ex of moving on too quickly, begging for another chance, and calling your ex names, you’ll have to regain control of your emotions and learn a thing or two about breakups.

You’ll have to emotionally comprehend that acting on jealousy, anger, shock, and pain won’t make your ex come back nor fix your anxiety or depression. It will just anger, hurt, or guilt-trip your ex and force you to have another relapse.

So do your best not to project your negative emotions onto your ex and instead, use healthier ways to cope with your ex dating someone new, like the ones mentioned later in this article.

It will probably be difficult to get the thought of your ex dating someone else out of your head at first because you’ll crave your ex’s recognition as much as water and oxygen, but as days go by, you’ll slowly develop resistance to pain.

You’ll become immune to what your ex says and does, and most importantly, to whomever he or she dates and brags about online.

If you focus on yourself, your own happiness will soon become a priority, and your ex and the person he or she dates just two unimportant people who make no difference to your life.

With that said, here are 7 tips on how to cope with your ex dating someone new.

1)Delete your social media accounts or unfollow, delete, or block your ex

Normally, I don’t suggest blocking an ex because blocking can make you appear impulsive and cause your (victimized) ex to react with anger and fury.

But if you’re struggling to cope with your ex dating someone new because your ex is doing something to hurt you (something like sending you their pictures and taunting you), then blocking your ex is highly recommended.

It may not bring your ex back and heal you right away, but it will nonetheless create a wall between you and your ex and force-stop your brain from obsessing over your ex’s new partner.

To decide what to do with your ex, ask yourself if seeing your ex dating someone new hurts you.

Does it make you extremely anxious, obsessed, or depressed? Does it cause you pain and make it difficult for you to perform your daily tasks?

If it does and you can’t stop analyzing your ex’s social media no matter how hard you try, it might be for the best that you deactivate or permanently delete your account. You might lose a few mentions and conversations with people, but at least you’ll push your ex out of sight and prevent yourself from getting hurt by your ex’s newfound happiness.

You need to put yourself first. And you need to do this no matter how responsible you feel for the breakup and how badly you want your ex back. Nothing matters more than your health.

Especially not your ex.

Contrastingly, if you’re emotionally healthy and in control of your emotions, then there’s no need to close your social media accounts. You can simply unfollow your ex (hide your ex’s posts from showing up on your feed) and do your best to avoid checking up on your ex whenever you feel the urge to do so.

By unfollowing your ex and refusing to react to your ex’s social media activity, you’ll essentially prioritize your own emotional well-being and prove to yourself, your ex, and others that what your ex posts online is no longer your concern.

2)Go no contact – forever

If there’s one thing that can help you cope with your ex dating someone new, it has to be no contact. No contact will help you get back on your feet and allow you to find joy in life again.

But no contact isn’t just about ceasing contact and leaving the rest up to fate. That’s not what no contact is all about.

No contact also entails:

• forgiving yourself for hurting your ex and your ex for hurting you
• rebuilding your confidence and self-esteem
• regaining your power
• focusing on your well-being and enjoying life
• learning more about relationships, improving your shortcomings, and bettering yourself
• finding your passion and living a more fulfilling life
• and doing your best to become the best version of yourself in every way possible

Getting your happiness back and improving yourself will of course take time and effort. But so will your ex’s negative perceptions of you and his or her new relationship.

It’d be unreasonable to think that your ex’s new relationship (rebound or not) will fail within a couple of weeks. That almost never happens because it takes way longer than that to get to know a person intimately and see how he or she handles conflicts and difficult situations.

From my observations, it normally takes new couples at least a few months before they start feeling impatient, dissatisfied, and/or repulsed by each other.

And that’s only if they’re underdeveloped as people and not good for each other.

Only the most incompatible couples break up within days or weeks. But those are usually the couples who shouldn’t be dating others either because they’re not over their exes or because they need more self-investment.

Either way, you don’t want to just sit back and do nothing with your life. You want to use this painful, yet valuable time to reflect on your previous relationship/s and invest in areas of your life that need the most care and attention.

Everyone should have internal (and external) goals to work on. I have them too.

That’s why if you can’t find anything to improve on, it doesn’t mean that there’s nothing for you to improve. It just means that you haven’t engaged in introspection yet and that there’s much more for you to discover about yourself.

3)Focus fully on healing

Once you’ve taken away your ex’s ability to hurt you and reflected on your mistakes, make sure to maximize your healing by getting rid of things that deepen your ex-cravings and trigger unwanted emotions.

You can do that by:

• deleting your ex’s number and stop yourself from scrolling/swiping through old conversations
• discarding or putting away your ex’s pictures, harmful gifts, and things that remind you of your ex and trigger nostalgia
• practicing daily acceptance and letting-go affirmations
• forgetting about the false promises your ex had made and the way your relationship could have been if it worked out

As a dumpee, your priority should be on healing. So do everything in your power to let go of false hope because the more false hope you let go of, the better you’ll feel and stronger you’ll become.

Letting go of someone you love is ridiculously hard, I know. But you don’t need to dump all your false hope overnight. Detachment won’t happen that quickly because a part of you will want you to keep holding on.

It will keep convincing you that your ex is your Mr/Ms perfect and that you’ll never find someone as good as your ex ever again.

Of course, that’s just your fears and anxiety speaking. The truth is that you will find someone that good. If you work on yourself and know what you want, you’ll find someone even better.

It may not be your ex because some exes never come back, but that’s okay! What matters is that you’ll love and be loved again.

4)Bear in mind that you will change but your ex won’t

This might not seem like a good tip on how to cope with your ex dating someone new, but honestly, it’s a really good tip because comparing yourself to your ex will make you feel much better.

It will reassure you that your ex won’t grow much if any at all and that as bad as things look for you, you have an advantage in life because of it.

The pain you’re in absolutely sucks. But because it sucks, you’ll be able to learn and improve 100 times faster than your happy, relieved, victimized ex.

This is because the emotions dumpers feel don’t promote self-growth. The smothering emotions actually force them to play the blame game and allow them to stay on the same maturity level.

Just ask any dumper. Ask them what they’ve learned from the breakup. Most of them will probably tell you that they’ve learned not to put up with certain behavior and that they’ll be more careful about the kind of person they get involved with in the future.

Such dumpers obviously don’t change much because they looked for flaws in their exes rather than in themselves. Only a small majority of dumpers (the mature ones) actually change.

But those are normally the people who admit their faults and start working on them immediately.

I’m telling you this so that you can use your ex’s lack of reflection and personal improvement to make yourself feel better.

When your ex ignores the importance of self-growth and monkey-branches straight into the next relationship, your ex obviously doesn’t reflect on the previous relationship.

All your ex does is move from one place to the next and faces the same or similar issues with the next person.

5)Control how much pain gets to you

If you truly want to learn how to cope with your ex dating someone new, it’s very important that you don’t just absorb all the pain your ex throws at you. Welcoming the pain into your system without fighting back is the worst thing you can do for yourself because it will mess up your health.

It will cause you deep emotional scars and possibly even long-term physical consequences.

I’d like you to become aware of the thoughts and emotions going through your body and mind because if you don’t manage them properly, you could make it easy for depression and suicidal thoughts to bypass your defenses and give you a hard time.

So get in your battle stance and fight against any and all intrusive thoughts and emotions.

Fight off:

• fears of being alone
• feelings of not being good enough
• separation anxiety
• worries about the future
• concerns about your ex marrying the new person
• and most of all, taking pity on yourself

I know it can feel tempting to feel sorry for yourself after seeing your ex with someone new, but don’t do it. Don’t feel sorry for yourself because self-pity is one of those emotions that could quickly become your worst nightmare.

It could repeatedly hit you where you’re most vulnerable until it eventually breaks you down and causes you excruciating pain.

I’m not trying to scare you, but if there’s anything you should be afraid of it’s your self-destructive thoughts and emotions. Your coping mechanism consists of both conscious and subconscious choices, so make sure the conscious part isn’t actively looking to get hurt on purpose.

You can do that by telling yourself that you’re strong, smart and beautiful and that you’re going to be just fine no matter what your ex does in his or her spare time.

6)Stay busy

If the thought of your ex being with someone else makes you sick to the stomach and you’re trying to learn how to cope with it, you’re probably spending too much thinking about your ex and his or her new partner.

You’re wondering too much about the things they’re doing when you should be focusing on yourself and the hobbies that are important to you. Of course, not many things matter to you right now because your ex has caused you immense sadness and pain, but that’s exactly why you need to focus on yourself.

You need to do it so that you can put an end to your obsession and start living for yourself again.

You need to discover your self-worth and put yourself first.

So start taking care of your own wants and needs. Doing so will slowly but surely decrease your codependence and eventually, allow you to forget about your ex.

It won’t make your ex magically disappear from your memory, but it will nonetheless lessen:

• anxiety and emotional setbacks
• dreams about your ex
• impulsive responses (stalking your ex online, talking about your ex to friends and family, incessantly analyzing the breakup)
• and the time you spend thinking about your ex and comparing yourself to the new person

7)Give it time and distract yourself

Unfortunately, there is no magic cure for getting over your ex dating someone new. You can follow every point in this article down to a T and do everything right, but still feel broken-hearted, lost, and miserable beyond comprehension.

If this is how you feel, you need to know that time plays a huge factor in healing. Generally speaking, the more time passes, the easier it will become for you to cope with your ex dating someone new.

This is because your brain will slowly process the shocking information and accept the outcome. How long it will take to move on after finding out about your ex’s new partner I can’t say because every person has a different way of dealing with stressors.

But I can tell you that it will get easier to cope with your ex dating someone new over time. It will especially get much, much easier if you avoid making as many post-breakup mistakes as possible and make great efforts to get your old, happy self back.

Don’t set a deadline for when you should be back to normal, but do stay positive and feel yourself getting stronger each day. A positive mindset may not seem like it does much when you feel like you’re hanging by a thread, but rest assured that it’s making you feel stronger every day.

It’s making your lowest points more bearable and your good points longer and more enjoyable.

I hope you’ve learned a thing or two about how to cope with your ex dating someone else. If you did and you have your own tips to share, comment below. I’d like to hear what you think.

And if you need help processing this and you’re looking for personalized 1-on-1 guidance, click here to see our coaching plans.

Zan

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. Learn more about me or get in touch today.