How To Forgive Yourself For Hurting Your Ex?

If you can’t forgive yourself for hurting your ex, you need to realize that whatever you did at the time of the breakup or after—happened for a reason.

It either happened because you weren’t ready to be the person you aspire to be, or it simply occurred because you wanted to be happy and your ex wasn’t giving you what you wanted.

If you have a hard time forgiving yourself for dumping your ex or for doing something awful to him or her after the breakup, you first need to stop hurting yourself intentionally.

You need to remind yourself that your actions are in the past—and that they don’t matter to you anymore.

Now that it’s over, your ex is no longer a part of your life, so he or she doesn’t need to plague your conscience even if you acted really, really badly.

So instead of living in the past and beating yourself up for hurting your ex, focus on accepting your mistakes.

Practice forgiveness affirmations and tell yourself that your mistakes don’t define you as the person you are today and will be in the future.

So separate yourself from the person you were after the breakup and associate yourself with the fun and loving person that you are and know you can be.

When you do, your conscience will once again be clear and you will no longer feel guilty for hurting your ex.

If you want to learn how to forgive yourself for hurting your ex, this article will teach you how to love yourself again. All you need is a little bit of open-mindedness to follow some of the advice given in this article.

How to forgive yourself for hurting your ex?

Forgiving yourself for hurting someone you love or used to love comes from within.

It comes from a very special place of self-forgiveness which (believe it or not) you have 100% control over.

But for you to control it, you need to be willing to take command of your own thoughts and emotions and decide how much importance you’re going to attribute to your guilt.

You essentially need to realize that your brain is yours to command. It’s a ship that constantly needs a captain to direct it—and that without directions, you will simply act and react to your encounters.

So to solve your overwhelming guilt and anxiety, you must travel back in time, past the moment when emotions were created—all the way to the creation of the thought.

You must go to the time when you told yourself. “I can’t forgive myself for hurting my ex” and rewrite history with new positive thoughts and emotions.

By “rewriting history,” we’re not saying that you need to deceive yourself and distort reality.

Far from it.

You must replace your guilt associations with positive affirmations that disassociate your bad behavior from your persona.

In simpler terms, you must accept your mistakes, forgive yourself, forget about the past, and replace your negative associations with more positive ones.

And that’s something you can start working on right away.

Affirmations to forgive yourself for hurting your ex

Whenever you feel guilty for hurting your ex, try not to seek forgiveness directly from your ex.

Seek it from yourself instead—as you’re the only person who can guarantee mercy on yourself.

This is true whether you took revenge on your ex or did something you’re not proud of as an ex-partner and a human being with self-respect.

It really doesn’t matter what you regret saying or doing.

But just know that the kinder you are toward yourself and your bad conscience, the quicker you can forgive yourself for hurting your ex.

You just have to be willing to work on letting go of the damage you’ve caused to your ex and to yourself.

It’s really that straightforward.

So as simple as that sounds, practicing healthy affirmations can help you get rid of guilt and make you feel better in the long run.

And the good thing about affirmations is that you can practice them whenever you want to—as many times as you need to.

Here are 8 affirmations when you feel guilty for hurting your ex.

Time will help you forgive yourself for hurting your ex

Guilt is a powerful emotion.

So if you’ve just done something to hurt your ex, know that it will likely take you a while to forgive yourself.

It could take you days, weeks, months, or even years.

It really depends on two things.

1. How you perceive yourself.
2. The way you communicate with yourself.

For example, if you’re a good person with decent moral values, hurting your ex isn’t going to be easy to overlook.

Guilt will likely plague your mind whether you want it or not because you are continuously trying to be your best version of yourself.

Guilt will especially disturb your brain if you’re a believer in karma and believe that what goes around, comes around.

So in a way, the more you care about your persona (the way others see you), the more you will hurt.

Stop hurting your ex first

If you’re thinking that you have to stop caring about your ex to stop hurting him or her, that’s not the right way to go about it.

Some dumpers think that they must distance themselves from their ex and ignore their dumpee for the dumpee to recover.

But the truth is that their rude actions only end up hurting their ex even more.

They end up destroying their dumpee’s remaining self-esteem and punish their ex even further.

So if you want your dumpee ex to stop hurting, raise his or her self-esteem and validate his or her existence.

Only then will you show your ex that you value him or her—which will give your ex a sense of belonging (a basic human need).

That’s why you need to start by dropping your ego so that you can do what your ex would like you to do. Empower him/her.

As for you, doing the right thing, practicing forgiveness affirmations, and waiting long enough for emotions of guilt to wane should help you forgive yourself for hurting your ex.

How I conquered guilt as a dumper

When I broke up with my ex, I also felt guilty for causing pain. I felt awful for not being able to reciprocate her feelings and fight for what she believed in.

But despite feeling guilty, I knew I was making the right choice—as my ex and I just weren’t working out.

There were too many incompatibilities between us that made us excessively different. Things like different goals and ambitions, personality conflicts, a lack of emotional and physical attraction, different moral values, relationship goals, and so on.

These were the things we couldn’t change no matter how hard we tried.

And that’s why I was certain that breaking up was going to benefit both of us.

So when we finally broke up, I did everything in my power to make sure she wouldn’t suffer.

I offered her all the help I could offer and assured her that our separation doesn’t mean the end of the world for her.

I also told her that our breakup is going to allow us to get what we deserve and that it was for the best.

So even though she was in pain, I had no choice but to persevere and insist with the breakup.

I knew that blaming myself just because I made my ex suffer didn’t seem like a very wise thing to do. As a matter of fact, it seemed pointless and self-destructive—and wasn’t going to make either of us feel any better.

As selfish as it may sound, I realized that every human being is responsible for their own well-being—and so was my ex.

She needed to take care of herself after my departure—which I’m sure she did.

Especially after I’ve made sure that she felt valued and respected as a person.

How I conquered guilt as a dumpee

Dumpees often feel guilty for hurting their ex before and after the breakup.

They regret saying and doing things that worsened their chances of reconciliation.

And so did I.

I remember I felt particularly regretful for saying some mean things right before the breakup.

When our relationship was ending and my ex stopped investing in me, I felt anxious that our relationship was dying.

I felt unvalued so I reacted very badly—which coincidentally made my ex initiate the breakup.

And that’s something I initially blamed myself for.

I felt guilty for hurting my ex probably for a couple of months until I realized that it had to stop.

Although my actions weren’t commendable, I realized they were merely a reaction to my ex’s lack of interest.

They were a cold, insecure response to a cold dumper’s syndrome.

And that’s why I noticed that I shouldn’t be taking all the blame as I was just as responsible for hurting my ex as she was for hurting me.

My only regret was that I wished I’d realized this sooner and stopped myself from hurting for so long.

But I couldn’t do that at the time because I needed to detach from my ex and lose hope first.

I had to see my ex for who she was and slowly accept that I wasn’t entirely responsible for the breakup.

So how can you forgive yourself for hurting your ex?

The best way for you to forgive yourself for hurting your ex is to let go of your expectations.

Let go of the hope for reconciliation, forget about what your ex and his or her friends think of you, stop expecting your ex to forgive you, and trust yourself that your ex will be okay even if you did something harmful.

You need to convince yourself that your ex is obliged to take care of himself or herself—and that no matter what happens, it’s not your fault.

Everyone makes mistakes and does things that intentionally or unintentionally hurt others.

But only those with empathy and understanding of their actions can accept their mistakes and better their decisions in the future.

They just have to want to improve and transform themselves into more self-aware individuals.

Did this article teach you how to forgive yourself for hurting your ex? Are you currently struggling with guilt? Share your experience in the comment section below.

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. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.