Every Nigerian woman needs to know how to handle a break up. No woman wants to go down the rough road of a bad break up. It hurts. It’s like a sharp knife cutting through the heart of a woman. It is even more painful if she has pictured her future together with her love interest and then boom, he breaks up with her.
The pain can better be imagined than experienced. It is not a pleasant experience for lovers too. The disappointments, regrets and ‘should have been’ thoughts that rush in after a breakup are hard to handle.
Whether it’s an amicable breakup or a horrible, crash-and-burn situation, the pain stem from investing a part of you into another person and must accept that a relationship that you once nurtured is dead and gone.
Women are often the hardest hit when it comes to break ups. So, they need realistic strategies on how to handle the painful pangs of a break up.
Nigerian women need these 10 strategies to cope with bad break ups.
1. Purge your contacts
Block your former lover everywhere you both interact on. Whether it is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Skype, Snapchat and on your phone. You can also unfollow them on Tumblr and Linked In.
To heal, steer clear of social media for at least a week. You are not going to miss out much on your virtual social life, and it will keep you from creeping where you should not be and from making emotional posts that will embarrass you in the future.
Additionally, resist the urge to be a bitch by attacking your ex whether physically or on social media networks. Those actions even though they may feel good at the moment, they are going to accomplish nothing but shame. Stay away completely.
2. Lean on the support of your loved ones
After a break up, you need people who care and love you around you. Call your confidant who always seems to know the right things to say and tell them what happened. Cry to them if it will make you feel better. Their loving support will remind you of your worth through their own eyes when you can’t see it yourself.
Call up your best friends, but not mutual friends with your ex and have them come over for some junk food and sad movies. You need to be around people who will not judge you. Tell them everything you have been holding in and let out all your feelings. Cry on their shoulders too.
3. Engage in controlled mourning
Instead of trying to be tough and burying your feelings, allow yourself to feel it all. Allow yourself to feel the flood of emotions entirely and allow yourself to go through the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally, acceptance) without the risk of going off like a loose cannon in public.
You also have to detox your system with music, empowering songs with choreographed dances. Then after the allotted mourning time is over, pick yourself up and re-enter the real world.
4. Don’t neglect to work through your issues
Learn how to channel your anger toward the breakup in a healthy way, whether it’s through music, writing, exercise, or some other outlet.
5. Learn from your experience
In life, every experience changes us. We decide whether it’s for better or worse. Although you are unable to alter the past, you can always learn from your mistakes. If nothing else, lessons can always be learned from a failed relationship. Deeply find out the lessons from your break up and work with them for a better future.
6. Acknowledge the positive aspects of your failed relationship
Relationships are beautiful when the feeling is mutual. Although your relationship may have gone sour and has come to an end, there were reasons you stayed with them for so long. Try a writing exercise and jot down some of those positive aspects.
7. Your focus should be on your best qualities
Try writing down the best things you have to offer the world. Remind yourself that you have value and internalize your self-worth. You have to learn how to stand on your own two feet again. It’s not easy but that’s the only you would stop feeling worthless because your relationship ended.
8. You need to rediscover and reinvent yourself
After a break up, spend time with people who love you for you. Pick up a new hobby that makes you happy. Get a new hairdo, go on a trip with friends, lose some weight, or just catch up on things you have always wanted to do. Spend time focusing on getting a promotion or doing well on that tough course you are taking. Don’t stop living because of a bad break up, bounce back and be better.
9. Patience should be your mantra
You’re very lucky if you don’t run into your ex at some point during the recovery period. This can be more difficult for some than others. Try to avoid talking about your relationship when you bump into each other, as it’s uncomfortable and never does a whole lot of good for either party.
10. Don’t fake your healing
Don’t act tough. You shouldn’t let everyone think you are fine by burying your feelings deep inside you until they rot your core and make you undateable. If you don’t address then end of your previous relationship in a healthy way, you can’t learn how to love yourself. You are also setting yourself up for failure in future relationships.
