Many women make the mistake of getting back into the dating game when they are still nursing a heartbreak. Getting over an ex you still love is not easy and that’s why you shouldn’t jump into a new relationship when you haven’t healed from your last one.
When you suffer heartbreak, the temptation to just drown your pain in new attention, affection, sex, or a fling is strong. But, dating too soon after a heartbreak makes you feel temporarily better, but leaves you much worse afterwards.
Unfortunately, you don’t get to cheat heartbreak. There aren’t any shortcuts or secrets to just stop feeling it. It will hurt. You will feel like your whole world has come to an end. There’s a certain amount of pain created by breakup and you need to feel every bit of it until you feel better.
You can put your pain on hold by dating someone else but this kind of pain doesn’t go away, it can creep up later when you are vulnerable and it will be much worse by then.
Here are reasons you can’t date someone while you are still heartbroken over your ex.
You haven’t learned the lessons
You probably still have some important lessons to learn from your last relationship—lessons that will enhance your chances of finding a better relationship next time. But you need time alone to really think about these issues. If you don’t take that time, you could repeat your mistakes in a new relationship. Suffering a heartbreak is not the end of your life but you must learn your lessons and move on.
You can be too sensitive
If you are still heartbroken over your last relationship, you will be too sensitive in a new one. You don’t have the usual protective skin that you normally would have and that’s the stuff that keeps you from acting sensitively. You are still hurting from your heartbreak and so you can be very sensitive. Suffering heartbreak can make a mess of your emotions, you have to know this.
You can be too needy
Since you are trying to run from your pain, you are going to need someone to run fast to keep up with you. That means you will come off as needy, wanting to see someone a lot, or talk on the phone several times a day. Being left alone too long lets the pain sneak in and you don’t want that. You will want to just be with anybody because it’s better than being alone.
You disrespect the memories
Your last relationship, however it ended deserves a mourning period. You can’t just discard relationships as if they never happened, just because you don’t like the way they ended. It’s important for your psyche to mourn. Going through a heartbreak is not a walk in the park so don’t be in a hurry to move on.
You may still be paranoid
Your last relationship may have left you a bit paranoid. You can misread little things that your new date can do or say, and think that the bad things that happened in your last relationship are happening all over again. It’s like relationship post traumatic stress disorder. You need to take time to heal your hurting heart of heartbreak before dating again.
Your vision is blurry
You just can’t see someone for who they really are when you are still heartbroken over someone else. You are in a fog. Your perspective is cloudy. New people don’t get a real chance with you because you are still hurting over your ex. This is why you shouldn’t hurt another person by dating them when you are still heartbroken.
You will encourage codependency
It’s really important to be alone in between relationships so that you remind yourself that you can be alone. It may not be fun but, it won’t kill you. If you don’t spend quality time alone, you can develop serious codependency issues because you will fear that being alone will kill you.
You will always compare
You can’t help but compare your new date to your last partner negatively or positively. They are still in your system so you will measure everything your new lover does against your last partner. This is unfair both to you and to your new date.
You could project anger
If you are still angry with your ex, you could accidentally project some of that anger onto your new partner. Since you are still heartbroken, you will see your ex in everyone else you meet until you deal with the issue of your heartbreak and move on. If you don’t deal with your pain, your new partner will just think you have anger issues.
New letdowns hurt even more
New disappointments will hurt you more. Since your protective layer is gone, new letdowns hurt more than they typically would. If a new date you like doesn’t want to see you again, it will hurt ten times as bad as it would if you weren’t still heartbroken over the last partner.
