How to Stop Loving Someone

Allow yourself to grieve for a while. Forgetting someone is a painful process in the aftermath of a breakup. It's not unusual to feel this pain deeply. If you try to act normal and pretend you're not hurting, you'll face greater emotional difficulties. The best way to start moving on is to let yourself be sad for a moment. Give yourself time to process this sense of loss.

• If possible, take a few days off and do things that make you feel comfortable (as long as they're not harmful). Watch a sad movie, sleep, or eat ice cream. If the pain becomes unbearable, remember that one day, things will get better.

Reflect deeply on the relationship. To fully let go, you must acknowledge that there are always positives and negatives in loving someone (as they always exist). Cherish the good moments, but don’t ignore the bad—consider the new opportunities now opening up before you.

• In your pain, you might have romanticized the person and forgotten their flaws and weaknesses. Remembering both sides is crucial.
• Appreciate how that love helped you grow and mature. At the same time, recognize the ways it may have hindered your growth or turned you into someone you never wanted to be. These are lessons that can stay with you for life.

Spend some time alone. Don’t rush into another relationship or constantly surround yourself with friends and activities to distract from the pain. You need to process and confront your emotions to heal and move on in a healthy way. Balance your time between reflecting, pursuing your goals, and seeking emotional and social support from friends and family.

• Of course, if needed, confide in a close friend. Find someone who understands, listens, and offers honest advice as an outsider. A good piece of advice from a trusted friend can help you reassess your loss and look toward the future. Don’t dwell too much on the breakup, what went wrong, or what your ex wanted. Instead, focus on yourself and how to move forward.

Don’t suppress your emotions. A vital part of healing is expressing your feelings. You don’t have to share them with anyone unless you want to, but at least don’t bottle them up. You’ll feel better.

• You can write in a journal, compose poetry, create short stories, paint, write or play music, or recite poems. Through these creative efforts, you not only express your pain but also create something beautiful from your experience.
• If you lack inspiration or artistic talent, visit a museum, theater, or concert. Sometimes, observing or listening to other artists express heartbreak can help you see it as a universal experience, one that, while painful, adds meaning to life. After all, without suffering, you’d never understand true love.

Keep what’s important. As you work through the pain and return to reality, it’s important not to overreact and discard everything that reminds you of the person. Keep a few mementos of the best moments in your relationship, like a seashell found on the beach or a photo from a year-end party. This helps you maintain a positive and healthy perspective on the relationship.

• Though it’s good to do, you might not be ready to see these items yet. Store them somewhere out of sight and revisit them when your heart has healed.
• This includes digital data. You can save and store them somewhere on your computer.

Eliminate other distractions. Once you've decided what to keep, remove everything else. To truly forget someone, you need to avoid constantly encountering reminders of them in your daily life.

• If you have numerous items belonging to that person, return them. Untag yourself from shared photos on Facebook, delete pictures from your own account—those that remind you of that person—and do the same with other digital data (such as voicemails). Research shows that keeping these items prolongs pain and makes emotional wounds harder to heal.

Stop seeking updates about that person. To forget someone, cutting ties, at least until you're no longer emotionally affected and can reconnect (if desired), is crucial. Love isn't just an emotional state; it's akin to addiction, causing chemical changes in the brain. Every time you see or are reminded of an ex-lover, the satisfaction can be enough to reignite that longing.

• Avoid coffee dates, calls, texts, or asking friends about them. Stop thinking about them and start focusing more on yourself. Experts recommend cutting all contact for at least 30-90 days to move on.
• Unfollow or unfriend them on social media. Keeping tabs on them, intentionally or not, is unhealthy and makes forgetting harder. Sever all social media ties (at least for now) to focus on better things, like self-care.

Avoid meeting mutual friends for a while. When trying to sever ties, hanging out with mutual friends too soon can make the emotional process harder.

• Explain that you need a break and some distance from them until you feel more stable. Good friends will understand and empathize.
• This might include mutual friends on Facebook, especially if they frequently post pictures of that person. Seeing or hearing any reminders of the past relationship is likely to prolong your suffering. If you can't cut ties with these friends on Facebook, temporarily block their updates or take a break from social media while you recover.

Don't rush to rekindle the friendship. If the relationship was truly good and ended amicably—or even if you were always just good friends—it might still take some time before you can act like friends again. Spending time together immediately will make it harder to stop loving that person.

• After a deep breakup, many people need years before they can be close friends again. It might not be until both of you have moved on, fallen in love again, and married that you feel comfortable reconnecting.
• For others, becoming friends again is impossible, especially if the breakup wasn't mutual.

Discover yourself. With emotions no longer clouding your judgment, you can see yourself more clearly. Explore your strengths and weaknesses. You might want to reconsider your life priorities and goals. Perhaps when you thought you would spend your life with someone, you wanted one thing. Now, you might want something different.

Become independent. Love often makes you overly dependent. However, to be happier and luckier in future relationships, you need to improve your independence. To do this, be more confident and remind yourself that you are strong and capable of doing everything on your own. Now, focus on yourself. You are free, and don't forget that. Do the things you've always wanted to do but never had the time for.

Try new activities. They not only bring joy, get you out, and let you enjoy new things but also help you forget old loves and learn how to make yourself happy. It could be a new hobby, volunteer work, or a new skill. Or, you could learn something online. You never know what you might want to do next.

Accept that it wasn't meant to be. This is an important part of moving on. You must understand that if the person couldn't love you or the relationship was exhausting without any way to change it, in the end, it only brings you pain. You deserve a relationship where the person loves you as much as you love them, and no one else can make you feel as complete as you can make each other.

Meet new people. Unless you prefer to stay single, you need to step out to find someone more suitable. This takes time, and you shouldn’t rush it. Don’t force yourself—only go out when you truly want to and avoid anything that makes you uncomfortable.

Date again. Falling in love, or at least realizing there are others you can love, is crucial in helping you move on from past relationships. You don’t need to take dating too seriously. In fact, it’s better to take your time meeting and getting to know new people. Many need time to recover after a breakup, and it’s best not to hurt someone else if you’re not ready for a serious commitment.

Understand that you don’t have to force yourself to stop loving someone. Even though an unclear ending to a relationship can be painful, it doesn’t mean you have to stop loving them. If it was true love, you might never fully stop. However, you can still move on, live a fulfilling life without depending on that love, and find a new love.

Love again. Loving again is the final piece to healing your heart. A new love will restore your faith and show you how magical love can be. More importantly, seek someone who can reciprocate your feelings in ways your past partner couldn’t. You deserve that!