How To Deal With Losing Someone Who Didn’t Understand Your Worth

Losing a person who not only let you go but clearly never understood your value in the first place can be doubly hurtful. You feel all the normal pain of a breakup coupled with anger at yourself for allowing your worth to be diminished. Here are steps you can take to avoid falling into a black hole of self-disgust:

1. Breathe a sigh of relief. Regardless of the past, you are out of a bad situation. If your significant other didn’t appreciate the value you bring into the lives of those around you, then that person doesn’t deserve you anyway. It hurts to realize it, but you were wasting your time. Don’t let your hurt feelings and pride drag you back towards something that was never going to be good for you. Allow yourself to see the stress and pain the relationship caused.
2. Understand that it is actually a blessing. If your partner could toss you aside that easily, with no fight whatsoever, than consider yourself lucky to be rid of them. They’re doing you a favor and don’t you forget it! Clearly you weren’t going to cut ties even though you were getting sub-par value from the relationship anyway. Sometimes it takes a painful rift to discover who you really are.
3. Remind yourself of the bad times. Most people reminisce and yearn for the happy days of a relationship after it’s over. Forcing yourself to recall all the sadness, stress, conflict and pain is a much more effective tool for recovery. Do whatever you have to do. Write it all out if you need to – if that’s what gets you to admit that things really weren’t so great, so be it. You have to take care of yourself. Your partner sure wasn’t up for the job.
4. Take time to build yourself back up. Whether this person valued you enough or not, you cared about them. You lost someone you loved. Don’t tear yourself down for opening up your heart and taking a chance. That’s not going to help you. Nurse your pain and never ever be ashamed of being someone who wanted to give love. Take care of yourself. Give yourself time and space and care and room to grieve.
5. Talk it out with someone you trust. Find someone you know who isn’t judgmental who will listen to you if you need. Hopefully you are surrounded with people who would never judge you for having loved and lost. If you aren’t – you need better friends – but also, you can always find a good therapist to help you through this rough time. There’s no shame in therapy and there’s no shame in needing a shoulder to cry on.
6. Indulge yourself a little. It’s okay to go deep into some self-care. You’re better off taking some time to listen to yourself and what you need. If you ignore it, you’ll only end up paying for it later down the line. Stop, breathe, and let your gut lead the way. Don’t drown yourself in alcohol, food, or destructive behavior. Don’t sleep too little or too much. Go to yoga. Meditate. Get a massage or a facial or treat yourself to a whole spa day. Get outside into nature. Do whatever feeds your soul.
7. Allow time to mourn the death of your relationship. It is paramount to your healing process that you acknowledge what you are feeling and work through the pain. You cared about someone and that person threw you away like you were nothing to them. That’s supremely hurtful. Unfortunately you can’t force someone to see how much you care for them, which can feel completely helpless. It may make you doubt your own self-worth. You have some gnarly healing to do, and it sucks.
8. Don’t beat yourself up. It’s not your fault. Repeat this to yourself. It’s not your fault. What happened happened, and it’s done, and to spend time on regrets and self-reproach wastes more of your valuable time. Take what you can learn from and apply that so that you make better choices moving forward. Learn to recognize when someone isn’t meeting your needs. Just don’t blame yourself for the demise of the relationship.
9. Do keep your head up and move forward. It’s all you can do. Don’t waste the future crying over the past. Deal with your pain, but keep living your beautiful life. It’s going to keep progressing whether you like it or not, so you might as well live every moment of it as authentically as you can. Laugh when you want to laugh. Cry when you want to cry. Whatever you do, never forget to appreciate the fact that you still have what you do.
10. Know that you deserve more. It can be tough, especially in the immediate aftermath of a breakup, to believe that you truly are worthy of everything you want from a relationship. It might take a while to find it. You might have to be patient. The good news is that you are rid of someone toxic who would’ve never made you truly happy and now you have the opportunity to find someone who does.
11. Let go of whatever attachment you had. Often we cling to people who don’t care as much as we do for reasons that have nothing to do with them. This is another area in which therapy can be extremely helpful. It can aid you in recognizing unhealthy patterns or unearthing issues from your past that cause you to choose partners unwisely. It’s time to shake off all that old baggage.
12. Take back your strength and self-confidence. No matter how bad it feels to lose them, your partner was holding you back. You deserve the beautiful, deep, soulful love that your heart so desperately wants. Don’t let this person’s rejection diminish how you feel about yourself. It can be tough, but you have to remind yourself constantly that you are an incredible, wonderful human who deserves someone who knows that you’re precious. When you find that, you’ll understand why your ex let you go. It wasn’t about you. It was about their own issues.