I Knew I Was Finally Over My Ex When I Realized I Felt Absolutely Nothing For Or About Him

My relationship with my ex was so toxic and painful at the end that I never thought I’d get over him or ever feel anything other than hatred and rage toward him. When I realized that hating him was holding me back, I worked toward indifference instead and it helped me to finally move on. Now I’m here and I’m better than ever.

1. I can talk about him openly with anyone and feel nothing positive or negative. My feelings toward our relationship are as objective as possible. I can analyze our relationship and understand my own role in our demise as well as his without irritation in my voice or tears in my eyes. My feelings are not positive or negatively charged. Our relationship happened and it’s over.
2. I stopped checking his social media. At the beginning of our break up, I totally cyberstalked my ex. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to know who he was dating, whether he looked happy without me and if he moved on. But after a while, I stopped checking up on him. I started dating again. I started being happy again. I reclaimed my life and no longer cared about his. As a result, I stopped checking his social media because it was no longer relevant to me.
3. I didn’t panic the first time we saw each other out in public since the breakup. It’s always super scary to think about your first encounter with your ex after you break up. But in my opinion, the anticipation of the encounter trumps the encounter itself. We saw each other at a bar we both frequent. I smiled politely and carried on about my evening. He kept averting his eyes in my direction and even though I felt some granular level of satisfaction knowing that he’s still checking for me, I continued to enjoy myself without him.
4. I found some old things of his and chucked them instead of lamenting over them. Spring cleaning revealed a slew of things that belonged to him tucked away in my closet—a sweatshirt, a few pairs of basketball shorts, some shirts, and some socks. Upon discovering them, I merely picked them up and threw them out. It was pretty effortless. I didn’t spend time smelling them or wearing the items. I didn’t need to because they were significant enough to me anymore. They were simply old clothes I didn’t need lying around my closet.
5. Before I reached indifference, I had to face all of my feelings head on. Facing my feelings is a hard task for me sometimes. It wasn’t fun having to acknowledge the fact that, yes, three months post-breakup I was still hurt and enraged. And yes, sometimes I thought about what it would be like to get back with him because I missed him so much. Acknowledging those feelings while sitting with the sadness and the heartbreak helped me finally let go, take a step forward and move the f on toward a place where I could give less than a crap about him.
6. Cutting off all communication was absolutely key. Cold turkey, y’all. They say that some breakups are like coming down from withdrawal from narcotics because people get so used to having something in their life that when it’s taken away, we don’t know what the hell to do. While it was super hard to cut off all ties since I had spent 2+ years with him pretty much non-stop, it was necessary for my recovery from our relationship and necessary for me to move on. I believe that doing that got me to indifference so much faster than it would have otherwise.
7. Indifference doesn’t happen overnight. You gotta let time help you heal. For me, indifference came with time. I needed time to get through all of the emotions I held toward him and our relationship. I needed time to go through the darkness and end up on the other side toward the light.
8. Indifference became my liberation from the relationship. Being able to talk about him and hear his name without any kind of visceral reaction is so liberating it feels underrated. Our relationship was so toxic and when we first broke up, I never thought I would recover. Honestly, it was that bad. Being able to live my life without fear that he will pop back in and ruin things because I have control over my emotions and feelings about him feels so good.
9. I’m not concerned about his life nowadays. If he’s doing well, that’s cool. If he’s not, it’s not my problem. A friend of mine offered an update about him to me the other day and I just shrugged it off. I didn’t care. She seemed surprised given how close he and I used to be. I mean, I don’t wish anything bad on him because that would just be bad karma but otherwise IDGAF. It’s nice.