Can't seem to get over him- 7 months on

Shelga

Things are fairly bad this week so would be good to hear from others in a similar position.

Was dumped by a guy 7 months ago. We'd been together for a year and a half, sleeping together for 6 months before that, and very good friends for 6 months before that again. Basically he had been a constant presence in my life for 2.5 years, since I landed in the UK. We started a grad job at the same time.

He was semi-emotionally abusive to me and I've had counselling to deal with this. Overall I think I'm making progress but this week it's like it all just hit me again. He criticised my appearance a lot, used to ask me to change clothes, 'hinted' that I needed to lose weight, compared me to other women a lot. Would challenge my lack of 'dedication' to my job because I'm not as work-focused as he it- basically, over time made me feel like total sh*t. Even writing this is therapeutic as I'm realising again how much better off I am without him.

I just get very lonely sometimes as I'm trying to change jobs/cities and it's not happening for me. Weekends are tough when I don't have stuff planned, which isn't very often to be fair- have been throwing myself into holidays, socialising, visiting new places, etc. I'm 27 and feel like I'm ready to meet someone and settle down but can't stop thinking about this horrible ex. Despite knowing he was bad for me, and working a lot on my self-esteem, it's still hard to shake off the feeling that he was better than me and dumped me because I wasn't good enough. Logically I know this is false.

Just wondering does anyone have any advice on how to get through it? The feelings of shame are also an issue- feeling like I should be 'over it' now 7 months have passed and my grace period is over. People say "you need to see a professional" if you still feel like this- that just makes me feel worse and anyway, I've been to counselling!

Anyone have any advice/book recommendations etc to finally break away and move on? I think changing cities will help massively, but until then... Thanks.

FurBabyMomma

Sounds like you threw yourself so quickly onto the holidays and socialising you didn't give yourself time to process the break up - you did things in reverse order.

So go back a step. Take a bit of time to be sad your relationship failed. Then take a bit more time to realise you had a lucky escape from an abusive asshole. Then take all the time in the world to enjoy the rest of your twenties creating memories of fun that will still make you smile at 80. Good luck!