How to Get Over Your Ex

The ending of a relationship — no matter how it happens — can be devastating and create a long-lasting aversion to starting another one (or giving it a real chance).

And as a woman, you may think you’ll never be able to trust your instincts about men again.

The truth is, understanding the differences in how men and women deal with moving on will help you get over your ex more quickly and with fewer hurt feelings.

In this video and post, you'll learn how to create the foundation you need to dive back into the dating pool and find the relationship you want and deserve, with confidence.

Hi John,

I just ended my two-year relationship with my boyfriend, so it's been difficult letting go and moving on. He has already moved on and is in a new relationship so that hurts, as I miss him. Hoping to get over feeling this lost feeling soon. Can you help?

– Danielle

Why He Moved On So Quickly (Did He Even Really Care?)

When a man and a woman get a divorce or when they end a relationship, one of the biggest challenges for a woman — and it's very common — is that the man tends to get involved with someone else before she does. 

If we look at it statistically, men after divorce are married three years later, women are married nine years later, and often they don't get married again.

What is going on here?

If you don't understand how men and women are different, you begin to feel like, "What am I, chopped liver? He's over me, but I'm not over him. Is it that he didn't really love me?"

When a relationship ends, we often feel hurt because we're feeling left out, we're feeling rejected. And the more we love someone, the more hurt we feel.

"So, if he can just go out and find somebody else right away, he must not have really loved me. And I thought he did love me. How can I trust myself again? How can I trust a man again if he can just take it so lightly and suddenly be in another relationship?"

Well, this is where understanding Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus is so helpful. We are different. We're biologically wired up differently.

Men, particularly, open their hearts when they feel sexual attraction.

So, a man will become much more loving, kind, gentle, and romantic when he feels a sexual attraction.

Friendship won’t do it. Certainly, friendship is a kind of love. But romantic love is a deep need that we all have on some level. Some of us are not aware of it, but it's in there. If the opportunity is there, the need starts to wake up.

"I need to be in a sexual relationship," and that's his primary need.

While some women may have the same instinct, it’s not a woman's primary need. She has to have a lot of things be fulfilled before she's going to feel her need for sex, generally speaking.

In my experience, a woman needs to feel attention, affection.

She needs to feel some devotion, some caring from a man, so she feels safe that she can open up.

Then, once she feels safe to open up, her hormones begin to change. And then, the hormones of sex begin to come forth.

So, it's not like she doesn't need sex or want sex. It's just that she tends to need to feel safe that she can be herself, and that someone cares about her and loves her. Then, she can fully open up and enjoy it.

When suddenly after a breakup, a man is off with somebody else, it makes her feel like he didn't really love her, like the safety she felt before was an illusion.

That can be a big obstacle to starting over again. 

Because:

• How can you trust in a relationship again — and feel safe to open up — when you can’t trust that your previous relationship was the real thing?
• How can you trust a man will love you and be there for you when you thought your ex loved you and now he’s moved on?
• And how could he have loved you at all if he moved on so fast? Does he even care?

But now that we know this key difference between men and women, you can see that he did love you in the best way he could at the time. But when the relationship ended, he needed to feel sexual attraction in order to connect to his heart again. With this understanding, it’s easier to not take his lightning turn around so personally.

He did love you. That was real. Now it’s time to address your broken heart so you feel safe again.

How to Open Up After a Broken Heart (So You Can Move On Too!)

So, here you are, and you've just been devastated. Your heart is broken and you're feeling hurt. Most people — women in particular — want to wait until they feel really good again before they open up that much again.

There's an old saying about when a child falls off the horse, you want to put them back on the horse right away. Why? Because they need to have another experience that neutralizes that wounded experience.

Every time something hits us really deeply and hurts us, it goes deep into the brain and produces a conditioned response of fear.

And then, every time we avoid being in a relationship because we don't want to get hurt, that memory grows stronger and stronger, and that fear grows stronger and stronger, which causes a tendency to avoid intimate relationships with men.

So, the key here is to get right back up on the horse — even though you certainly are not going to feel like having sex right away — that would be way too vulnerable. But you can create a series of positive dating experiences where you don't have to open up completely. It can be a light relationship.

Going on dates with other men — but not having it get serious — you're not looking for a perfect person. You're not looking for a replacement, somebody who you could feel so safe with that you'd want to have sex with. You’re just looking to create a positive experience with the opposite sex.

How to Date Without Sacrificing Your Boundaries (the Magic Phrase That Makes All the Difference)

You have to back off from thinking, "Oh, I'm not ready to have sex with another person so therefore I can’t date." No, you can go on dates with men. It is possible you can go on dates with men and not be obligated to have sex.

There's plenty of men that will be interested in doing something nice for you and seeing a smile on your face. But often, women don't have the communication skills to say no to sex. So they avoid dating altogether.

You don't want to hurt his feelings. You don’t want to lead him on. So you opt out completely.

Yes. It’s true. Men may get their feelings hurt because there's this whole idea that to be a real man, he has to get laid on the first date. And “everybody's doing it and why shouldn't he?“

But that’s where new communication skills come in.

Because there’s always a way you can be yourself and be respectful and appreciative of others — and they will be respectful and appreciative of you. You can date and have your boundaries too.

For example: If you're going on a date and he wants to kiss you, and you don't want him to kiss you, just avoid the kiss and kiss him on the cheek.

If you do enjoy some sexual attraction, you feel safe to go a little bit further, and you're making out together, you can say, "Stop." And many men will go, "What? Why?"

You don’t want to hurt his sometimes fragile ego or make him feel rejected in the moment that he's opening his heart. So you need a new phrase that honors your boundary and his opening heart.

Ready for your new magic phrase?

"Oh, I'd love to have sex with you, I just have to go slow. That's it, I just have to go slow."

And then, he'll feel fine — as long as he feels there's a part of you somewhere inside that would like him in that way.

The truth is, it's too soon for you. But just because it's too soon for you, it doesn't mean you can't start dating anyway.

Dating for the sake of creating positive dating experiences with men:

• Helps you move on with confidence
• Helps keep fear from making a home in your heart
• Helps set you up for a deeper, more expansive love next time rather than a guarded one

So, there you have it: the foundation of how to start moving ahead and finding yourself feeling safe, once again, in that dating experience. I recommend checking out all the Mars Venus insights because it's all new knowledge today, and you can apply that new knowledge as you're practicing dating again.

Grow in love,