Many men feel like fish out of water when they find themselves dating after a long-term relationship
For many years they have been used to interacting only with one specific woman on a romantic level and meeting new women with different personalities and with which they don’t have the same level of intimacy feels difficult. They tend to be a bit rusty and things like approaching a woman they don’t know, asking her out, and interacting with her on dates don’t always feel very natural.
In this article, we are going to give you various tips that will get you “back in the game” after breaking up with your long-term partner.
Don’t Rush It. Take the Time to Understand What You’re Looking For.
Dating after a long relationship can be great but it should not be a substitute for dealing with how you’re feeling or processing the emptiness that sometimes we feel when our ex-partner is no longer around.
It’s important that you take a bit of time for yourself to get over the past relationship and develop those emotional skills that are necessary to overcome loneliness. You’ll find these skills very useful in many other life situations.
Having social interactions with other people, whether they are friends or new dating partners, can surely help but should not be the only way you deal with the end of a relationship. One thing you need to avoid is dating other women to make your ex jealous or get back at her. Doing this will keep giving your ex-partner a huge weight in your life at a time when you should focus on yourself and put your romantic life back on track.
As yourself: what type of woman would I like to date now? What personality traits should she have? What would she bring to my life in a positive way? It’s also unfair towards other women you’re dating when you’re only using them to get over your ex or take revenge on her. They may be genuinely interested in you as a person and looking for a fulfilling relationship. Uncovering that your motives are not as genuine as theirs may disappoint them and harm your new dating life.
Opening yourself up emotionally to a new person may take some time but if you work on yourself instead of just looking for “a quick fix” in a new relationship, you will get there faster.
RELATED: How to Chat in Online Dating: Start a Great Conversation and Keep It Going
Build Yourself Up and Start Meeting New Women Gradually
The most important thing after a breakup is doing the right things while time passes and heals your wounds.
First, you should start to gradually rebuild your good mood and inner balance. This can’t happen in a day, so shortcuts like partying hard and drinking are not going to work. They may provide an instant feeling of fun and carelessness but you’re going to feel much worse when your mind becomes clear again.
Take little steps and do small things every day that we’ll make you enjoy life again, like going to a concert or having a bite to eat with an old friend or starting a new hobby. As you do this, start also interacting with new women gradually. You don’t have to set yourself in full dating mode immediately. You can start with random short chats before you start getting more serious.
Get acquainted again with the idea of being single and not being romantically tied to somebody else. It may feel weird initially, but you will start enjoying it eventually.
It’s important that your social interactions and inner life pick themselves up at the same time and that what transpires when talking to other people is how you feel. Faking it (looking cheerful and happy while inside you’re feeling down) won’t do you any good.
Multiple Hook-Ups are Not the Best Way to Get Over an Old Partner
Some men think that going out and trying to sleep with as many new women as possible is an effective way to get over a break-up. While in the moment, this may give you the illusion of moving forward, you’re just suspending the healing process until the next day, when that feeling of loneliness will still be there and possible be worse.
Engaging in many low-key social activities, like chatting with new people at Meetups or spending a weekend out of town with your friends is much more effective because it allows you to take small but permanent steps in the right direction. Try to understand what it is that you genuinely want to do and will make you feel better rather than doing the things that only allow you to forget the pain for a couple of hours.The more your mood increases gradually, the less lonely and depressed you’ll feel about your break-up, and the people you interact with will perceive that positive energy.
Your confidence will also start improving, which is essential to meet new women and attract them. There’s nothing more difficult than trying to attract another person when you’re feeling sad and beaten down.People are drawn to positive things and tend to walk away from negativity.
RELATED: The 8 Most Common Dating Mistakes Made by Men
Don’t Let a Previous Experience Define Your Opinion of Women in General
This is unfortunately a very common mistake that men do when they’ve been in a long relationship (or even marriage) with a woman. Their past experience had a lot of negatively charged moments, feelings, and situations, which ended up affecting their opinions not only of that woman but of the female gender in general.
Your former partners may have been manipulative or unstable or even unfaithful and now you are transferring these judgments to other women you meet, which makes you suspicious, skeptical, and unsure a new relationship could work out.
In reality, pretty much like men, women have very different personalities and identities, and the woman you were in a relationship with may be completely different than the next woman you’ll date, sometimes even the total opposite. When you are dating a new woman after a break-up, try and make an additional effort to see and understand the person in front of you rather than projecting your previous experience onto the new one.
Some men even do it unconsciously, without realizing it. They close themselves to the possibility of discovering positive traits of a new partner because they were scarred by how things ended up in the previous relationship.
Understand that you are dealing with a whole new person entirely and try to find the things you have in common, as well as the differences. This of course doesn’t mean that you won’t have problems or misunderstandings with your new love partner, but the type of issues you will face may be entirely different.
Also accept that there isn’t a perfect person out there, including you, and the secret to long-term healthy relationships is learning to live with a person that brings to your life more than what it takes away.
Change Your Approach: Make Your New Relationship a New Start
Things may have gone wrong in the previous relationships not only due to elements of her personality or overall incompatibility but also because your approach to the relationship was not the right one.
Some men see a relationship with a woman as a substitute for developing an interesting, peaceful, and enjoyable life.Truth is, if you are not able to have those things when you’re alone, you probably won’t find them in a relationship with another person and will end up putting a lot of pressure on your partner.
If that was the case, see your new relationship as one of the many things that will give you the life you want and not as the only one.This will allow you to bring a new person into your new life in a completely different way and give her (and yourself) an experience that brings something unique and additional to both your lives.
Another mistake some men do is to see their-girlfriend or wife as their only main friend.
Friends and love partners are not the same things, and while people who are in love tell each other secrets and help themselves through difficult times, you should also make sure you have a support system of friends or relatives for those scenarios.
No one person can give us all that we need for social interactions. Having several right people in your life will also make the interaction with your love partner better. Also, try and understand whether you have exhibited excessive selfishness in your previous relationship and avoided taking her needs and expectations into consideration. Focus on what you can give to your new romantic partner and not just on what you can receive from her.
Don’t Give Your New Partner False Expectations
Some men are so eager to go back to dating after things didn’t work out with their previous partner, that they project a whole new persona to just “get a new girl”.
While this may sometimes be effective for random hook-ups and flings, if you’re looking to start a new, healthy long-term relationship, don’t give a woman the wrong idea about who you are.
This may soon cause problems and you risk facing relationship trouble again when you’re still not entirely over your previous break-up. Be sincere and genuine, which doesn’t mean that you don’t have to flirt or do something special with her. Do it within the limits of your true self and everyday behavior.
Relationships like this are those that start oh the best foot, because even though the initial weeks and months may feel very “regular”, you’re getting to know each other for real instead of getting to know a dating persona that will eventually disappear at one point during the relationship.
RELATED: What Do Women Look for in a Man?
Don’t Keep Dating a New Woman Just Because You Don’t Want to Feel Alone
This is another issue encountered in men after a long-term relationship (or even marriage) is over. Once they find a new dating partner, they cling on to her because the thought of being alone just scares them.
The choice of your new partner should not be defined by fear of loneliness but by whether that person is the right one for you.
If you see some red flags that you ignored during your previous relationship and eventually caused the two of you to break up after many years, don’t ignore them and act on them.
What you don’t want to do is to continue to be with your new partner because you have ignored signs that the relationship was going in a similar negative direction as the previous one. The more you stay with a new partner, the more your affection for her grows and the more painful it will be to break up from her.
If she is not the right one for you or if she has negative or toxic behaviors that end up creating too many negative issues in your life, is better to end the new relationship only after some months than dragging it out for years and years while reproducing the same, negative pattern that led to the former break-up.
This will allow you to avoid investing too much in a new person that is not right for you and find sooner someone you can build a healthy, positive and mutually beneficial relationship with.
Don’t Choose Your New Partner Based on Looks Alone
When you’ve just gotten out of a relationship and are looking for a new dating partner, you may be tempted to choose the woman with the better looks and overlook women that are interested in you and would be a perfect partner to rebuild your love life with.
It’s ok to have some random hookups with hot women, if you have the chance and if you’re doing it mostly for the fun and not to fill the emptiness left by your break-up. But when it comes to choosing the person that you’re going to date in the long-term and share an important part of your life with, the last thing you want is a woman who’s good-loving but doesn’t provide any value to your new life or may even bring trouble.
Of course, physical attraction is a fundamental part of a love relationship. Just avoid it being the one and only factor you consider. Dating a woman who’s less “hot” than your last hot fling, but that you still find attractive enough and that provides you with the emotions, feelings, and companionship that you need to rebuild your love life will always be the best choice if your goal is not simply “to sleep around”.
Upgrade membership
Leave a comment