How do get over someone you know wasn't good for you anyway?

[Bubblesandcake]

6 months later - it's over and although I know it wasn't right, I feel hurt.
Lots of red flags. He was very selfish but after 8 years single, I kinda got used to someone being around.
The thought of going through the whole dating process again fills me with dread and fear. I didn't enjoy the experience. I finally found someone with mutual attraction but we were not compatible.

Maybe think that it would have made an unhappy partnership that would have made you really unhappy. Whilst you saw the red flags you ascribed the reasons for these as being perhaps reasonable. Over time, these built up and you realised the sum of these actually constituted major personality flaws. You're probably being very nice and generous to him saying you and he are not compatible. He probably had good characteristics but overall had too many issues to constitute a nice partner that you could live with. Maybe consider yourself lucky that you had good self esteem and managed to get out of it thus showing quite excellent judgement so try not to be so hard on yourself.

Thankyou violetfeather 😊
Your post made complete sense. As he had many good characteristics, I had been ignoring the red flags. I felt sad more than happy and that's not good. Even though you know it's the right thing, you still feel....well I still feel a sense of loss that actually hurts.

Also think about the fact that you experienced quite a lot of problems with him when really the relationship was at the phase where you should have been walking on air. He sounds like he was a drain on your mental resources and whilst you may miss giving that time to someone special he didn't value it enough to take a reciprocal interest in you. Really, that is really important that your special someone in your life is quite giving and sympathetic to your needs as well as the other way round.

Pros & cons list - go as honest and heavy on the cons as you can. Write unsent letters to him & really get your feelings out. Think about what in your life is missing right now & how to feed that into making wonderful new changes.

If he is clearly wrong for you, you are mourning the idea of him and what he could be/the warm bed & companionship. He wasn't your great love & it's better to be single & alone than putting up with someone. So many threads on here about useless men and relationships that end after decades and honestly they put a spring in my step - I don't want to roll over for just any man and neither should you

And this is super normal. I did long rounds of OLD and I would feel awful about myself when men I didn't even really like would ghost me & jerk me around

They reflected my shabby opinion of myself & I just wanted their validation so bad. Now looking back (single again) & I feel sick at the prospect of men who treat me lightly & aren't good for me taking up my space and time

Like any loss, the passing of time will help to heal. Then you will look back with the wonderful 20/20 vision that is hindsight.
Try to fill your days with things that make you feel good.

This is something I'm going through at the moment. I think the pros and cons list is a great shout, it's something I've done myself and really helps bring me back to reality when I'm looking back on our time together with rose tinted glasses.

I've come to the conclusion that I'll never be fully over my ex until I meet someone new who I'm happier with and can look back with more clarity. Until then I've just got to continue doing things that make me happy, make effort to ground my romanticised thoughts about him and not social media stalk!