1) Have sex with your ex

You’re probably going to do it anyway. In fact, just keep doing it- for about 1/3 of as long as you were together for. Why not? You’re comfortable together. They know your body and you know theirs. One or both of you still love each other. There’s so much to talk about. In fact, you’re not sure why you broke up… Repeat Cycle

2) Decide to be best friends. Immediately

They WERE your best friend. It seems crazy to cut them out of your life, maybe even impossible. Even for a short time. You know their family, your friends are intertwined. You can be friends, right? You can be totally honest with one another about all the comings and goings in your life, your deepest darkest feelings? You can put aside The Relationship and just do the mates thing with the purest heart. Right?

3) Have sex with your ex girlfriend’s ex girlfriend

Let’s face it, she was always hanging around anyway, because lesbians and ex’s are generally forever intertwined. She’s cute… fun… interesting… She’s your friend now too. She’s there for you, she’s taken you out to get drunk, dance and commiserate as well as eat ice-cream on the sofa and binge on Lip Service. She understands your ex better than anyone, in fact you both do. You have so much in common! Plus there’s a smaller pool (queer + female means everyone already has a girlfriend). In fact, why haven’t we hooked up before? Nothing could possibly go wrong…

Alternatively you could try this one:

I slept with my ex-boyfriend’s notoriously womanising best friend. Who had a girlfriend and, as it turns out, herpes (which I thankfully didn’t catch). In my defence, I didn’t seek it out, he offered.

4) Get a haircut believing you’ll be Gwyneth in Sliding Doors

You’re wiping the slate clean. Starting fresh. You’ve seen everyone on TV do it: they eat chocolate, get drunk, shag a stranger… then they get a haircut and suddenly their life takes a turn for the better! They stop mooning, start looking after themselves, make new friends, get new interests and suddenly meet a fantastic lover. A completely perfect, much-better-than-the-last-loser, lover. This is exactly how it works.

Especially after you’ve bleached your hair and got a perm. I wanted fabulous, I got 80’s”.

5) Get a haircut believing you’ll be Shane on The L Word

You’ll suddenly transform into the hottest don’t-give-a-shit lesbian in the whole damn town. That part where you get lots of feelings and those feelings happen when you sleep with another woman? The part where you stay up all night with a complete stranger, having lovely sex, entwining fingers and falling in love? That will definitely not happen if you just cut your hair off.

My badass hot new haircut that would pull in all the babes? I ended up looking like Princess Di.

 

Yes, I am judging you

5) Stalk your ex online

You know how everyone looks happy all the time on social media? That’s totally how you want to see the person who broke your heart right now. Because you are happy for them.

6) Refuse to accept you are single

‘It’s complicated’. It sure is. You were in love. Maybe you were together for an extremely long time. Maybe you were married or equally long-term committed. Maybe you have kids. Maybe you own a house together, or a dog, or a playstation. You have a HISTORY and that is incredibly difficult to let go of, no matter what went down. It’s definitely completely different from anyone else. No one else- personal or professional- would understand. No one could ever help you recover and heal from this and move on. Therefore it’s far better to do something like…

get drunk, call them repeatedly saying it was all a huge mistake

8) Drag it out until one of you nearly dies

I was twenty
Huge fired up argument

He was in his undies

I had a van at the time

I told him I was done it was over and I got in my van

He held onto the bull bar saying he wouldn’t get out the way

I started the car and drove off speedily down our long Brisbane suburban street with him in his undies holding onto my bull bar screaming

6) Force your anger on everyone else

You know what’s awesome? When you are really hurt by your ex, and you expect everyone else- even if you were together for 15 years and had lots of the same friends- to get on board with you. You’re rounding up the pals and divvying them up, calling them out on having dinner with your ex, explaining to them in minute detail all the terrible ways you were done wrong. It’s so obvious to you that this person is awful, eventually they’ll see the real truth that you do, especially if you keep talking about it. Forever.

I wrote a list of all the terrible ways my ex was a douche over a whiskey or 5. Then shared it with mutual friends.

7) Don’t grieve

What’s there to be sad about? We drove the relationship into the ground; they cheated on me or I them; we ended up hating each other; they really badly hurt me; we were wrong for each from the beginning.

So i’m feeling weird sensations: a hole in my guts; I can’t sleep; there’s a constant tightness in my chest; i’ve had a panic attack; other areas of my life are suffering; I’m carrying a heavy weight on my shoulders or in my tummy; i’m sad or angry or blue or grey despite my very best efforts not to be.

It couldn’t possible be that not only have i lost a person, i’ve lost a VISION for the future. I’ve lost a hope I had, tied up with the ‘wrong’ person or not, a dream. That’s nothing to be sad about, best to deny it completely…

 

If you enjoyed this post, sign up here to get more freebies in your inbox AND an PDF of Journal Prompts for Imperfectionists- my next post is full of ACTUAL helpful supportive ideas for break-up recovery. If you ARE struggling with the end of a relationship, it’s smart to seek help before things get out of hand. Even just a couple of sessions with a counsellor can do the world of good and help you get on track, and I specialise in helping people through separation. If you’d like to know more, please contact me directly. As an open-minded woman who has survived several break-ups, as well as a professional counsellor, I would love to help.

A massive thank you to the wonderful women who contributed to this blog post. Collaboration, as in counselling, makes for the best results.