Why do I miss them?
Sometimes we find ourselves missing a person or a relationship that we know wasn’t good for us, but we can’t help yearning. A lot of advice for situations like this skip right over the feelings we often experience and go straight to getting over it. Not many resources discuss the way it feels and the effects it can have on someone, or why it sticks around so long.
This stubborn longing can show up in a few different ways:
Looking at their social media profile or their new partner’s profile.
Everything reminding you of them.
Wanting them physically, but separate from wanting them back.
Being angry with them and missing them at the same time.
Why does it take so long to go away?
Wanting someone and liking someone are two different systems. Studies about dopamine and pleasure show that dopamine suppression doesn’t affect pleasure response, it just reduces seeking behavior.
When we know a person was unhealthy or bad for us, the part of the brain that reasons knows this, but the part of the brain that wants things doesn’t get the memo. Desire gets switched on by cues, not by decisions.
Tools for wanting
Aim your attention on purpose. This addresses the craving of the other person. Consider:
Something you dislike about them. This helps you feel less in love, which feels worse in the moment, and pairs those two sensations together.
Something pleasant, unrelated. This causes your mood to lift, which in turn makes you want them exactly as much afterwards.
A future someone else. Attachment to the ex will drop for people high in anxious attachment. Less effective for those who are low in anxious attachment.
Aim your attention away without severing the connection. Unfollow them without unfriending them, mute them instead of blocking them, etc. This does not apply to abusive situations where blocking someone is the safest option.
Write about your day, not your feelings. How you spend your time is the thing that changed when the relationship ended. Try:
Write about what you actually did (what you ate, where you went, what you saw) without the feelings involved. Try doing this three different days, twenty minutes each.
Track whether you feel like yourself, and skip old hobbies. This is for missing who you were with them.
Once a week, answer the question: how much do you feel like yourself again? Write the number down (between 1-10) and see which direction it moves.
Don’t bother resuming hobbies that your relationship may have crowded out. What predicts recovery is “do I feel like myself,” not the activities that you do.