HOW TO GET OVER YOUR BOYFRIEND

If you're in a happy relationship, swipe up, or save this for if you ever get tired of your boyfriend. I'm not a preacher of love. This article is for my heterosexual girlies who are in the middle of giving up on their relationship. The girls who are tired of trying again and are slowly realizing they deserve better than what they have. The ones who are scared to start all over again but are even more tired of doing this over and over again.

Dear diary,

I'm beginning to hate my boyfriend.

Every passing day, I question whether giving him another chance was worth it. And with every passing day, he proves to me why it wasn't, shredding my heart into a million pieces that had already been broken.

How can the man I claim to love be so emotionally unintelligent? How can the man who claims to love me leave me feeling absolutely nothing? How does he always manage to leave me emptier than he met me?

I'm beginning to hate my boyfriend.

This was a diary entry I wrote during my one-year-and-three-month relationship. From my calculations, I wrote it about three months before it ended.

Now, don't come at me with, "If you hated him this much, why wait? Why not just break up and be free?”

Well, that's exactly what this article is about.

The truth is, most of you are always in a hurry to tell people to break up. But breaking up is rarely the hard part. Leaving properly is. That's why so many people, especially women, leave the door halfway open even after they've ended the relationship.

First off, I'd like you to know that I'm not the most patient person in the world. I started my loc journey simply because I wanted to learn patience, and most days I still want to cut it all off, despite the fact that it's been my longest romantic relationship.

My first relationship lasted three months. I left at the first signal,not even the first sign, of things going wrong. We didn't fight or quarrel. Nothing happened. I just told him I wasn't feeling it anymore, he said, "Me too," and that was that.

Except it wasn't.

I didn't get over him. In fact, I couldn't get into another relationship for a whole year. I kept going back to him, hoping we'd get back together. For three months, he wished me a happy monthly anniversary without ever actually saying we were back together. He kept me close enough to hope but never close enough to be acknowledged.

It was not a nice place to be.

At all.

I don't want you to become that person, that's why I'm going to give you the three-month escape plan I never had but had to figure out myself. Experience is not the best teacher. Learning from other people's experiences is.

If you commit to this plan, I'm afraid detachment will become a piece of cake.

The reason you're still hung up on your ex is because your mind is still convinced he's your boyfriend. It hasn't caught up with the breakup yet. So, I'm guessing some of this will work for you too, although I intend to write a proper How to Get Over Your Ex in One Month article later.

Now, if you want to get over your boyfriend, you have to start early. I'm talking at least three months before the breakup. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

This is a step-by-step, three-month escape plan.

Month One: Regain Your Sight

This is the month where you're caught somewhere between staying and leaving. You're exhausted from the weekly emotional tug-of-war, the mixed signals, the promises, the apologies, and the inevitable disappointment. This is the hardest part of the plan.

Every human being is flawed, but love is blind in the most literal sense. When you fall in love, you get woozy and your vision becomes blurry. Your brain overlooks the things that would normally give you the ick because your heart loves him.

With every fight and every quarrel, your vision clears for just a moment. You finally see him for who he is. Then comes the making up. Emotions run high, he apologizes, sex is really good, and suddenly you forget the nights you soaked your pillow with tears or the conversations where he dismissed your feelings. Just like that, you're blind again.

I need you to start seeing your boyfriend as a human being. See him as he is not as you feel.

The only thing that makes your boyfriend special is your feelings for him. That's it.

Start seeing him as a person again. Notice how he sweats like a woman in labour when he sleeps beside you. Notice how his snoring has made every sleepover unbearable. Notice how he scratches the plate with his spoon or how the spoon grazes his teeth while he chews like a goat regurgitating. You know... the little, little things.

Then remember the bigger things.

Remember the conversations where you begged to be heard. Remember the nights you cried yourself to sleep. Remember the times he made you question your worth. Remember the birthdays and important dates he forgot. Remember the promises to change that never survived the following week.

The more you stop seeing him as an exception and start seeing him as a person, the clearer your vision becomes. The plan is not to hate your boyfriend. The plan is to be done with him.

Now, make a list.

This is very important.

Write down everything he does that infuriates you, and include specific instances. This list may take the entire month to complete, and that's okay. Think of it as evidence. Evidence that you're not mourning the relationship you had but the relationship you hoped to have.

The Bible says love keeps no record of wrongs. Unfortunately, that's exactly why your brain keeps rewriting history. So, now that you've regained your sight, keep records.

Make a cons list for that man. It will keep you afloat on the days your decision feels like a mistake.

We often go back to the past because we remember how good it felt, not how much it cost us to keep it good. We forget how much we bent over backwards to keep the peace. How much we tolerated for someone who thought the smallest stretch was already too much.

By the end of this month, you'll realize you're mourning the relationship you kept hoping for, not the one you actually had.

This list may take weeks to finish because you're trying to convince yourself that you're finally done embarrassing yourself in the name of love. If it takes longer than a month, that's okay. I don't care how long you stay.

What matters is that when you leave...

You never go back.

Month Two: Detach your body and your heart

By now, your mind has accepted what your heart spent the past month resisting. You know the relationship no longer serves you. You've had enough. The deadline has been set.

The problem is, your body hasn't left yet.

For most women, the mind leaves the relationship long before the body does. Your emotions begin to detach, but your body is still attached to the familiarity of his touch, his smell, his kisses, the way he holds you, the way he knows exactly what you like.

If you're someone who can't have sex outside a committed relationship, one of the first questions you'll quietly ask yourself is: Who will fuck me now?

People don't talk about this enough, but being sexually active with your partner makes leaving much harder. Unless you've mastered separating physical intimacy from emotional attachment, which, for most women, isn't the case, your body keeps convincing your mind to stay.

Good sex. Safe sex. Familiar sex. Seasoned sex. It makes leaving harder.

This is someone who has learnt the curves of your body, traced them with kisses in the dark, and knows exactly what makes your knees weak. Two hours after making you cry, one good night together suddenly has you thinking, Maybe we can make this work.

And just like that, you're trapped. Trapped in the vicious cycle of forgiving, hoping, and extending deadlines that should have expired months ago not he changed but because your body hasn’t caught up with your decision.

Some of you never close this chapter properly. That's why, even after the breakup, you leave the door halfway open. You find yourself making booty calls, sneaking into your ex's apartment, and waking up the next morning feeling even more foolish than before because after the orgasm wears off, you'll realize something. His body hasn't changed. His skills haven't changed but neither has he.

Now, what I'm about to say is not typical relationship advice. It's what worked for me.

Once I'd regained my sight, I stopped treating sex as proof that we were in love. I stopped making every sexual encounter mean something. I let it become just sex.

Once you've regain your sight, I need you to fuck this man silly.

Fuck him. Fuck him a lot. When things are good, fuck him. When he pisses you off, fuck him. When you're bored, fuck him. While you do, be selfish. Don't stroke his ego. Don't fake moans. Stop making every sexual encounter an act of emotional reassurance.Fuck him until you no longer crave him. Fuck him until he becomes just another body instead of the love of your life. Fuck him until that's all it is to you. Fucking.

Keep your heart in a box while you do it. Have a lot of good, meaningless sex. By this point, your feelings should already be compromised, so let the relationship become more physical than emotional.

I know you'll probably still compare future lovers to him. You might find yourself wishing Daniel cupped your breasts the way Femi did. That's normal. But for now, strip the relationship down to its physicality. Let your body catch up to the decision your mind has already made.

Soon enough, it becomes routine, and routine becomes boring. Soon enough, your heart leaves the relationship and your coochie takes the wheel. (Results may vary)

Every time you fuck him, do it with the consciousness that it might be the last time. Stop treating sex like a promise that tomorrow will be different. Let it be what it is.

Sex has a way of blurring the lines between love and familiarity. If you use that to your advantage, it might even leave you questioning whether what you're holding on to is love or simply habit.

This phase should last about a month, but if you need more time, take it. I don't care how long it takes.

What matters is that, when you finally leave...

You never find yourself back in his bed.

Month Three: Break up. Leave once. Never go back

By now, the relationship has gone quiet.

You've reached the deadline you set for yourself. You're no longer fighting as much because you've stopped expecting him to change. Your mind has left, your body has caught up, and sex has become just sex.

When you're ready to leave, you'll know. It won't be dramatic. It won't happen after one big fight. It'll happen on a random Tuesday. You'll wake up and realize you're done.

Not angry or bitter, just done.

You'll realize he no longer serves you, and your body, heart, and soul can no longer survive the games.

You'll say it casually, but you'll mean every word. You'll look him dead in the eyes, and for the first time in months, he'll finally look back.

He'll find you dry-eyed, without the cataract of love clouding your vision and he'll be frightened. He'll wonder when he lost you. He'll wonder why he didn't notice sooner. He'll finally realize that you're done. Really done.

Then I need you to cry.

Cry every night if you have to. Cry at 2 a.m. Cry in the shower. Cry into your pillow until your eyes hurt.

Mourn the love you thought the relationship would become. Mourn the months or years you spent loving someone who could only meet you halfway. Mourn the future you imagined with him. Mourn the version of yourself that kept shrinking just to make the relationship fit.

Cry because you loved him. Because you did. Cry because you gave him chances he never deserved and watched him waste every single one.

Then delete the chats.

Cry.

Delete his number.

Cry.

Block him.

Cry.

Cry because you're finally free from the cycle that kept convincing you next week would be different. Cry because, if you stayed, you'd still be crying anyway. At least this time, there isn't a mannequin standing beside you pretending to be your boyfriend.

This part may take months. Take them but do not relapse. Do not feast on your vomit.

Whenever you feel yourself romanticizing the relationship, go back to the list you made in Month One. Remind yourself why you left. Remind yourself that you didn't leave because you stopped loving him. You left because loving him was costing you yourself.

There is always better than someone who repeatedly makes you question your worth. Don't settle simply because you're afraid to start over.

There are emotionally intelligent men out there. There are men with good dick out there. There are men with both. Give yourself the chance to meet them.

It'll take a while.Healing usually does.

But one day you'll wake up, make breakfast, scroll past his name without your stomach dropping, and realize you haven't thought about him all day.

That's when you'll know.

You got over your boyfriend.

With all my love,

Amarachi 🦄.