After a breakup, people often keep in touch in one form or another. Someone is trying to remain friends, although the wounds have not healed yet. Someone just can't put the final point in any way and meets with different goals over and over again. For example, to have sex — more than half of the participants in the corresponding survey Should You Pursue Sex With an Ex? / Psychology Today confessed to this. Finally, thanks to social networks, you can always peek at what your ex‑lover is doing and wake up your aching heart. All this prolongs the agony.
Romantic love is primarily a hormonal cocktail consisting of oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin. They act in different ways and stand out as a response to different events, but they all make us feel happy and satisfied.
Parting reduces Broken heart, broken brain: The neurology of breaking up and how to get over it / CBC the level of these hormones. And here, approximately the same mechanisms work as with drug addiction. We don't have enough of the usual dose, and it's bad for us.
And then we see the former partner and get a new portion. Then we suffer. That is, we go through a vicious circle of dependence, without making it easier for ourselves. Although on the way to sobriety, if we talk about substances, you need to completely exclude them from your life.
Another thing is that it's not that simple with hormones. We can get them from other sources as well. For example, doing sports, eating chocolate or trying something new. But meeting with a former lover turns out to be the simplest source of hormonal explosion. And we strive for simplification. If something comes easy to us, it's hard to motivate ourselves to dig in another direction. On the contrary, I want to put pressure on the usual pedal and get a new dose. And this does not help to forget, on the contrary, it can turn a fading feeling into an obsession.
Relationships are rarely cloudless and usually don't work out for some reason. Even if everything seems to be fine, and then the partner announced the breakup, it's easy to remember what was wrong with the person and the interaction with him. This is generally useful because it allows you to look at the situation objectively. And this is exactly the case when not being positive is important. Understanding that not everything was perfect eases the pain and helps to move on.
But our psyche is capable of pulling different tricks. For example, we feel emotions from good memories much more vividly J. J. Skowronski, W. R. Walker, P. G. D. Bond, D. X. Henderson. The Fading Affect Bias: Its History, Its Implications, and Its Future / Advances in Experimental Social Psychology than from the bad ones. That is, you can sit in a corner for a long time and string beads of negativity on a string. And then meet with a beautiful ex and negate all efforts.
Therefore, it is more reliable not to let ex‑partners into this corner of yours — neither in physical embodiment, nor in the form of photos and messages.
The researchers found out C.-W. Tsai, P.-D. Shen, Y.-C. Chiang. Meeting ex‑partners on Facebook*: users’ anxiety and severity of depression / Behaviour & Information Technology that people who stayed in contact with their exes on social networks experienced more pronounced anxiety and a tendency to depression.
It can be assumed that other contacts are also not very favorable. Because it's like peeling the crust off a healing wound. It may not be fatal, but the process is dragging on. Although it is possible to bring an infection.
Moreover, interaction with the former prevents building new relationships. Studies, for example, have shown L. Rodriguez, R. E. Wickham, C. S. Øverup, A. B. Amspoker. Past and Present, Day by Day: Communication with Former Romantic Partners, Relationship‑Contingent Self‑Esteem, and Current Relationship Outcomes / Journal of Research in Personality that communication with a past lover reduces satisfaction with current relationships and makes you think about previous ones in a brighter light.
People, especially anxious ones, perceive the familiar as safe. And most of us strive for safety in one way or another, it's a pleasant feeling. At the same time, it doesn't really matter how much the familiar really pleases us. It is important that it is perceived better E. Tanovic, D. G. Gee, J. Joormann. Intolerance of uncertainty: Neural and psychophysiological correlates of the perception of uncertainty as threatening / Clinical Psychology Review than the frightening unknown.
Parting is always stressful also due to the fact that life is changing. Just yesterday, a person had an approximate plan for life, he had common habits with someone, common goals. But today everything has to be redrawn, and it is unclear what lies ahead.Therefore, the former partner is perceived as a safe haven, which is so quiet. But you can't go any further if you don't let the wind fill the sails and go out to sea.
Literally use the formula "out of sight — out of mind." Do not meet unless there is a need (real, not for far-fetched reasons). Unsubscribe on social networks and do not spy on your ex from fake accounts. Do not review the photo. Don't go to nostalgic places.
This does not mean that everything will be fine right away. But it will get better faster than if you don't do it.
*Activity of Meta Platforms Inc. and its social networks Facebook and Instagram is prohibited in the territory of the Russian Federation.
