Ever just wanted the world to go away and leave you alone? Ever felt like crawling into a hole and pulling in the dirt behind you?

That’s what I felt like during the whole process of getting over my ex girlfriend. Now I’m a guy’s guy, I would say: I like Clint Eastwood movies and beer. So those two things alone pretty much seal the deal as far as manliness is concerned. Let’s be clear…I’m no wuss. But I fell, and fell hard for this red haired she-devil.

And let there be no doubt, she was a devil. The sex was fantastic. Her body was fantastic. Her temper was…not so fantastic. It was argument after argument after argument. But then there was sex, sex, and more sex. Which was great, but I rapidly learned that even the best sex can’t atone for her calling you a bastard (or worse) every time little Miss Perfection didn’t approve.

I never knew getting over an ex would be such a long, tortuous journey. I experienced things I never thought I would experience.  I lived dangerously, drove faster than ever, and drank much more heavily. Just to get over her… and get her out of my blood and numb my brain until I couldn’t even see her in my mental haze.

But getting over her was the most surprising thing I ever experienced. I listened to the singing of Cher, among other things. That alone is enough to drive any self respecting man insane.

This lasted for the better part of two months. We would drift apart and then the urge would hit and I’d go to her like a moth to the flame. And we would fight and I’d feel terrible for a week. But slowly, I got better at the recovery. I didn’t need so much beer. I didn’t need to get that thrill of speed to forget her. And most of all, I didn’t need to listen to Cher anymore. She just depressed the heck out of me.

And in the end getting over my ex girlfriend was a lesson in self endurance and self preservation. It was long and painful, but I did learn a lot about myself and what it means to be in relationship. Don’t let anyone fool you. Being in love is an addiction, because breaking up and then trying to get her back is an experience that is best described as detox. Pure and simple.

Steve Edwards, 39, IT analyst

I remember it like it was yesterday. I thought Sarah and I were in it for good. I loved her very much. I had introduced her to my family and my friends adored her. But then, all of a sudden she ended it. According to her, we were not spending enough time together. Apparently, we were always hanging out with friends in a group and were never doing anything together as a couple. I did the initial begging and groveling at her feet, after which she literally threw me out of her place.

So there I was, lovesick, frustrated and quite at lost. I drowned my sorrow in drinks and the comfort of the very friends for whom apparently Sarah broke up with me. They bought me countless rounds of drinks, took me to the newest clubs in town and never mentioned my “ex”.

I was having a tough time referring to Sarah as my “ex girlfriend”. But I knew I had to get used to it…

I knew the drill for I had helped a few of my buddies get over their broken hearts. I knew I would forget her and everything would work out fine. I would meet someone, fall in love and life would be hunky dory again.

But it wasn’t easy to get over my ex girlfriend. Any brunette like my ex would have me longing to get her back. At pubs, any woman ordering a Cosmopolitan would remind me of her. I would relive the way she turned the olive in her drink, left it soaking before chewing on it slowly with relish. If someone put 60s or 70s music on the jukebox, I would be taken back to the evenings when we would have take-out Chinese at home and listen to endless replays of The Beatles and Dylan.

Each time this happened, I would try to snap back out of it and tell myself repeatedly to forget her. Each time my fingers itched to dial her number, just to listen to her voicemail message, I would tell myself to call my mother instead! And trust me, my mother was surprised for she had no idea why I was calling her so many times a week.

Therapy did not work, neither did blind dates set up by friends. Days rolled into months before I realized that it had been almost half a year since breaking up with Sara. And one day, I snapped. While I realized it was hard to survive a break up, I decided to talk to myself once and for all. That did the trick. Every time afterwards, I went over the breakup in my mind, I forced myself to try to look ahead.

Gradually, I opened up more to my friends’ efforts and starting going out with new people. I can now listen to The Rolling Stones without breaking down in tears. I can have a sane conversation with any Cosmo-guzzling date. The only person not so happy is my mother. For now that I am back on track in my life, she does not get so many calls from me anymore!

Joseph Flint,  25, computer programmer

“Hey, can we go someplace private? We need to talk.”

If my girlfriend told me something like that today, I’d know what was coming. I’d be able to mentally prepare myself for getting dumped a few minutes ahead of schedule. Because those words can only mean one thing: she wants to break up with me.

At the time, though, I wasn’t a wise as I am now. I was just a freshman in college, enjoying my first serious relationship. Ah, so she wants to talk? Great! This’ll be fun. I love talking to her.

Do I need to dwell on the details? We’ve all heard it. It wasn’t me, it was her. We had some great times and she knew I would find somebody new who could give me what I was looking for, and she really, really hoped we could still be friends. She didn’t understand, any more than I did, that getting over a broken heart isn’t easy.

I didn’t quite process all this as it happened. Again, I was young and little naive. Today I can at least see the warning signs that the end is near. But then, it seemed to come out of nowhere. She might as well have told me she was alien and was leaving because she had to report back to her home planet. It sounds a little clichéd, but the feeling was exactly like being punched in the gut. I know it’s called heartbreak or heartache but isn’t really the gut that feels the worst of it? But the pit of my stomach was crying out in pain. How could I get over a broken heart if I couldn’t even get over a broken gut?

This happened twenty minutes before I had to go take a final for one of my classes. The girl wasn’t cruel, by the way. She misheard something I’d said earlier, and thought I was meeting her on the way from the test. When she realized her mistake, she was mortified. But in fact, maybe it was for the best. Thanks to the final, I had something to take my mind off the pain.

It reminded me there were other things in life, and that helped in getting over the heartbreak. It took some getting used to being single again, but soon enough I was back on my feet.

- Chris, 26, Graduate Student

To people who have never had one, relationships are like the movies, perfection in every moment of the day. For some people, this may be the case, but I was never that lucky. My relationship, as perfect as I thought it was, didn’t last. At first, I was blinded by her beauty. Every inch of her body, her face, the way she moved invited me in. I finally got up the nerve to ask her to dinner and I was surprised to receive a yes for an answer.

After a few months, I thought it was love. I loved everything about her and it made me happy to see her happy. About the time we hit the seven month mark in our relationship, I accepted a new job helping one of my old friends, as a landscaper. This required more hours away from the house and we even traveled to other nearby cities to do work. The time away caused fighting and we slowly started to drift apart.

One day, I woke up to a note on the pillow next to me. It said, “I love you but I cannot put myself though this any longer” and she was gone.

The sudden nature of the break up and pain of the broken heart devastated me. I felt empty, the silence in the spaces around me that my ex girlfriend used to fill was like a booming noise in my ears.

I knew I had to try to get her back. I tried calling her and she never answered. She was never home when I tried to visit her at home. Eventually I told myself I had to move on and as hard as it was to get over a broken heart, I kept trying.

The months after the break up were hard but I slowly started to move on. I found small things in my everyday routine that made more sense and I focused on them to keep me motivated. I found fun in my boring routine and once again I liked waking up in the morning.

Although breaking up was hard, I found that by accepting the separation and finding new ways to heal the hurt I was feeling inside, it was much easier to survive the break up. I finally realized that I was getting over my ex girlfriend and I was okay with it.

Josh Ranguel – 28, Landscaping Business Owner

When it came to surviving a break up, no one had it worse than me. I had dated a girl in college and it seemed like the right one — her name was Alison. Alison actually worked up the courage to talk to me, and we hit it off nicely. Alison though was more interested in getting a warm body to be married to than anything else.

Instead of just a steady relationship that might develop into something more, Alison wanted to skip all that and go directly down the aisle. Well, that left me feeling like a rat in a cage, and even after I tried to end the relationship four months later, I couldn’t do it. She actually came down and told me that if it was not going to work out, she would be the one to decide it.

Two months later, I had to do the breaking up when I found out from her friend Trish that she had been dating my only other male friend at the time, Jim, for nearly 3 months and started sleeping with him just two days after going out with him. Trish was a true friend and helped me get over the broken heart in a hurry with funny lines like since they were both terminally obese, how the baby would weigh about 30 pounds, or that she was glad I was out of the relationship because I didn’t look good in black and white stripes.

Over the next several weeks, this brand of humor kept me sane as I was getting over my ex-girlfriend but the last laugh came about four months after the breakup. My friend was still living at home with his mom and his mother bluntly put her foot down and told Jim that if he married Alison, he was going to be on his own. Fearing that he was actually going to have to work for a living, he ended up breaking it off with her. Her initial plot was to go out with him so that I would attempt to get her back, but since this friend of mine was nothing but a nuisance and my relationship had more problems than it was worth, I simply cut ties to both of them.

In the weeks and months that followed, I missed having someone in my life but my friends helped me get over it with a few beers, some dancers and making other connections to wonderful people.

Scott, 37- Accountant

It was a cliché line I never wanted to hear from my girlfriend.

I dreaded those words. But after almost eight months together, they came.

She called me on the phone on a Sunday evening. I remember it was a Sunday evening because I had just finished watching The Simpsons. After a brief hello – which sounded awkward – those words that let me know our relationship was almost over left her mouth.

She said: “We have to talk.”

I drove to the parking lot where she worked, got out of my car and entered hers. She didn’t waste any time breaking up with me and telling me that we just didn’t have and ‘chemistry’ anymore. I had kind of sensed it coming, but didn’t want to admit it to myself. She had always said that as long as I didn’t cheat on her, we’d be together. Well, she lied. I didn’t cheat on her.

It was a ‘chemistry’ issue. As she sat there talking about all the things that were wrong with our relationship and why it wasn’t working, I just nodded. I was too in shock to really listen. I was devastated. A big part of me wanted to explain myself, to fight to get her back. But pride won out and I kept my mouth shut. This led to a night that just kept getting worse.

On the way home, I contemplated what happened. It seemed like there was still a small time window for me to go back and win her over. It’s even possible it was all a test to see how much I cared about her. But something led me back home. And when I shut the door behind me, I knew it was over for good.

What I didn’t know was how tough it was to get over a broken heart. I never thought I would have to deal with breaking up with her, yet there I stood, my knees weakening faster than my heart. I attempted to walk up the steps, but collapsed. While remaining conscious, I couldn’t find the energy to walk. I shed many tears as I crawled up each step. It took over a half an hour to get to the second floor.

Once in my room, I asked myself how I could possible survive this break up. She was everything to me. She changed my life for the better, gave me hope, and let me know that it was possible to be loved. Despite the pain, I knew I had to get over my ex girlfriend. It seemed the most difficult chore of my life at the time, but I did my best to go out and socialize with other co-eds to keep my mind off her. It was the only potential way to get over my ex-girlfriend.

The amazing thing about it all is that a few months later we met up as friends. A friend of hers happened to be with her.

To make a long story short, that friend of hers is now my wife, and an amazing woman. I’m glad I never gave up hope.

Nick Tyler
35
Investor

As I sat in my easy chair, beer bottles strewn across the coffee table in front of me, the question reverberated in my head: “How’s your ex-girlfriend?”

This question, an innocent inquiry from a co-worker, had driven home the finality of the break-up. Up until that point, I had spent my time dreaming up desperate schemes to get her back. All that came of these pathetic fantasies was an awkward, unreturned voice message. I was THAT GUY, the legendary brokenhearted boyfriend whose groveling soliloquy gets played back by his ex-girlfriend to her inner circle over margaritas, to responses of , “You gotta cut that loose, girl!”, or “You need a REAL man!” I hate the inner circle.

Now it was Friday, and I was sunk deeply into that chair, wishing to disappear into its thick folds. After THE QUESTION had been set forth, my co-worker Kenny, the self-proclaimed “expert” on all things romantic, proceeded to hold court around the water cooler.

“Getting over an ex,” he began, “is like losing your pet lab. It’s a loss, for sure, but also an opportunity. Now you can get a new lab, one in the puppy stage. You know, the cuddling and wrestling and licking, know what I mean?” Unfortunately, I knew what Kenny meant, and needed a superhuman does of self-control to keep my clinched fist at my side instead of shoving it down his throat. Now THAT would’ve been great fodder for water cooler discussion! Physical violence also seemed like a viable solution to the tangible bitterness that accompanied the aftermath of the break up.

The event that spurred my recovery was completely unexpected. About two months after THE QUESTION, I was out at a popular local nightspot with a group of friends and saw my ex dancing quite closely with a guy I had known since high school. The worst part about it was, I couldn’t be angry. He was a terrific guy, and someone I hadn’t seen in a while; he probably had no idea that I had even dated Sarah before him. At that moment, I felt a tremendous and surprising sense of peace: Sarah and I had never had the rightness, the free and easy comfort, that she seemed to share with this man. With this realization came the long sigh of relief and the finality of the thought: “I am no longer getting over her; I have moved on.”

Barry, 33 – Manchester

Believe it or not, the girl I had the hardest time getting over was never even my girlfriend. Technically speaking. It was someone who, after just a couple dates, let me know that she wasn’t really interested in pursuing anything beyond friendship. But pursue friendship we did, over the course of several years and long-distances…

I put far more resources into that “friendship” than any romantic relationship I’d ever had. I was in love with my friend, and not being able to move it to another level was heartbreaking in itself and it was nearly killing me.

But the idea of ending our friendship — false as it may have been — and not spending time with her, killed me even more.

A long while down the road, I told her I loved her. But I did it by email, because I was a coward — in case you hadn’t already gathered that. I also threw in everything that I thought was wrong between us, in the hope of convincing her that my love was strong enough to make it all right. I was young and in love and not thinking straight, and I shouldn’t have done that.

She responded with one of the angriest emails I’ve ever read, and cut off all contact with me. They say you hurt the ones you love most, right? Maybe that proved we actually did have something, but it was gone. After all the connection we had built over all that time… I was very heartbroken and I knew that getting her out of my head and getting over her was going to be impossible.

I was so upset that for about four months, I had no appetite. The broken heart hurt my whole being… I would force myself to eat a tiny salad with lettuce, cottage cheese, and peach slice for lunch. I knew I needed to eat something, and that was all I could stand. At dinner I’d slowly get down about a fifth of whatever the cafeteria was serving, which wasn’t much.

I also went to a counselor about that time, just to make sure I wasn’t crazy, because it seemed crazy to be not be over a girl after that long, who I had never even “gotten serious” with. The counselor assured me I was going to be okay, and shortly after that I was.

The upside? At the end of those few months I’d lost twenty pounds! This was weight I could easily stand to lose. So for all the heartache and emotional pain, I came out in better health in the end. Sometimes it really is better to have loved and lost.

The scene was a pathetic one. There I was, seventeen and on the white sandy beach watching the waves crash on the Florida shore. I was a ball player, athletic and tanned. Bikinis were as plentiful as grains of sand; but I was oblivious to them and the bodies inside them.

My parents thought there might be something terribly wrong with me. My parents didn’t see the chaos going on inside me because I wasn’t over her yet. Dad even dusted off his old drugs and alcohol lecture just in case that was the problem.

Drugs or any kind of fun was the last thing on my mind. I couldn’t look even look at a beer. This was the summer before my senior year, I was in the sunniest place in the world and all my mind could focus on was my ex-girlfriend and the breakup that had me in a million little pieces.

I had left the Midwest happy. I kissed her goodbye and everything was great. She was great. After years, I had found a girl who got me. She was cute and sweet, not beautiful maybe, but she didn’t have to be. She was intelligent and interesting and made every other girl in my high school look like a waste of time. I was the luckiest guy in town, and then I blew it.

The worst part of it all was that I had no idea how I blew it. I sent her a gold necklace in the mail. We talked on the phone every night. I loved this girl. One phone call ended in a small argument. It wasn’t a major fight. I was bored and missed her terribly, and like an idiot I took it out on her. She broke up with me, end of story. But, there had to be more.

Dad was close to throttling me out of my funk. I was ruining the summer, but I couldn’t help it. The last straw was the morning I cussed out a little seagull skittering down the beach in front of my feet. Dad ordered me to get over it then and there.

I thought the picture would be clear when I got home. I figured if I at least knew why I would be able to move on and get over her. There wasn’t. There was no other guy… At least thats what she said. We spoke in the halls when school started again, but it was almost like there was no acknowledgment of what had happened. No explanation ever came my way. I was so confused that I didn’t even try to get her back.

What did I learn from that breakup? I learned that I understood exactly nothing about women. Trouble is, not much has changed since then.

-K. B. Ryan, 37, sales

So how did I get over my ex girlfriend? It wasn’t easy. The first cut is the deepest for a reason. I was dating a girl several years ago that I thought hung the moon. She was blonde, leggy and beautiful. Her eyes were deep blue and I thought she was the one.

The only problem was she wasn’t into marriage. She was a television reporter who wanted to move on to the network. Her career goals were way beyond me. At the time I thought the breaking up was all to do with me. In retrospect, I would finally learn it was more about her and there was absolutely no way I’d ever get her back.

I should have seen the signs of the relationship breaking up sooner. She said little things like “I hate the idea of marriage” and “I’m using you just for sex, is that okay?”. That would be alright with most guys but not when you are head over heels and want to keep a relationship going.

The writing was on the wall and on New Year’s Eve she decided to drop the bomb. She decided in her New Year’s resolution to get a new job. That meant she was heading to a different city once that happens. She finally told me she wanted to break up. I was devastated. It was my first real relationship. Now I had to think about the options.

Should I scheme to get her back or just try to move on? The first thing that helped was talking with everyone I could about the break up. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to get over my ex girlfriend.

The next thing I did was my put myself in situations where I could meet other girls. Like many guys, getting over an ex girlfriend sometimes takes meeting a new one. I still wanted to get her back but my ego just wouldn’t allow me to try that. In my heart I knew the only way to survive a break up like this was to move on and start seeing other girls.

So I went to parties and events just to meet new women. I was trying to get over the break up but it just didn’t seem to work until I kissed the next girl. I didn’t have sex with her. I almost couldn’t stomach that since I was trying to still forget about the ex girlfriend. With each kiss it made things a little bit better. Finding new prospects is the easiest way to get over an ex girlfriend. Breaking up was painful but kissing someone new was sweet.

That wasn’t the only girl I kissed. I moved on to the next girl and the next. After kissing 5-6 different women over the course of the next 2-3 months I felt as if I were ready to move on. The opportunity to meet someone new had helped me survive the break up. P

lus there was always a little inspiration from others who had gone through tough break ups. You’ll be surprised once you talk with most guys or girls how many have had a broken heart. In fact, nobody I ever talked to about it said they had not experienced a painful break. Trying to get over an ex girlfriend or ex boyfriend was good common ground and “group” therapy. Seeing new girls and seeing the opportunity to find new love was even better.

Chris Jones
Age 27