“Everything is temporary, emotions, thoughts, people and scenery. Don’t become attached, just flow with it”
How do you learn to get more out of what you want from your romantic relationships and less of what you don’t want?
How do you let go of a relationship, that in reality has probably already ended?
How do you move on to get over a special person that you were in love with but who didn’t or doesn’t feel the same for you anymore?
The reality is that these questions are normally asked by someone who has already effectively ended a relationship, or found themselves in the position that their significant other has decided to move on leaving the emotionally attached person struggling to catch their breath.
The difference is in your attachment style and how it feels to be securely attached as opposed to those who are more insecure. An insecure attachment style will mostly come from some sort of developmental wounding that would have occurred when you were younger and would cause feelings of attachment to persist in situations where you really want to move on into a new phase of your life.
So the next question that needs to be asked is: How do some people who are securely attached manage to move forward in their lives, even staying friends with their ex, while others cannot stop ruminating and trying to hold on to something that was once good, while staying stuck in patterns of anger and blame?
With regards to romantic relationships, perhaps staying attached is a general thing in your love life and maybe you get too attached to new lovers too quickly. Perhaps the issue is more specific and there is someone in your life right now and you want to make sure you don’t get attached too quickly. Or maybe you have decided you want to cut off the emotional attachment altogether because the other person you are seeing isn’t right for you.
“Attachment can be painful when you don’t prepare yourself for detachment”
Here are some things you can consider to help you keep emotions firmly under control while learning to make conscious decisions about your relationships.
- Be clear of what you want in a relationship from the beginning. If you are not looking for a serious relationship then you need to say so. Are you looking for something more casual or are you looking for a serious long-term love relationship? Being aware of exactly what you want can help you put an end to feelings you have developed for a particular person, more so if you know they are not looking for the same thing.
- Don’t become physically intimate especially if you know you have the tendency to get emotionally attached through intimacy. If this has been a problem for you in the past, hold on before becoming physically intimate with someone that you are newly involved with. If you feel the relationship has potential and you feel that becoming intimate too soon would complicate your emotions, hold back. Physical intimacy has the ability to confuse emotions. Wait until there is more trust between the two of you.
- If you are trying to turn off your emotions entirely then physical intimacy has to be an absolute NO. It will be impossible to put any kind of emotional distance between the two you if you are still intimate.
- Limit your contact with the person. You will have to be strict on how much contact you maintain, if any at all, if you are trying to detach emotionally. Don’t text them all the time. Keep your own interests and don’t allow your life to revolve around them. If you want to stop these feelings completely you will have to go cold turkey. Messaging them and keeping them in the forefront of your mind only allows the feelings to develop and the harder it will be in the end. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. Even to yourself.
- To stop yourself from becoming emotionally attached, focus on the here and now and what is happening within the relationship at the present time, not on some potential future that you could be imagining. When a new relationship begins, some people make the mistake of fantasising situations they invent in their minds. They focus on what they imagine their life could be and create blind spots as to the warning signs of what this new person is really like.
- Take your time in a new relationship. Learn about the other person. While depth in relationships creates intimacy. It is important to learn about compatibility. If you avoid serious conversations at the beginning, you could become overly attached, only to find out later you were not compatible and were not walking on the same path in life.
- It’s important not to neglect family and friends. Don’t allow yourself to disappear into a new relationship. Your friends and family are your biggest support network. Don’t lose that.
- Know your worth. Understand that it is easier to get emotionally attached if you are scared of being alone or if your standards are not raised high enough. Working on loving yourself, creating self-respect and putting boundaries in place can help you raise your self esteem. The higher your standards, the less likely there is the potential for you to get hurt.
“When you lose an emotional attachment to someone, you realise how ordinary they are”