Why can’t I stop yearning for my ex?
Understanding love, grief, and the soul’s call to let go.
Dear Ask and Heal,
Q: Why can’t I stop yearning for my ex?
A: When we meet a person and connect with them, oftentimes it’s based on connections within similarities, appearance, status, social groups, and shared interests alike. As we evolve within our connections, our hearts grow fonder, our bonds become stronger, our trust expanding. The more time spent together, you begin to take on each other’s traits and ideals.
As time goes on and you’re getting to know and understand your person — the things that make them smile, things that piss them off, likes and dislikes, favorite food, music, colors, desires — it makes you both feel connected, seen, and heard. Your energy and your person’s energy become intertwined together, two individuals now becoming one.
Relationships are a two-way street. Two people come together and have made a conscious decision to commit to one another. In contrast, when someone wants to leave the connection, it becomes a one-way street, whether you are the one separating from the connection voluntarily or involuntarily. Both parties will still yearn for each other in one way or another, but the relationship course is completed.
Yearning for your past partner is a normal process of grieving. It is important for you to acknowledge those current feelings and work with those feelings. Those feelings will always be a rollercoaster of days when you’re good, moments when you’re sad, and months of stillness and processing of deeper emotions and rooted issues. You may notice how your understanding about your attachment and detachment style to people, places, and things shifts. Yearning and mourning are part of the healing journey.
My dad always says, “You don’t fall in love overnight” (only God and the angels know when I swore it was love at first sight, haha!). He also said, “Therefore, you don’t fall out of love overnight.” Falling out of love is like a slow burn.
As this slow burn unfolds, you might find yourself remembering the smallest moments — how you both would look at each other, how you seemed to hear each other’s thoughts as if you had telepathy, how they would kiss you on the forehead, right at your third eye, and your soul would melt. How you’d meet up wearing the same colors and laugh, asking, “How the hell did you know what colors I was wearing?” You’re mourning the loss of the connection, past, present, and potential future you both once shared.
These simple, meaningful moments hold so much power. You think of when you first met, all the fun times, even regretting the things you never said. These memories can feel heavy, and the regrets even heavier — but breakups serve a bigger purpose. They invite us to look within and heal what is asking to be healed.
The love you have for your person is real, but your inner soul is calling you to love yourself and yearn for your own soul alignment in the same way you yearn for that past connection. Your soul is ready to unravel from your ex and be free, my love — be free.
💬 Need Support?
If you feel like you are struggling and would like some guidance,
click the link below to book an appointment and have treatment tailored to your needs:
👉 www.theunorthodoxcounselor.com/rhinehart-counseling-services
