Why Living in the Past Can Ruin Your Life

When a relationship ends for whatever reason, a lot of people have problems with moving on with their lives. Instead of trying to deal with their pain and heal so they can have a happy future, they mope around and moan and groan about how horrible their lives are. Worse yet, they will spill their misery to everyone that will listen just how awful they were treated during the break up.

There are many ways to tell if you’re one of these people that are refusing to move on. No one wants to subject their friends to this sort of behavior for long periods of time. Sure, your friends will listen to you and do everything they can to help you get through this tough time in your life, but after a while, they’re not going to want to hear nothing EXCEPT your break up and how unhappy you are.

So the first thing you’ll notice is that your friends, even your best friends, are starting to pull away from you. That’s something you should definitely pay attention to.  No, don’t blame it on them. If they’ve been by your side for the last six to twelve months, and all you can do is talk about your ex, chances are pretty good that you’ve worn them out.

Something else that tells you that you’re not moving on is when you spend all of your spare time looking at picture albums of you and your ex and re-reading your diary written when you and your ex were together.  While you sit and go through these things night after night, you’ve got songs on your CD player that were special to you when you were part of a couple. You simply won’t let those things go.

You refuse to go out with friends and have some fun. Instead, you stalk your ex on Facebook and grill your mutual friends for information about your ex. You’re not moving forward with your life when all of your focus is still firmly on your ex and the life that the two of you once had.

The question you need to ask yourself is just how is dwelling in the past going to help you to enjoy a happy future? The answer, whether you want to admit it or not, is that you won’t have a happy future. You’re going to be 80 years old and still alone, spending your days and nights poring over your old photo albums, diaries and listening to songs that are a half century old. Is that really what you want?

When you decide to stay firmly entrenched in the past, there’s simply no way to live happily in the present while moving into a future that’s promising. Living in the past and clinging to a relationship that’s never going to happen again, will gain you nothing except a very lonely and sad existence. Don’t let that happen to yourself. Do what you can to let go of the ex that will never return and open yourself up to all of the romantic possibilities right in front of you.