Toa Heftiba

Can You Really Break Your Emotional Dependency On Your Ex?

Do you feel a strong emotional “attachment” to your ex, but you don’t understand why? Are you finding that you are having difficulty letting go of your relationship because your ex provided you with stability and comfort? After the dust has settled, you now begin to see things in a new perspective that your love for your ex blinded you from. So how do you break your emotional dependency on your ex?

Well, first, you must understand why you are dependent on your ex in the first place.  Often, you became dependent on your ex to fill a void in your life that was most likely created during childhood.  You allowed other people to define your self-worth.  When you met your former lover, they probably made you actually begin to feel worthy of receiving love. Perhaps for the first time in your life, you started to feel like you were valuable and appreciated.

Often, we become dependent on our lover based on the emotional needs that they fulfill. We rely on our partners to provide us with those “feel-good” feelings. Slowly, over time, we make them totally responsible for giving us that feeling all of the time. When they give us the attention that we crave, they provide us with feelings of love and approval.  They make us feel worthy and safe. However, when the relationship sours, the attention stops and our self-worth starts to diminish. It was unfair of us to make them responsible for how we felt every moment of every day. This is why most relationships end in a “lose-lose” situation.

But there is hope. You can break your emotional dependency on your ex. You must first want to do so. You have to realize that this attachment is harmful to healing your heartbreak as well as your whole wellbeing.

Here are three significant actions that you can start to take today to break your emotional dependency on your ex:

1. Learn how to be responsible for your own emotions. You are the only one who has control over how you feel at any particular moment. No one can make you happy or sad. You decide how their actions affect you.  You must become responsible for how you react to others emotionally.  Take control of your entire emotional system now, or you will continue to be a slave to it for the rest of your life.
2. Learn what your emotional needs are and learn how to give yourself what you expected your ex to give you instead. If you expected your ex to provide you with love and attention, give love and care to yourself. You will find that you are more fulfilled when you provide yourself with the things that you think you are lacking.
3. Define your own self-worth and don’t let other people dictate what your worth is no matter how much you love them. You are the only one who knows really how valuable you are.  Start to appreciate all of the great qualities that you possess and let no one determine or undermine your self-worth. Period! When you allow other people define who you are and what you are worth, you give away your power and will enable them to walk all over you. You are not a doormat, so stop acting like one.

Alessio Lin

Final Thought

I hope these tidbits help you understand your emotional dependency on your ex and how you need to break this powerful bond that weakens your inner strength now so that you can begin to heal your heartbreak.  You don’t need to take on each action all at once. Do what you can each day, and eventually, you will cut through that rope that ties you to your ex emotionally like a chainsaw.

If you are ready to break your emotional dependency on your ex and regain your personal power, please check out our free ebook The Power Shift.

~Here’s to your healing!