We live in the age of social media, so getting over an ex after a breakup is not as easy as it used to be. Your Instagram and other social media are full of memories of your relationship. If your ex is active on social media, you won’t be able to avoid seeing their photos or online activity unless you unfollow them everywhere.
You will see their face and how well they seem to be doing without you. That alone will only make it more difficult for you to move on and it will bring up emotions that are challenging. So, should you unfollow your ex? Absolutely.
Today, we’ll help you understand why blocking your ex after a break-up may be necessary by giving you a few compelling reasons. Hopefully, they will give you the boost you’ve been looking for to make the decision. Remember, when you’re going through a breakup, you have to do what’s best for you.
Why you should unfollow your ex:
1. It will help you truly move on:
Whether your relationship ended on good terms or not, unfollowing them is about moving on. Out of sight, out of mind. If you don’t unfollow them, you are essentially keeping them in your life. They will be all over your feeds, so your brain will constantly remind you of all that you shared together.
That’s like pouring salt on a wound. If you keep it that way, the wound would hardly heal. You must create space between yourself and your ex, while you grieve the relationship.
Otherwise, you will be stuck in a never-ending cycle of sadness and heartache. Whenever you feel like you’re okay, their face will pop up on your feed and you will go back to square one. Unfollowing is a way to protect yourself and you should do that.
2. It will help you retake control of your life:
Breakups often leave you hanging and feeling completely out of control, especially if you didn’t see it coming. A huge part of the process of going through a breakup is focused on retaking control little by little. Unfollowing your ex is the first step.
Exposing yourself to your ex’s constant posts will only keep you spiraling. You have to remember that you have the power to make things easier for yourself and that you have control.
Unfollow your ex on all social media so you can start to focus on yourself again. This new chapter of your life is only yours, don’t allow them to have any power over it.
3. It will help you avoid feeling worse than you have to:
Whether it was what you wanted or not, there’s a reason the relationship ended. Breakups are difficult enough to get through, there’s no need to make things harder on yourself. Keeping your ex on your social media will make you relive your heartache over and over. Not to mention, you will see that they will keep living their best lives without you.
Social media is all about the highlights, so they will only show the best parts. You will see them happy as if nothing happened, and you will even see them dating again. Since you’re only human, you will feel jealous, angry, and sad.
As mentioned before, it’s like pouring salt on the wound. If you don’t see your ex living his best life, it can’t hurt you and you won’t have to deal with the difficult emotions that come with such a thing.
4. It will keep you from competing with your ex:
It’s only human to want to do better than your ex after the breakup. However, competing with them and trying to prove that you will start dating again before they do or find someone better than them is not a good idea. Instead of making your ex the center of your universe, let them go, and don’t ruin your life trying to prove something to someone that doesn’t care enough. If your ex cared then they wouldn’t have left.
Heartbreak is not a competition, it’s a difficult process and you have to go through it at your own pace. Forcing yourself to go faster than your ex will only backfire or land you in a rebound relationship. So, if you keep following your ex on social media, it will be tempting to want to show them that they made a mistake by breaking up with you and that’s clearly the wrong motive to have after a breakup.
Plus, remember, we only show the good parts on social media. On the surface, it will feel like they have won the competition even if you decide to compete with them. They may convince you indirectly that they have moved on first and they feel perfectly fine now. However, you don’t know that.
They could be dealing with their own emotions in private. If you keep exposing yourself to that glimpse into their lives, you risk creating competition in your head. A toxic one at that because you’ll start making decisions based on “winning” this silent war when you should be making good decisions for yourself and your future instead.
Conclusion:
Unfollowing an ex on social media is not petty, it’s self-care. When you’re going through a breakup, you must focus on yourself. Trust us when we say that if your ex blocked you first then they may be doing you a big favor. But, if they still didn’t then you may want to do it first.
Your needs and emotions come first. Whatever people or your ex may think of you unfollowing them or blocking them doesn’t really matter.
What matters is that you make the choices that help you move forward and leave the relationship in the past. Once you’ve fully healed and you know it won’t affect you in any way, you can decide if you’d like to follow them again depending on how things ended between you.