What to do if you broke up, but have to see each other every day

These tips will help you maintain your composure if you have to work or study with a former partner.

It’s good when you can distance yourself from your ex-partner and your ended relationship once and for all. But this becomes impossible if you work or study together, go to the same fitness club, be friends with the same people. It may even seem that the mission is impracticable and, in order not to heal the wounds, it is better for some of you to quit (transfer to another institute, change the hall, interrupt communication with friends). But you can do without it.

1. Get busy

Try to concentrate fully on what you are doing. If you’re working with an ex, dive deep into your responsibilities. If you are studying English or painting with the same class, your eyes should be fixed on the textbook or easel. If you decide to go to a mutual friend’s birthday, give all your attention to the birthday person.

First, this is a completely legal excuse to isolate yourself from your ex – you are not trying to avoid him, you are just very busy. And secondly, focusing on business can really help “drive” a person out of your thoughts and not think about how they are looking at you and whether they are too actively flirting with a new colleague.

2. Keep your mouth shut

Do not expand on your relationship and the reasons for the breakup. Colleagues, classmates and mutual acquaintances will happily pick up this information and pass it on to each other. You will be discussed (such is human nature), and all this talk with gossip will make you think about your ex once again.

If people start asking you about a breakup, the best tactic is to say that you don’t want to discuss the situation and change the subject.

3. Don’t flirt

And not only with the ex (this is understandable), but also with common colleagues or acquaintances. After a painful breakup, it may be tempting to make your loved one jealous, or just show him that you are living life to the fullest and not in the least bit suffering. Photos from violent parties, a change of image and, of course, attempts to start new relationships or at least create such an appearance are usually used.

But all of this only makes you more attached to your ex. Instead of letting him go, you think about him over and over again, try to predict his reaction to this or that action, worry about how you look in his eyes. In addition, flirting can achieve a goal: a person will get hurt, he will become jealous, unleash a conflict, flirt with someone to spite you. As a result, you will get bogged down in incomprehensible intrigues and make yourself worse.

4. Get distracted

Take on additional projects at work, take up social activities, find a new hobby. If before that you still had a loophole for suffering about your ex in the middle of working hours, then it will definitely close. Plus, being so busy is likely to have a great impact on your career, academic performance, and overall self-development.

Of course, working overtime and dealing with several projects at once will not work for long, but at least for a while you will be distracted. Maybe this is enough to safely survive the breakup.

5. Find yourself a new company

Unless you’re a shy introvert who spends every break in the corner with a book, you probably need a social circle. People with whom you go to lunch, chatting in the elevator and near the cooler, go down together in the subway. Perhaps earlier this circle consisted of an ex partner and his acquaintances, which means that now it would be better for you to slowly change the company.

Select colleagues with whom it would be interesting to communicate, and try to join them. So you, firstly, distance yourself from the ex, and secondly, once again distract from thoughts of parting.

It is best if the new company consists of people of the same sex as you, so you will not be tempted to go all out and have a showcase affair.

6. Increase the distance

If you are constantly in the same space with your ex, it will be a little harder to get over the separation. Since you can’t get him out of sight, it can be difficult to get him out of mind. Research suggests that people who follow their ex’s social media accounts end up recovering longer from a breakup and returning to fulfilling lives later.

Here the situation is different: you do not contact this person of your own free will – but the mechanism is absolutely the same. Therefore, you can try to distance yourself even when working in the same company.

Ask your manager to change your schedule, temporarily transfer you to another department or branch, send you on a business trip, to work remotely, and so on. From the outside, everything will look quite legitimate: you were simply transferred – what can you do? But at the same time, you will have the opportunity to take a break, collect your thoughts and put your feelings in order.

7. Take a vacation

And try to change the scenery. This will help shake things up, distract, gain new impressions. Perhaps this time will be enough to recover a little, after returning to treat the presence of an ex partner more calmly.

8. Listen to yourself

If you find that working together is excruciating – you are in pain, you are suffering, and you cannot get back to normal – consider changing your company. Yes, it may seem terribly unfair and wrong, but your psychological state is much more important. Finding a new job is sometimes much easier than dealing with your feelings.