Acting Like You're Better Than Your Ex's New Bae Won't Validate Your Breakup

If your ex is dating someone else, whoever the hell she is, it's going to suck ass.

It's just one of those things that happen in life that will always make you feel like shit (even if you broke up on good terms).

And it doesn't matter how strong and resilient you think you are. Knowing your ex-boyfriend is dating someone else, laughing with someone else, referring to the two of them as a “we” and fucking someone else will always unleash these dark, somewhat jealous demons inside of you.

It's just how it goes.

You can keep pretending you're fine, you're over it, you've maybe even moved on with somebody else which just proves how much you don't care anymore. But it will never matter.

You will think, Who is this girl? And that's when you feel completely ambushed by emotions, start feeling kind of crazy, start stalking the both of them all over social media and begin to overanalyze absolutely everything that ever happened in your relationship.

You start to psyche yourself out by trying to make sense of it. What is he thinking? What does she have that I don't? What does he like about her? Who is this bitch?

And that's when you try to dissect their entire relationship, scouring for anything that will make you feel better about them dating.

You think of every scenario, trying to figure her out. You wonder if she seems “better” than you. You wonder if she seems “less” than you.

But either way, what difference does it make? He's NOT with you. He's with HER. And there's nothing about that fact that will ever feel good, no matter what kind of girl she is.

He's not with you. He's with HER. And there's nothing about that fact that will ever feel good.

But let's just say you've characterized this girl into being someone who could never in a million years compare to you. Shouldn't that make you feel better? Shouldn't it make you feel like you've won, realizing your ex is now slumming it with someone who looks totally rambunctious and annoying, or even really boring and super basic?

When comparing yourself to that, there is no comparison. So, why should it bother you at all that he's settling for someone like that?

Shouldn't it make you want to laugh, shake your head and say something sassy, even make you pity him a little bit for thinking that this girl of all girls is someone he finds attractive?

And yet, it doesn't make you feel any of those things. It makes you feel like everything is complicated. It makes you feel stubborn. It brings back all those stupid fights you instigated — the fights he's definitely not having with this new girl because she's so not like that.

She's easygoing and simple, and she doesn't need to micromanage anything. And then, you feel like shit all over again.

On the flip side, you imagine your ex is dating someone “better” than you.

She doesn't seem like someone you want to make fun of right off the bat. She's actually pretty. She looks like someone who has important things to say.

She's successful, has an endearing personality, good-on-paper qualities and she's happy with every aspect of her life. And that's when it reveals every insecurity you've ever had.

Because now your ex doesn't have to deal with someone who isn't happy with their job, who isn't discouraged with life and who isn't plagued with this never-ending sense of wanderlust like some annoying college girl.

He's now in a solid relationship with someone who can really challenge him, better him and not break him down with all these big life questions you could never seem to answer for yourself.

Either way, whoever this girl is, whether better or worse or somewhere in between, analyzing your ex's new love will never make you feel better.

Analyzing your ex's new love will never make you feel better. It won't validate your breakup.

It won't validate your breakup. It won't make you feel relieved he's no longer yours. It won't make you feel indifferent.

It will, no matter what, make you feel totally awful. You should have been the love of his life. He should have realized that in comparison to anyone else, there is no comparison to you.

And when that's not the case, when he has, in fact, moved on to another love, it stings like hell.

And it makes you feel things you swore you'd never feel because you never wanted to be that girl — the girl who felt like she wasn't enough, who made herself wish she was somehow different, who for one second compared herself to anyone else.

But there's nothing you can do about it. If you keep rummaging through the idea of it all — through the idea of your ex with his new girl and how happy they are — you will only hurt yourself more.

The situation sucks. It will forever suck. But you have to learn to just let them be.

He'll never have with her what he had with you, no matter what you imagine her to be like.