How to stop loving someone: Five steps that might help
Falling in love can be easy but getting those feelings to go away can be difficult. There are many reasons why you might need to stop loving someone. Maybe you love someone you can’t have, or it’s clear that the person you have feelings for isn’t the right one for you. Perhaps you are in love with a person who has problems with addiction, infidelity, or abuse. Letting go of someone you love can be a natural part of life, but that doesn’t mean you won’t face challenges. If you need to stop loving someone, you can consider starting the process by following the five steps outlined in this article.
Can you stop loving someone if you truly loved them?
When you’re deeply in love with someone, it can be difficult to imagine yourself not feeling that way anymore. You may even begin to feel hopeless that your feelings will never go away. While it can be hard to stop loving someone, it is possible with time and effort. The love you feel now can change and evolve. You can learn to be grateful for the time you had with this person while recognizing that it isn’t healthy for you to be with them. You may always care for this person and hope the best for them, but that doesn’t mean you can’t move forward and stop loving them in the way you once did.
Five steps to stop loving someone
Below are five ways you can stop loving someone and start focusing on yourself. They may help you begin to heal and move forward productively.
1) Accept the love you feel
It may come as a surprise, but many times part of the process of not loving someone anymore involves accepting your feelings as they are. Instead of forcing yourself to feel differently than you do, try to practice self-acceptance. Recognizing that loving someone doesn’t mean they’re right for you can help you start to process the reality of your situation.
Part of accepting your feelings can be understanding why you’re feeling how you do. Feelings of love can be complex and multi-faceted. While there may be an element of love that is logical, rational, and formulaic, there is also often a part that is magical, inexplicable, and chemical. Many couples need both parts of love for a relationship to work.
Distractions can be helpful when you’re first trying to stop loving someone. If you feel like you can’t stop thinking about this person, try to redirect your attention elsewhere. Thinking about them constantly may only feed into the love you’re trying to overcome. Eventually, you may notice that weeks, months, and even years have gone by without even thinking about this person.
2) Avoid idealizing
Love can be more than just a feeling, but also a choice. If you deeply love someone, you’ve seen their ups and downs, and you’ve decided to be there on the bad days as well as the good ones. For that reason, love can take some serious courage and strength. However, it’s also possible that you’ve fallen in love with an idealized version of someone. You may be remembering the best parts, or maybe that person only ever showed you their greatest qualities.
Rather than harboring resentment and anger toward this person, try to remind yourself of who they really are. Avoid loving a false version of someone that you placed on a pedestal and remember the moments that were less than ideal. Most people have good and bad parts to them—the person you love is probably no different and contains a mixture of positive and negative qualities. Remembering their strengths and weaknesses can help you view the situation and the person logically.
3) Focus on you
Loving yourself can be an important part of the process of learning to stop loving another person. Although you may recognize your mistakes and flaws, it can be vital to remain your biggest fan. If you’re in love with someone who doesn’t love you back, remind yourself that it has nothing to do with you. There could be many different factors influencing their feelings and choices. Someone else’s impression of you doesn’t have to reflect on your worth as a person.
Focusing on yourself could mean picking up a new hobby, spending time with friends and family, or practicing more self-care. You might start journaling about your thoughts or spend more time in nature. Finding ways to prioritize yourself can help you move past your feelings that may be wrapped up in another individual.
4) Speak with a counselor
You may worry that until you stop loving someone, you won’t find love with a new person. If you think that your lingering love for this person is so powerful that you can’t move on, and if it’s affecting your daily happiness and quality of life, then it might help to find a person you can talk to.
A counselor can offer an unbiased opinion, speak with you honestly, and look at your personal situation and help make sense of it. If you want to stop loving someone and don’t know how, you may start to feel out of control or even anxious. A counselor, whether you choose to see them in person or online, can help you understand your feelings and work on them. Many people report feeling a higher sense of self-efficacy after expressing their feelings to a nonjudgmental person.
5) Accept your timeline of healing
It typically doesn’t help to stress and worry over something you’d like to achieve. Everyone heals at different speeds and on various timelines, and you are no exception. Give yourself time to process your emotions and be patient with yourself as you learn how to move forward. Consider changing the language of your goals and try to take some of the pressure off of yourself. Accepting that it takes time to stop loving someone can help you have more grace and empathy for yourself. One day, you might wake up and realize that you don’t love this individual anymore because you finally let things unfold naturally.
How do you leave someone you still love?
A difficult reality is when you love someone but know you need to leave them. In some cases, love isn’t enough to maintain a relationship. Countless factors can influence whether you stay with someone for life or break up to look for someone more suited to your needs. Sometimes it feels impossible to leave someone whom you still deeply love. Maybe you know it’s not working, and you want to stop loving them, but your heart stubbornly holds on.
Sometimes people accept relationships even if they know it’s not right because they don’t think they will find something better. Remind yourself of what you deserve, and don’t be afraid to go after it. Building up your confidence can help.
Remember to participate in your own activities and adventures outside of your love interest. This can allow you to remain an individual. While it can be difficult to hurt someone by letting them go, you are ultimately only responsible for your own feelings and reactions. There’s no reason to be ashamed of doing what’s healthiest for you. Breakups can be painful, but they can also be some of the most pivotal moments of your life. Being clear and honest with the other person can help both of you experience an amicable parting of ways.
Online counseling with Regain
If you’re struggling with the loss of a relationship or trying to move on from someone you once loved, it may be helpful to confide in an online relationship expert. Regain offers online counseling for couples and individuals experiencing problems in their relationships. Online therapy allows you to access mental health care from anywhere you have an internet connection. If you and your partner would like to participate together, you can coordinate your schedules and meet at a time that works for both of you.
The efficacy of online counseling
After going through a breakup or losing someone that you loved, you may experience a range of mental health effects like depression, anxiety, attachment issues, and more. One study explored the efficacy of online therapy on adults of various ages experiencing depression. Researchers discovered that online therapeutic interventions were just as effective at reducing symptoms of depression regardless of the participant’s age.
Counselor reviews
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Takeaway
Having to learn how to stop loving someone can be a complex and difficult process. Although this decision may be what’s healthiest for you, it doesn’t always make it any easier. Working with a licensed online counselor may help you work through your emotions with greater clarity and ease. Your healing journey may not be linear, but you can make progress over time with the right tools and support.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Can you lose feelings for someone you love?
When you are in love, it can be hard to imagine that you’d ever stop feeling that way. Likely, you want to spend all your time with your love interest and can’t stop thinking about them. However, it can be important to realize that these feelings and emotions don’t always last. It’s possible that you fell in love fast and didn’t get to know the other person enough. Perhaps you fell in love with an idealized version of them and begin to experience disillusionment as your emotions start to wear off. When intimacy is no longer possible, you might lose feelings for them. The case could also be that you still love the person but no longer desire to be with them. The choice is yours what you decide to do with these feelings.
How do you end it with someone you love?
Letting go of someone you love can be difficult. Ending the relationship amicably may help each of you move on in a healthy way. Some steps you can take end things the right way include:
Understand your reasons and motives: Having a clear understanding of why you want to break up with them can help you end things properly. Try to approach the break-up without any bias or suppressed emotions. Knowing exactly why you want to end things and communicating that clearly can be important.
Prepare: Before breaking up, take some time to decide the most effective way to approach the situation. Rushing into a breakup may increase the chances of things ending negatively. Think about what you want to say and how to communicate clearly. Consider things from their perspective; how can you try to avoid hurting their feelings? Research indicates that effective communication during a breakup can make it easier to move on after. Remember, too, that you are responsible for your own feelings, and not the other person’s.
Give them space: Staying in contact after a breakup might seem helpful but may ultimately cause more pain. Breakups can hurt, especially if you are the one who gets broken up with. If you break up with someone, staying around them might do more harm. So, try to give them space to process the breakup and heal from whatever pain they may be experiencing.
Allow yourself to heal: Breaking up with someone you love can be difficult. It might hurt you more than you’d expect, and it can be important to give yourself space and time to heal. This could mean focusing on a new hobby, hanging out with friends, writing down your thoughts and emotions, and eventually getting back into the dating scene once you’ve healed.
How can I stop love pain?
Love is often known to be beautiful and precious, something worth spending a lifetime waiting for. While this can be true, it can also be hurtful and painful. When you fall for a person, you become increasingly attracted to them and begin to feel a sudden and sometimes overwhelming wealth of emotions toward them. This could range from joy to sadness, nervousness, loneliness, thrill, desire, etc.
When great love becomes heartbreak, it’s often very painful to deal with. Studies show that heartbreak can increase the risk of depression. Stopping the pain that often comes with love is possible; what isn’t certain is how long this process will take. We cannot force ourselves to stop loving somebody, but we can take steps to heal. Some effective ways of stopping love pain could be:
Writing down your thoughts.
Distracting yourself by engaging in activities you enjoy
Dedicating yourself to a challenging task
Writing a letter to them detailing exactly how you feel, and then discarding the letter. (This can help provide a sense of closure)
Can you regain feelings for someone?
Human emotions are unpredictable. You can feel different ways about the same person over varying periods. What makes this even more random is the fact that people change every day. We all evolve and shed certain qualities in favor of others. This is why you might start loving the person you once hated and, over time, start falling out of love with those you once loved. You can regain feelings for someone you stopped loving by putting in effort and being intentional with them. Communication can also allow you to develop those positive feelings toward a person again.
How do you know you’re losing feelings for someone?
A person you no longer love might be unbearable to be around, or you may grow apathetic to their presence. Once you stop feeling the desire to be around someone, especially when it carries on for an extended period, you may have fallen out of love with them. Intimacy can be an important aspect of any relationship, but not wanting to be close to someone can make this difficult to achieve. It’s normal and natural to have periods of wavering feelings toward your significant other and working toward restoring the connection you once told may help.
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