So many people are seeking the answers; how to be single again after a long term relationship? Yes its possible! If dating resumes were a thing, mine would show past relationships lasting between three months and two years. Some people may think the duration of these relationships were incredibly long. Like, ball to my boyfriends’ chain long (or is it chain to their ball?) Other people may say, “two years? Honey, please, I’ve been in my relationship for five years, you’ve got nothing on me.” The thing is that everybody has his or her own definition of long term. I considered a few of my relationships long term, but they all piggy-backed off of one another, allowing little time for me to feel single in the past four years.

Now that I have had time and space away from them, I know a thing or two about reverting back to being single after only knowing how to be in a relationship.

You Can Be Sad (Just Not Forever)

You can’t go back to basics without a little bit of a grieving period. Give yourself time to lament on what was lost, but be assured that you will have so much more to gain in your newly single status. It makes perfect sense that you will be sad about losing something that was such a constant in your life, but you will come to realize that a big pat of your sadness is due to the loss of normalcy.

The Worst Part is How Foreign Being Single Will Feel (But This Won’t Last Forever)

The hardest part about being single after being in a long-term relationship is that you will feel, for lack of a better word, weird. You had grown accustomed to being somebody’s somebody and now that you are no longer that to him or her, you don’t really know how to function. The familiarity of the relationship is what you will miss the most, seeing as your ex was a regular part of your routine for the past X months or years. The way to fix this distaste for your new routine is to simply open your mind to the adjustment of being single again. That takes me to the next thing about reverting to being single… new habits.

You don't need anyone to love you for you to love yourself

Third Week’s a Charm

They say that it takes about 21 days to form a new habit…. So on the bright side of things, three weeks will seem like nothing compared to how long you were in your old relationship habits, so getting back to being single will not take too long. The only way you can completely succeed at adjusting to this new habit of being single is if you persevere. Don’t spend every night at home crying in your sweatpants. Get together with your girlfriends, hit the gym and do other things that are focused on you having fun and feeling good about your single self.

Don't be afraid to ask for what you want from a relationship

Embrace Your Independence

While you may be sad that you no longer have that constant partner to do things with, to text and to simply think about, now you get to replace all of that couple-time with you-time. You get to think about yourself, you get to take yourself places you’ve always wanted to go and you get to reintroduce yourself to the most important person in your life – you. Take pride in the fact that you are single by doing things on your own. Take yourself out to lunch without any distractions. Embrace your solitude, and take note that it is not the worst feeling in the word. Enjoying all the new found time you have for yourself is going to make the coping process a lot more entertaining and manageable. It may even encourage you to put yourself out there once you are ready to start dating again.