Get over break-up with a new beginning

My long-term boyfriend and I split up six months ago and it’s been very cordial. 

I’ve just found out that he’s seeing a girl who we used to regard as being beautiful, but rude and vacuous.

I feel betrayed that he would see someone like this so soon after our six-year relationship. While I was happy finding my way as a single person, I now feel driven to have sex with new people.

Someone good looking has shown interest but I have never done the casual sex thing before — will it make me feel worse or is this an experience I should relish?

They do say that “you are never over someone until you’re under someone else” so clearly, according to “them”, you should call Mr Good Looking.

What’s the worst that could happen? You’re an adult and, as you say yourself, you’ve missed out on the whole casual sex thing, so perhaps it is time to grab this opportunity with both hands and see where it leads you.

You are clearly confused by your ex’s decision to date so soon after your break-up, but it’s a pretty normal outcome. Men are rubbish at being alone and they don’t do emotion in the same way that we do.

A woman coming out of a long-term relationship will wade through the break-up swamp in a haze of chardonnay-fuelled tears until she reaches the other side and “finds her way as a single person”.

A bloke, however, cheats by taking an emotional short cut.

He mourns the loss of his six-year relationship by hooking up with a beautiful girl (who he “dissed” but probably always fancied) to convince himself, and you, and the world around him, that he is OK. He isn’t.

Think back to how and why you broke up. There must have been a lot of soul searching, because letting go of a relationship is not a decision that anyone would take lightly.

You guys had been an item, a couple, two names that your friends rattled off together like gunshots, so you must have had sound reasons for saying goodbye.

Even so, once you make the choice to go it alone, it is incredibly difficult not to feel competitive when your former partner appears to move on quicker than you. It leaves you feeling insecure.

What if he and the pretty vacuous girl get married and have kids and you spend years searching for a man who is made of “relationship” material, only to die alone and unloved and be eaten by alsatians?

When a very long relationship fails there is no getting away from the massive hole its absence leaves in your life, so it is crucial that you avoid romanticising it and hold on to the reasons why you split up in the first place.

I don’t know the specifics of your relationship but I do know that couples who get into serious long-term relationships when they are very young invariably get to a point where they question the wisdom of committing to one person, to the exclusion of all others, so they decide to part before the relationship is complicated by marriage or children.

It’s sensible but it involves taking a risk because there is no guarantee that either of you will find a “better” relationship.

No one knows what will happen next week, let alone next year, but one thing is certain: as long as you persist in measuring yourself in comparison to him you will sabotage your own progress. To move on you need to do what you decided to do six months ago and get this guy out of your life. Completely.

Forget the “cordial” thing. It simply doesn’t work so soon after a break-up and all it will do is immobilise you. Instead, you need to focus on yourself and give yourself permission to explore the world of “why-the-hell-not”.

Everyone has a right to be happy. You. Him. The pretty vacuous girl. And don’t get too hung up on who is, or isn’t, relationship material.

Mr Good Looking has shown an interest and is respectfully waiting in the wings until you feel ready. That sounds pretty promising, if you ask me. And you know what “they” say about how “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end”.