Relationships: After the Breakup, Learning to Live Alone Again

You lived alone once, so you knew how to do it at some point. Dealing with a breakup throws the monkey wrench into the situation. You will live alone and happily after a breakup. You will be okay. Keep telling yourself: sometimes it is lonelier living WITH someone than it is living ALONE.

As with any grieving process, you have stages you must go through. Don't try to rush any part of this as it will only set you back. Here are a few ways to take back your life and learn to live on your own once again:

Reclaim Your Space. You made room in your closet and bureaus for the significant other, and now you wake up every day to gaping spaces where HIS things used to be. Break out all of the clothes you packed away making room for his.

Rearrange the Bedroom Furniture. You may go to bed, tired, only to find yourself waking up repeatedly. That's because things are exactly as they were when you were a couple. Take the room apart, making a few simple changes. Now the space is not a shared couple space. Instead, it reflects you as an individual. Any stuff animals or ultra feminine comforters you put away to make him feel at home should be brought out of storage. This is your space now. Goofy as it may seem, if it gets you through the beginning process, do it.

Take Time to Get to Know You. If you've operated as a couple for a while, you may have lost a sense of yourself. What is your favorite color? What is your style? In the sense of compromise, you no doubt rearranged things in your home or decorated to make things more neutral. Before you can make your home a reflection of you, you have to find out what you like. Spend time looking at old photos (pre relationship) to see who you were. It may not be who you are now, but it gives you a starting point.

Clean the Place Top to Bottom. Even if you've moved to a new space, do a thorough spring cleaning, regardless of the season. Spring cleaning is more a sign of new beginnings, and living alone after a breakup certainly qualifies.

Do Special Things for Yourself. When you get home from work, before you begin cooking dinner, light candles around your home (and it is a HOME) and put on some music. You are SPECIAL, a thing you probably lost sight of as your relationship deteriorated.

Enjoy a hot cup of tea and home-made cookies when you watch a TV show you never would have watched with the S/O. Soak in a bubble bath for as long as you like, candles lit, glass of wine in hand, soft music in the background. The end of a relationship brings tension. Now you can relax doing things you want to do. You have your own schedule now.

Meals. We tend to eat on the fly when we live alone and cook meals when we are a couple. Treat yourself as you deserve and cook dinners for yourself, even if it means you'll be freezing some for later or sharing some with friends.

Inviting a friend over for a special dinner once a week is not a bad idea. In the beginning you may find yourself going to tears at some point, but eventually, you'll just enjoy the food and your friend's company. Odds are you've neglected many of your friends in your quest to be a good couple, and you've spent a lot of time you didn't want to. Now you don't have to.

Remember the Hobbies You've Lost. This is so cliché, but it really works. You spend time as a couple, and that takes away from hobbies you may have loved before knowing Mr. Wonderful. Loll about in your jammies on a Saturday, playing at one of your favorite hobbies. You have no one looking at you like it's a waste of time all of a sudden. Enjoy yourself. Learning to enjoy yourself may be one of the most difficult things for you to learn to do when you first live alone. But you will do it.

Get Out. Let your friends and family step in. They'll try to drag you out, and you'll resist at first. You are not a charity case in their eyes. That's something in your head. They've missed seeing you, now doubt.

You'll worry that you won't be good company. You may go out with them a few times to appease them, but there will come a point when you are actually having a good time. You'll be laughing. Even if you are going home alone, you will have had a fulfilling night. You won't go home to stilted conversation and awkwardness or discussions about how this or that was stupid or how so-and-so got on his nerves.

Don't Try to Replace the Relationship Immediately. Dates are great, especially if you are in a group. It will make you feel desirable at a time when you feel unwanted. Still, until you have gone through the process of figuring out who you are and what you want, don't throw another person in the mix. It's not fair to that person, and it's not fair to you.

Grieve. Accept that when you sit on your sofa, you will have memories of someone laying his head on your lap, laughing at jokes from something on the television. Don't ignore the fact that the situation has changed and you don't have these things anymore. If you feel like crying, cry. Sob, in fact. Those days will get further and further apart.

Once you reclaim your personality, you will enjoy more and more about your life on your own. You'll probably end up with another person to share your life with, but they'll walk into the picture seeing the real you since you've taken the time to get to know that person again.