5 Reasons You Feel Unwanted After Breakups (+ How Not To)
After breaking up, it’s normal to feel unwanted.
The fact that someone we love chooses not to be with you is a bitter pill to swallow.
You need to take proactive action to cope with unworthy feelings because it will affect the way you make decisions in the future.
You mustn’t let this broken heart be the start of your life quality going downhill.
In this article, you’ll learn to understand five reasons why you feel unwanted after breakups.
More importantly, you’ll get insights into five ways to overcome unwanted feelings so you can start living your best life once again.
1. Wonder Why Your Ex Doesn’t Choose You?
After a breakup, the most disturbing question is wondering why your ex doesn’t choose you.
Usually, a couple already knows why a breakup occurs initially, but even after the ex is gone from your life, you might overthink what happened.
We’re talking about the moment you lie down on your bed, alone, maybe sobbing a little bit, and wondering if your partner is as sad as you are right now or doesn’t even remember you.
The worst part is, when we keep asking the same question over and over again, wishing things to be different, we easily fall into feeling inadequacy.
If I had tried harder, maybe my partner would have stayed with me.
No wonder my partner left, maybe I’m not worth fighting for.
Is there something wrong with me that let my partner choose someone else?
Let me assure you that if someone loves you enough, they’ll stay with you.
You don’t need to prove your worth because your partner sees the value in you and will let you know how precious you are.
Even when there are problems in your relationship, you and your partner will work things out.
So when the breakup is inevitable, trust the universe/God/the Higher Power – whatever you believe in – that’s for the best for both of you.
Regardless of how painful you feel inside, trust that things will only get better in the end. You only need to trust the process.
2. Rejection Triggers Childhood Trauma
The end of a relationship sometimes triggers deep-seated trauma from childhood, especially if you have bad experiences related to abandonment or rejection from your caretaker.
When someone you love leaves the relationship, emotions from the past will resurrect and make you feel worse.
The tricky part is you might not realize it right away.
You only feel the pain, but somehow, you are familiar with the pain because you felt the same way when you were a child.
Let me share my personal story with you.
When I was 15, my mother left my father and me for another man. And she never cares about me to this day.
Funnily enough, all three breakups in my adult life have the same emotional pattern as my relationship with my mother: they leave and make me feel that I don’t deserve to be loved that’s why my Mom left years ago.
The worst part is that I only see the pattern at 35: I’m single, broke, and feeling alone.
If only I had realized early, I might have had a better time in my early 20s, but hey, trust the process.
Things happen for a reason as long as you want to listen.
However, the good news is that almost everyone has felt this at some moment in their life.
Childhood trauma is not a curse, it’s a footprint of your emotional journey.
With the right approach, the trauma will heal and leave you with lessons that make you stronger than ever.
3. Fear of not finding love again.
One of the most potent emotions that emerges post-breakup is the fear of not finding love again.
From personal experience, I get through 3 breakups from long-term relationships in my adult life, and I feel this way in every breakup.
What makes you feel this way is the combination of putting your partner on a pedestal and a sense of unworthiness.
You feel like you’re lucky to be with your partner.
So when your ex leaves, you believe that you lost something precious you can’t get anywhere else.
If you put yourself eye-to-eye with your partner, this sense of fear can subside tremendously.
When you feel that you’re lucky to be with your partner, remember that your partner is also lucky to have you as a significant other.
So, your ex also loses something valuable when leaving the relationship.
And remember, you’re a valuable human being.
If right now you feel you’re not, at least be open to the idea that you grow every day and, in the process, become a better human being every day.
There will be someone else who notices your value.
Focus on your growth, and trust when the time is right, the right person will show up for you.
4. Feel there’s something wrong with you
When your partner decides to end the relationship, it can incredibly stink.
Nobody likes rejection.
And when you have one, you might immediately jump to the conclusion that there’s something wrong with you.
This self-doubt can be distressing and worsen your breakup situation.
One piece of advice to speed up your recovery is redefining what a breakup is.
A breakup is like one moment that happens in our life, just like you go on a date, travel, grieve someone’s death, and have a child.
It isn’t the end of the world, and it happens to everyone.
What makes breakups so painful is the way you give meaning to the event itself.
If you can see a breakup as something neutral as one of the moments in your life, something good might happen from it.
Now that you’re alone, you see it as an opportunity for personal growth and self-discovery.
It’s like having an adventure with yourself where you’re the only one who can make the rules.
5. Compare your story to others
If you’re an adult and in a relationship, you generally have expectations about where the relationship will finally end: say ‘I do’ and probably have children.
So when a relationship crashes, your dream bubble bursts.
What makes it worse is the thought that ‘you are supposed to get engaged by now’ or ‘preparing to get married soon’, just like Susie from high school and all the people with happy smiles, you see on social media.
As cliche as it sounds, you should never compare your story with others.
Even if your friend is already married with children, it has nothing to do with you. It’s their stories, not yours.
Moreover, always remember everything might not be as good as it seems.
You never know what happens behind the door, just like you hide your breakup tears and act that everything is okay.
So, when you feel triggered by seeing others have the relationship you want to have, send them a positive vibe and move on.
If you’re busy comparing yourself with others, you will remain in your current situation because you use your energy to keep up with the Jones.
You’d better focus your energy on yourself and write a new story of your life.
How You Can Overcome Feelings Of Unworthiness
Now that we’ve talked about the things that can make you feel worthless let’s shift our focus to how you can change that mindset. It’s time to work on rewriting your personal narrative and start recognizing just how amazing you truly are.
1. Practice self-compassion.
The core of feeling unworthy and unwanted is because you put your self-worth in other’s validation, in this case, your partner’s validation.
That’s why when your partner leaves the relationship, you feel like you’re not good enough as an individual.
Rather than begging your partner to get back to you or hastily finding the next partner for validation, you had better learn to validate yourself through self-compassion.
The easiest way to practice self-compassion is by saying it out loud.
Sit quietly, take a deep breath, and say,” (Your name), I love you.”
If you can do it while sitting in front of the mirror and see through your eyes, it will be better.
And don’t get me wrong, it’s very uncomfortable.
From personal experience, the first time I say ‘I love you’ to myself in front of the mirror, I cry.
It feels so good. I wonder why nobody teaches me about this simple thing.
You can say whatever you want besides I love you.
You know what you need internally, so give it to yourself.
If you want to feel pretty, say to yourself that you’re pretty.
If you want someone to fight for you, say to yourself that you’re worth fighting for, and you’ll fight for yourself.
Do this simple self-compassion ritual every morning to start your day and before you fall asleep to make sure it is ingrained into your subconscious mind.
When you practice self-compassion, you’ll learn to love yourself unconditionally, and other people (partners, friends, and family) are only an additional love to your life.
So, if you have a problem with them, you still feel the pain, but you know that at the core, you’re okay to be alone.
Loving yourself wholeheartedly will make you more resilient in facing the ups and downs of life.
2. Build awareness of your self-talk
Being aware of the way you speak to yourself is a critical step in overcoming feelings of unworthiness after a breakup.
What you say to yourself will shape your mind and finally affect your attitude toward life.
You can’t expect to have a happy life if you have a negative mindset.
To address this, take time to listen to your inner dialogue on a daily basis.
For fun, why don’t you write those inner dialogues for a day so you can read what you say about yourself that day?
If you don’t like what you read, now you know you have homework to do.
By increasing your awareness of self-talk, you can be proactive, replacing negative thoughts with more neutral and positive ones to improve your self-esteem.
Let’s use a real example.
Say, your self-talk says you’re not pretty enough, and that’s why your partner left you.
If you change that narrative into saying you’re beautiful, your being will reject that idea immediately.
So you start with the neutral one, like, “I might not be the most beautiful woman in the world, and that’s okay.”
This kind of statement is more believable, that’s why it’s easier for you to accept it.
Later on, when you feel more comfortable, you can change your self-talk into, “I see myself as a beautiful human being, and some people will see it too.”
You can change the sentence to fit your personality, but you know the steps here.
Focus on one negative self-talk you catch, turn it into a neutral statement, and then you can change it into a more positive one.
Do it for three months every night, you’ll start to see yourself in a different way.
3. Acknowledge your achievements.
Often, you tend to downplay your accomplishments and exaggerate your setbacks.
And when big things happen, such as a breakup, this condition will worsen to the point you feel unwanted.
One of the effective ways to counter this feeling is by writing your achievements in life, no matter how small they may seem.
Grab a piece of paper, put numbers 1-50, and start writing what good things you do in life—everything counts.
It’s even okay to write, “I’m good at making my cat happy.”
When you write your accomplishments on paper, you transform them into tangible things you can see and touch.
It convinces your mind that you’re good at something.
Even better, because you write 50 things, you’re good at a lot of things.
It will serve as a compelling counter-narrative to the narrative that you’re unworthy.
Of course, making this list one time will not magically get rid of the unworthiness feeling from yourself.
You need to remind yourself again and again by reading your list every morning and night.
Or you can fold the paper, put it in your wallet, and bring it everywhere.
And when you catch yourself feeling down, you can read your list, and it should give you a quick boost to your mood.
4. Surround yourself with positive people.
‘Keeping the right company’ is one of the common pieces of advice to be a successful individual.
Another famous advice is, ‘You are the average of 5 of your closest friends.’
Those who surround you will influence you.
So, when you feel unwanted due to a breakup, those around you will help you bounce back quickly or draw you down.
Unfortunately, most people don’t have a positive mindset.
If they do, this world will be full of successful people who are busy lifting others.
If you are surrounded by not-so-positive people, you need to select who’s allowed to access you on a daily basis.
But let’s be real: if you’re an ordinary mortal like I am, you might not have the privilege of accessing the most successful people in your real life.
Therefore, here are some practical tips for you to have a more positive environment:
- Limit the time you spend with negative people. You don’t need to be rude, just catch yourself when you’re surrounded by a negative vibe, make an excuse to leave the situation, or try to redirect the conversation.
- Take time to read a personal development book, even if it’s only 20 minutes a day. Books give access to ordinary people like us to learn about how successful people make their way up.
- Pay attention to your content consumption on social media. Limit your social media time, and make sure you consume content that lifts you.
Taking a proactive approach to picking positive influences around you will be a powerful catalyst for your healing journey and personal growth.
If you do it consistently, in the next couple of months or years, you’ll be in a much better place.
5. Replace “should” with “want”
Do you often say to yourself,” I should be over this by now,” or “I should be married and have a child before 30?”
Using the word ‘should’ is the worst way to put yourself in a helpless situation.
Replacing the word ‘should’ with ‘want’ will put you into the driving seat of your life, and you can redirect your life to any situation you want.
Let’s use real-life examples.
If you say, “I should be over this by now,” change it into “I want to get over as soon as possible. I know I’m on the journey to get there.”
If you say, “I should be married and have a child before 30,” change it into, “I want to be married and have a child before 30.
But whatever happens, I know that’s for my own good.”
When you shift your language, you empower yourself to embrace the situation wholeheartedly and know things will be better in the future because you’re in control of your life.
By not becoming a victim of your life, you can counter the feeling of being unworthy and unwanted from the separation and rebuild your life to be better than before.
It’s a Journey, Take Your Time!
Healing your heart after the breakup takes time and effort.
So, give yourself some grace.
The list of advice in this article should give you some ideas on how to make you feel better after splitting up. You can mix and match all the ideas to suit your situation.
Focus on getting through one day at a time. You got this!
Anggi Pradhini
Anggi Pradhini’s passion for writing a blog ignited after she experienced the pain of three breakups of long-term relationships. But as she rises from her pain, her three failed relationships make her way to rebuild her life in the right direction. In this blog, she wants to inspire people to bounce back from broken hearts and revamp their lives.
