Your ex-girlfriend can only ruin your life if you make her the center of it!
It’s a mistake too many men make (including me at one point), and it’s one that will leave you hurting terribly as you know.
Keep this advice in mind and you’ll never have to worry about any woman absolutely crushing your life again.
But, if you’re reading this, I’m willing to assume it’s a bit too late for that.
So either your ex-girlfriend is trying to ruin your life right now, or shes already done the ruining and you’re running around like my boy Cam Newton chasing his own fumble.
That said, I’ve got a couple of great emails from guys in my coaching program this week. They should be able to teach you guys who are in the same situation a lot.
Let’s go through them together.
Hey Jack,
I just found your website and I figured you would be able to help me with my situation.
So she left me about 2 years ago. She was hands down the most incredible girl I’ve ever met. We met each other when we were little kids and one day I finally grew some balls and asked her out. It’s still one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
We dated for about 8 months and in that time I fell head over heels in love with her. There were days where I’d be awake at night thinking about her because she was so great. Even over 2 years later I haven’t met a single girl as amazing as her.
She suffered from mild-moderate depression, and I tried everything in my power to help her. It killed me to watch someone I love suffer, but it only made my dedication to her stronger.
Over time I noticed she was drinking more often, which bothered me because I know depression and alcohol don’t mix well. Even though I begged her to stop, she kept drinking. This went on for about 2 months, and she began to get angry with my attempts to stop her.
Eventually, I caught her doing other drugs and things really began to spiral downward. Sometimes I would lay awake at night worrying about her, especially because I felt so powerless to help her.
It was even worse because I knew I was the only one close enough to reach her even though she wouldn’t let me in to help her.
Eventually, she decided that she was tired of loving me.
She broke up with me with one text.
The next text was even worse.
“I never loved you”
I pretty much lost it. I couldn’t function normally anymore. My doctor basically shrugged it off and told me I had some form of depression. He gave me some meds which made me feel completely numb.
Now I can’t even stand the smell of alcohol. Even thinking about it sets me off. I haven’t been able to set foot into a bar since without feeling anxious. And forget dating someone that has had even a sip of alcohol. I’ve tried. It didn’t work out very well.
I’ve been trying to date. The problem isn’t my self-esteem, which is pretty good I would say. I just fear dependence on drinking too much to open myself up to trusting someone.
I am so lonely. I miss caring about someone who cares about me. I have begun to make peace with the fact that I will be alone, because there is a good chance I will never marry, or have children, or share a life with someone I love because of that one girl.
I’m still so angry at her. She ruined my dating life and I don’t know if I’ll ever get better.
What do I do?
This is a very difficult situation – and I see a number of issues here. The good news is, all of them can be fixed with the right plan in place.
- He made his ex-girlfriend the center of his life. You can see it through his unwavering focus on her.
- He says he doesn’t have self-esteem issues, but I disagree. Notice “she decided to stop loving me” instead of “she ended our relationship”. That frames it like he didn’t deserve her love, even though he was trying to help.
- He still believes his ex-girlfriend is special – and that he’s going to end up alone.
- He still hasn’t forgiven his ex-girlfriend yet.
- He’s not structuring his new relationships correctly – which we can see because of his issue trusting women.
Here’s how I responded.
Before we can do anything else, you absolutely have to forgive your ex-girlfriend! Right now you’re giving her rent-free access into your head and it’s killing you!
Even though forgiving someone who hurt you deeply is difficult, it’s the first step in starting your recovery.
Practicing forgiveness with your ex-girlfriend begins with you writing what’s called a forgiveness letter.
Related: Steal My 8 Sample Letters To Write To Your Ex-Girlfriend
On a piece of paper, write down everything she did to hurt you. And I mean everything.
Next to each thing she did to hurt you, write “I forgive you”.
Once you’ve listed out everything she did, write down at the bottom “I forgive you for all of it”
After you’ve finished, read the list out loud and say “I forgive you” for each item you have listed.
Once you’ve finished reading everything, take a deep breath and fold up the piece of paper. What you do next with it is up to you, but I do recommend keeping it on hand so you can remind yourself that you’ve completely forgiven her for what she’s done.
Whenever you feel the urge to blame her for something, recognize it, take a deep breath and remind yourself that you have forgiven her.
Once you do this enough, the pain from how she hurt you will start to fade, and then you’ll be able to see her in a more objective light.
Because here’s the truth: this girl you were dating isn’t special. She’s not a one-in-a-million girl, the likes of which you’ll never find again.
There are millions of women that are a better fit for you out there. These are women that you’ll love, and will love you in return, unlike your ex-girlfriend.
Considering the situation you’re in, I know that might seem wrong, but I promise you, it’s not. In a couple of years, you’re going to look back at this and laugh. I promise.
Here’s what you’re going to do.
Now that you’ve taken the step to forgive your ex-girlfriend, we need to get you back onto the dating scene so you can start having some positive experiences with women. You need to understand that most women aren’t like your ex-girlfriend.
We could talk about it all day long, but you won’t believe it until you see it with your own two eyes.
The first thing you need to do is to take a look at your life overall. Based on your email, it seems like your ex-girlfriend was the only thing you really had going on, which is why you invested so much in her.
What does your life look like today? Do you have a mission for your life? Do you have any goals? Any passions? In other words, do you have something that gets you out of bed in the morning ready to seize the day?
Every man needs his masculine center. Without one, you’ll end up latching on to other people to give your life meaning, much like you did with your ex-girlfriend.
Going forward, no other person except yourself should be the center of your life. Your life should be fully complete without any women in it. Do you understand?
Once you have a complete life that you love, you also have to accept that it’s not your job to save someone from themselves.
It’s a lot easier to realize this when you have other things going on in your life.
Watching someone you love go down a dark spiral is never fun. But at the end of the day, you can’t make choices for someone else. The only thing you can do is offer your unconditional support and be a positive role model.
With that in mind, we need to get you back into dating. Although it sounds like you’ve tried a little bit, I’m willing to bet you haven’t tried that hard.
Start by reading my article about proper relationship management. For now, you’re only allowed to have reserves and low-level starters.
Right now you have this false belief in your head that you can’t trust women, when in fact there are plenty of good women that are deserving of your trust.
But, for this to sink in, you need to see it with your own two eyes.
By sticking to reserves and low-level starters only, you’ll be able to have good experiences with women while not committing too much of yourself to any one woman so you can remain focused on your masculine center.
The more good experiences you have, the more you’ll realize you’re deserving of a great relationship after all.
And eventually, you’ll get back to a place where you understand that your alcoholic ex-girlfriend dumping you was one of the best things that could have possibly happened to you.
Good luck.
Okay, so our second email is a little bit different. In this case, this guy has an ex-girlfriend who is actively trying to ruin his life as we speak.
In this case, pay close attention to what his girlfriend is trying to do, and how he’s reacting to her. In this case, he’s breaking the fundamental rule of relationships, where she should be reacting to what you do!
Hi Jack,
Long story short, I dated this girl for 2 years. About 6 months in, I realized she was nothing but drama. Every fucking argument was over nothing.
She would try to control me. If I went out late, she’d get pissed and tell me to go home. She’d also get pissed whenever I talked to any of my female friends, despite her borderline flirtatious behavior with her guy friends.
She even had the gall to yell at me for talking to my friends, even though I never mentioned how she nearly drooled over hers.
I would never be allowed to attend random parties without her, and she demanded that we share social media and phone passwords. At first, I didn’t mind it, although it did seem a little bit toxic to me.
Throughout all this, we broke up and got back together several times. Mostly this was caused by her.
Finally, it all boiled over after I had a serious surgery. One of my female friends came to visit me in the hospital right after. This girl has been one of my best friends for almost 10 years.
Guess what my girlfriend did? She fucking flipped out and started cussing me out while I was on bed rest. I finally told her that enough was enough, and I ended it.
Fast forward a few weeks, and now she’s trying to ruin my life. Every couple of days we fight over text or Facebook.
Come to find out, she’s also been spreading lies to my friends and family about how I beat her and forced her to have an abortion.
I keep trying to get in touch with her to figure out what’s going on and she keeps telling me that she’ll stop talking if I straighten out and promise to be a good boyfriend.
I have no desire to be with this woman, but I’m worried she’s going to go to the police with it.
She has completely come unhinged and I’m worried what she’s going to do.
How do I fix this?
Again, this is somewhat of an extreme example. Most women are not like this! With that being said, when a woman is trying to ruin your life like this, you need to understand a few things:
- You’re not going to be able to talk her out of it. You need to take action to protect yourself.
- After you’ve taken action to protect yourself, you need to go no-contact indefinitely. Talking to her is just going to make things worse.
- There are normally warnings signs when a woman is going to act like this, which is why it’s so important to use a proper relationship management system to allow a woman to slowly prove herself to you over time.
- This could have all been avoided rather easily, as I’ll show below.
Here is my response.
Damn man, you are definitely stuck between a rock and a hard place right now. I am so sorry to hear that you’re in this situation.
The first thing you have to do is make sure you have evidence on your side, especially if you think she’s going to go to the police.
This shouldn’t be taken as legal advice, as I’m not a lawyer and this is otherwise common sense
From now on, make sure you record everything she says to you. Although I normally advise you delete all your messages from her this is a special case. Any texts, voicemails, or calls you need to record in case she comes after you.
With that aside – do not engage her for any reason. From this moment forward, go into indefinite no-contact. Talking to her at this point is unwise. I think you realize that.
Otherwise – you should try to get ahead of her with your friends and family. Let them know about what happened. Be honest with them about how she’s treating you.
With that said – let’s choose to look at this as a learning experience. There were definitely signs ahead of time that this bitch was crazy.
It won’t do us any good to speculate as to why – but any woman who tries to control where you go, and wants to share your passwords very clearly has trust issues.
Maybe her parents continuously lied to her, or she had a shitty ex-boyfriend that crushed her.
Whatever it was, it doesn’t matter – because she’s taking her own insecurities out on you.
Mature women don’t do that.
And you don’t want to date an immature, childish little bitch (which is exactly what this girl sounds like).
Going forward, you should use the progression I describe in this article about proper relationship management.
In my experience, it takes between 3-6 months of dating before you start to see what your partner is really like.
That’s why it’s important to let them slowly prove themselves to you, as opposed to going in head over heels like most people do.
Once she proves herself to you over time, then you can upgrade her to a starter or a franchise player if you prefer. If you had started slowly with this chick, you might have been able to see that she was fucking crazy and cut bait long before this happened.
Regardless, you know what to do now. Stay vigilant, and keep records of everything.
Good luck!
Talk soon my friend,
Coach Jack
PS: Need help processing the breakup so you can get back to feeling like yourself again? Click here to learn how I can help you.