The Fastest Way To Get Over A Girl You Work With

It’s 10:00 AM and you’re on your way back to your desk from another meeting that could have been an email, when all of a sudden, she catches your eye. With her sparkling blue eyes, perfectly contoured eyeliner, long blonde hair, and incredibly tight pencil skirt your heart flips up and down in your chest.

“There’s no way this girl is single” you tell yourself, considering how beautiful she is.

But to your surprise, as you pass by, she returns your smile.

As one thing leads to another, and you get to know the real woman beneath the work veneer, the sparks start to fly. Before you know it, Lisa from accounting isn’t Lisa from accounting to you. She’s your girlfriend, and you love her to pieces.

You’re together day in and day out. The days fly by with her so close. It all feels like a dream.

But when it all comes crashing down, suddenly that walk back to your desk from your 10:00 AM becomes an exercise in agony when you see the woman you still love so close, but so emotionally far away.

Now you have to face the reality: you have to find a way to move on from someone you see every day at work, which isn’t an easy task by any means.

If this situation sounds like yours, and you are trying to get over an ex-girlfriend you work with, I have some good news and some bad news.

Let’s talk about the good news first, because I’m a cock-eyed optimist.

Office Romances Are Incredibly Common, So You Aren’t Alone

Getting dumped is an incredibly lonely experience, especially if it’s at work where you can’t really bring the topic up to anyone who understands the situation.

But I want you to know that you aren’t alone in your situation: at this moment there are millions of other men around the world who are going through a situation like yours. Moreover, I have at least 1 or 2 guys in a similar situation in my coaching program at any one time because breaking up with a woman you work with is becoming increasingly common.

So let’s take a look at the numbers say to illustrate this point:

During my 5 year career in corporate marketing, I saw more in-office relationships, affairs, and hookups than you could count. The bigger the company, the more common this was. The ugly undercurrent of this was I also witnessed what all too often was sexual harassment going on with impunity, mostly coming from men, but more than a few women too.

Of course, all of this was going on under HR’s nose.

Of course, my anecdotal experience doesn’t equal reality but I’m sure if you ask around enough that the 36% number will seem conspicuously low. I estimate that it’s closer to 45% of people who have engaged in some kind of in-office relationship at one point or another.

Since I started Men’s Breakup, I’ve noticed more and more men coming to me looking for help getting over someone they love and work with – from middle managers to corporate VPs, CEOs, and the like.

One thing, in particular, has stuck out to me: getting over someone you work with is a hell of a lot harder than getting over someone you don’t work with.

I promise you that you can get over someone you work with fast – but it’s not going to be easy.

The Fastest Way To Get Over An Ex You Still Work With Is To Get A New Job

I know, it seems extreme to leave your job just because you’re trying to move on from someone you love and work with. But I promise you: it works, and it works really freaking well. In my opinion, this is the best strategy for moving on from someone you see every day at work.

This comes with caveats of course, and it’s far from the only way to get over an ex-girlfriend that you work with. Depending on your situation, this either may not be possible or won’t make sense. But we’ll talk about that in just a second, so stick with me here.

So why do I suggest switching jobs as the fastest way to get over an ex you still work with?

Not only is leaving your job going to help you get over this breakup, but chances are it will actually help your career (and more importantly your bank account) if you do it right.

Moving Jobs = More Money

Are you making enough money for the type of lifestyle you want to lead?

If the answer is no, have you switched jobs recently? Because if you haven’t, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table, especially if you are a younger guy. The fact is employees who stay with companies longer than 2 years get paid 50% less on average^[4].

Gone are the days when you can stay with a company for your entire life and hope to be rewarded as such. With a tight job market and the rise of remote work and entrepreneurship, you have more opportunities than ever to move jobs.

Career consultant Patty McCord, the former Chief Talent Officer for Netflix suggests that^[5] by job-hopping every 2-3 years, you maximize your skillset, and learn a lot in a relatively short period of time and become a more attractive candidate for employers.

And if you move strategically, the rewards can be pretty damn good. I can speak from experience on this, as I went from making $35,000 USD right out of college to over $165,000 USD in less than 4 years by switching jobs. The best part of this was I actually moved from a high-cost-of-living metro (Boston, MA) to a medium-cost-of-living metro (Tampa, FL) during the process.

By age 25 I was out-earning both my parents while living in a beachfront condo while I “worked” maybe 25-30 hours a week on average AND got to practice the skills I now use to run my own businesses.

Not bad.

So if you like more money, more profitable skills, and a new challenge, this is a great opportunity to take something bad (your breakup) and turn it into something great (more money, more skills, more job satisfaction).

But Jack, I [Insert Excuse For Not Wanting To Switch Jobs Here]

As a reminder, I’m not telling you how to live your life – I’m telling you the fastest way to get over a woman that you work with. It just so happens that my suggestion to switch jobs will also benefit your bankroll, career skills, and overall life happiness.

But as with all my advice: it’s your call if you want to follow it or not. My job isn’t to change your mind, it’s to offer you an alternative to sitting on your hands and doing nothing.

With that being said, I realize there are situations where you can’t just switch jobs. For example:

1. If you are in the military;
2. If you are senior management or an executive;
3. If you own your own company and your ex-girlfriend works for you;
4. If you have children or other dependents relying on you for healthcare/money and you can’t take the risk;
5. If you just joined a new company and can’t switch yet;
6. If you don’t have the skills to switch yet;

Obviously, there are a lot of other reasons, and I’m not a career consultant here so I’ll let you do the assessment if it’s worth it for you to switch. If you determine that you can’t, or that you’re too much of a wuss to take a risk, you still have other options.

You aren’t going to get over her as fast because you will still be in contact with her, but they will still work.

What Other Options Do You Have To Move On From Someone You See Every Day At Work?

The way I see it, you have 3 other options and to some degree, each of them sucks. While switching jobs does have some downsides, the upside of more skills, and environmental change, and more money more than make up for any negatives.

Related: The Best Way To Act Around Her After The Breakup

Which one makes sense for you depends on how much contact you have with her.

Without further adieu…

Option 1: Switch Departments / Teams To Minimize Contact

Effective if:

• You work closely with her on your team or within a department.
• You work physically close to her or see her often during your day-to-day
• You’re having a hard time keeping it together while you work with her
• You get distracted from work when you see her
• You haven’t moved on from her yet

This is essentially the same strategy as changing jobs, only this means transferring within your company. This strategy will work best if you are in a large corporate company where you can transfer to either a new floor in your building or to a new office entirely.

If you work in a smaller office, this same strategy can also work if you can switch teams so you aren’t working with her or near her. Talk to your boss or seek internal job postings to see what your options are for moving.

The idea is to remove yourself from where she is. The more physical and emotional distance you can create from her, the faster your recovery process will go.

Option 2: Treat Her Into A Stranger You Happen To Work With

Effective if:

• You work closely with her on your team or within a department.
• You work physically close to her or see her often during your day-to-day
• You either aren’t very attached to her or you have begun to move on
• You’re okay with being somewhat cold and robotic toward her

This strategy requires you to start treating your ex-girlfriend like she is a stranger that you don’t know. This is less than ideal because most men have trouble executing this strategy. You may or may not be one of them.

How you execute it:

• Limit any conversations you have with her to work-related matters that you must discuss with her. Moreover, only discuss work during the work day. All the rules in my article about no contact still apply outside of work.
• Don’t start conversations with her either, unless necessary for work.
• Avoid being close to her during the work day.
• Treat her with respect when you see her, but avoid going out of your way for her.
• If you are her boss and you have been giving her leeway or helping to advance her career, stop (even though you shouldn’t have been doing this in the first place)
• Don’t talk to your co-workers about her, or your relationship with her. Keep it to yourself.

In my opinion, this is the best strategy if you happen to be her boss/manager.

Option 3: Proceed As Normal And Embrace The Suck

Honestly, why are you even reading this article if you don’t want to change anything? You probably shouldn’t be in my audience if you don’t want to change what you are doing.

Next Time, Don’t Date Someone You Work With

Look, hindsight is 20/20, but I personally believe that your work life should be separate from your women life.

Dating a woman you work with a surefire ticket to drama, as you are now experiencing. Learn from your mistake, and avoid repeating it again in the future.

The Rest Of My Advice Still Applies

While it’s certainly not easy to get over an ex-girlfriend who you still work with and you see every day, it can be done. No matter what option you choose, the rest of my advice still applies.

If you’re new here and need a good place to start, I recommend you click this link here to be taken to my personal list of all my most helpful (and free) articles. They’ll give you a good base to start from so you can begin the process of moving on from your ex-girlfriend once you make the decision about how you are going to handle your working situation.

So get moving my friend.

Talk soon,

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.