Are You Making These Top 10 Break Up Mistakes? Find Out Now!

You're distraught, upset and heart-broken, so it's understandable you'll find yourself willing to do pretty much anything to get your ex back. The ten mistakes below are extremely common, and will almost completely kill your chances of getting your ex back. Undoubtedly you've either seen friends make these mistakes or maybe YOU made them in the past. If you want to succeed in getting your ex back, avoid the following ten behaviors as if your life depends on it. Your life doesn't depend on it, but your relationship does. If you manage to avoid the mistakes, you're chances of mending your broken relationship are pretty damn good. 1. Panic Contact - This is what happens when you let your distress and shock get the best of you. You don't know what to do. All you want is to change things back to how they were, rewind time, and fix the problem immediately. So you do the only thing you can think of and try to contact your ex hoping you can reason him or her back into dating you. And the more you panic, the more you end up instigating damaging contact. All your begging, crying, and screaming serves only to convince your ex that he or she made the right decision. 2. Laying on the Guilt - Once things start looking final and your begging doesn't seem to be working, it's natural to want to guilt your ex into staying with you - a bad idea. Once you start saying things like, "If you really loved me, you wouldn't do this," "I've given you so much and this is how you repay me," and "I knew this would happen, you never were good at relationships," you're sending yourself down a dangerous path. This may seem like a valid tactic, but it's really just a form of manipulation that will send your ex in the opposite direction you want them to go. 3. Settling for Friendship - You're setting yourself up for disappointment. Your ex most likely loves you as a person, so when you agree to be "just friends," it's an excellent resolution for him or her. He or she gets to keep you in his life without dating you. Unfortunately, by demoting yourself to the role of friend, you end up setting yourself up to get hurt. Instead, you need to set boundaries. Seek out the support of other friends. Don't trick yourself into believing that remaining friends is the only way you can keep your ex in your life. You have to let go completely, especially if you want the chance of getting back together in the future. Remember, if you stay friends, you'll have to be a "good friend" and support your ex when he or she starts dating someone else. Sound painful? 4. Sleeping with Your Ex - So you shouldn't revise your relationship to not include sex (being friends), but you also shouldn't reduce your relationship to just sex. Sleeping with your ex is "fun" for you ex, and a big "I hope" for you. But that hope is unlikely to ever pan out. 5. Resorting to Drugs or Alcohol - It may seem like there's no alternative, but drowning your sorrows in this manner makes you unappealing to your ex and is dangerous to yourself. And when you finally come out of it, you'll feel bad. 6. Spiralling into Obsession - It's understandable, you're hurt. So giving voice to your woes and discussing your ex is okay... to a point. If you're talking about your ex constantly to anyone who will listen, you're apt to drive away friends and family members in addition to driving away your ex. It isn't healthy to obsess. Give your mourning the time it deserves then think happier thoughts. 7. Harassing Your Ex's Friends - You shouldn't be in contact with your ex at all in the early stages of your break up. That INCLUDES being in contact with his or her friends. Sometimes this might suck, but for your sake, it's the best thing to do. 8. Spying, Stalking, and Anything Creepy - Let the characters in movies do all the spying. You need to focus on yourself and not on what your ex is doing. There is nothing you can do about it. You're only going to rile yourself up. 9. Gifting Your Ex - You can't buy your ex back with cute, thoughtful, or expensive gifts. Even if you could, he or she wouldn't be interested in you... just in what you could give. 10. Badmouthing Your Ex - No matter how much you want to drag your ex's name through the mud for hurting you, 99% of the time it will come back to haunt you. Be adult about your break up, and save your angry comments for behind closed doors. These are the things NOT to do. But then what are the things you should be doing?