4.5 Year Breakup. LDR. Never done a break up... Help?

[biometrix]

We had been together for 4 and a half years. Met at first year uni, petty much lived together for 3 years, and then she left back to Dubai after uni for visa reasons, but we still kept the relationship going for another 18 months until abut 2 weeks ago.

Neither of us have fallen out of love, we both want it, but it is also a cultural problem, as she is Indian, and her family are massively high achievers, and demand certain requirements, let alone my difference in ethnicity.. Its not just the distance.

We mutually decided that short term holidays 4-5 weeks of the year aren't enough, despite the undoubtable love we have for each other, so we called it quits.

Now I hate to be depressive, so I've been keeping busy, and for 2 weeks, I thought I was actually ok... But I spoke to her yesterday, and its really hurting right now because neither of us want this.


That's the story... So my question is basically...

1) How long is it okay to feel sad about this?

2) Whats the best way to 'be okay'

3) (Most Importantly) I have felt deflated and unmotivated for my work (I am freelance).. Is this lazyness or is it likely to be related?
This is important to me as I have a TONNE of deadlines and I need to be focused. Usually I'm not lazy... But at the same time Im not permanently sad, it comes in waves, usually when I'm allowing space to think. So I'm wondering if its the emotions? Or if I'm subconsciously using it as an excuse TO be lazy.


Sorry for the life story guys, I never do this, but I just felt like reaching out for some reason...

[Tina]

Breaking up can inflict a very deep type of pain that closely resembles the process of grieving. Your significant other has left, and has left a feeling of emptiness that seems impossible to shake. The relationship itself seems to have died, never to be experienced again.

As with all of the pain that people around the world go through in their lives, life must go on. It's essential to your emotional health to get though this pain successfully. Getting on with your life should be more than simply surviving, you want to live a full and happy life. Below is some advice for overcoming the pain of breaking up and getting your life together.

1.) Stay involved with people and friends. Even without your ex, there are others who also care about what happens to you. Now is not the time to be a lone wolf.

Keeping it all to yourself will make your attempt at getting past the pain much harder to do. So get in touch with your friends and get a little support in a time of need.

2.) Try not to fixate on the break up or on the lost relationship. It is a normal thing to want to analyze the details of the breakup, but there's a danger that this will completely consume you.

As I said before, it's important to be with other people. Discussing your breakup with them can be therapeutic but don't overburden them with this. The main reason for being with others is to get out and enjoy life.

3.) Be careful with the type of music you listen to. For the time being, don't listen to anything that will resurrect old emotions associated with your break up. Music is incredibly powerful at tweaking the emotions. So play something more cheerful and happy.

4.) Don't get snagged by the self pity, sadness trap, otherwise you may get lured into the living death called depression. Take my word for it that you don't want to end up there. Depression is a serious mental illness that seriously impacts and sometimes ends lives.

Often, music or cinema portrays sadness as a kind of sweet melancholy that seems to feel good and doesn't cause harm. But this sadness is artificially induced and ends with the song or movie. However, real personal sadness can be a trap that may never let us back out.

5.) Finally, have a sense of optimism about your life and make plans for the future. This optimism should also be applied to your prospects of finding love in the future. People the world over and throughout history have been through a break up and have successfully moved on. It's possible that you can reunite with your ex.

But if it wasn't meant to be, there will be other lovers in your future. You need only put forth the effort and just take some action and do it.

[Jerome]

Coping with a breakup is one of the most important skills that you can develop. Why? Because your entire love life depends upon your ability to take "defeat" without losing your self-esteem in the context of intimate relationships. If you can't do that, you can't learn. You will avoid intimate relationships or you will destroy your self-esteem in the process of trying to find your Mr. Right. Imagine what would happen to your body if it didn't have the ability to heal itself. Even the smallest wound or disease would be lethal. It's the same thing with love and relationships only here, you need to be emotionally and psychologically healthy.

The good news is that just like you can become more physically fit and healthy, you can become more psychologically fit and healthy. To do that, you need to develop understandings, strategies, principles, tips, attitudes and empowering beliefs that will allow you to be a master of your own love life. You also need to let go of limiting beliefs that have the potential of destroying your life at the end of a loving relationship. Limiting beliefs like "you can find true love only once in a lifetime" can really damage you. How? Well, if you really have this belief and a man you're still in love with breaks up with you, you will feel like you lost something unique that you'll never be able to get back. That's how women end up heartbroken.

So coping with a breakup is something that you must learn if you want to have a great love life. It's an art and some men have mastered it so well that they can completely get over a breakup in a matter of days. Just keep one fact in mind. Breaking up is the rule. Marriage is the exception. So you're probably going to have to go through a few breakups in your life.