Love has always been defined as something we cannot control . It arrives, like a weather phenomenon, affects us in a way that depends on our personality and our experience with past relationships, and sometimes it leaves.

However, there are times when feeling love for certain people is clearly counterproductive, and we know that while it is in our best interest to stop feeling that kind of affection for someone, that is an option that is beyond our means. Nevertheless, there are certain habits and behaviors that make it more likely that we will end up falling out of love with someone.

When falling out of love is the best option

As crude as it sounds, to stop feeling love for someone can even be good for your health. This is clearly the case in a toxic relationship where abuse and physical and verbal violence are common, but also in a relationship where there is unrequited love.

The point is that the course of our thoughts doesn’t always go in the direction we want or that produces greater well-being. Much of this is because those memories, ideas and images that come into the focus of our consciousness tend to be beyond our control.

We can decide more or less which details or aspects to focus our attention on, but the topics that occupy our minds are not usually chosen by us. Or, rather, we choose to call up certain memories and analyze them, but we don’t have the full power to make them go away , and neither can we avoid being assaulted by surprise from time to time: that is part of the normal functioning of our brain.

However, that this is normal does not mean that, under certain circumstances, this phenomenon of memories that come to mind, can not become real headaches, especially if these memories have to do with past relationships, disappointments in love and broken hearts .

So, how do we take action? Saying that we want to fall out of love is easier than doing it, but that does not mean that it is impossible to make this kind of feeling weaken in favour of our personal well-being and autonomy. Below you can read some keys to achieve this .

1. Regulates physical and visual contact

Looking into one’s eyes and touching one another are two situations: both cause our bodies’ production of oxytocin, a hormone related to affection, to skyrocket, and the establishment of bonds of trust. At the same time, an increased amount of oxytocin in our blood and in the spaces through which the neurons in our brain communicate cause emotions and behaviors related to love to appear. In fact, this happens even when we look into the eyes of certain pets.

Therefore, one of the first steps to get rid of a person whose relationship is harmful to us is to make this physical and visual contact poorer and scarcer , even if at that moment we feel like doing the opposite.

2. Learn to live away from that person

Another important aspect of falling out of love is making things easy for us at the beginning by avoiding having to see that person, at least for a few days or weeks . If love consists, among other things, in thinking about that person for a good part of the day, in order to reverse this dynamic it is good not to expose ourselves to situations in which we have to think about it by force because we have it before us.

In many ways, love works like a drug, since both when we see the person we love and when we consume an addictive substance, the reward circuit of our brain is activated, based especially on the neurotransmitter called dopamine.

Therefore, gradually reducing the number of times it is activated will be necessary for our brain to readjust to the new lifestyle. However, this is something that is difficult to do and requires effort. That is why before undertaking this task it is good to imagine a priori possible excuses that we can put ourselves to go see that person; this way we will be able to recognize them as such when they appear.

3. Take up routines that make us independent

To remake a life as a person away from the person we used to think about, it is not only necessary to stop thinking about him/her, but also to find activities to prevent this from happening . If we do all the things we did when we were in love, our brain will notice that the only piece of the puzzle missing is the presence of that person, and this incongruity will give us problems. If, on the other hand, we match the time of that person’s departure with other significant changes in our life that are related to our routine, it will be easier for us to commit to this phase of transition.

Moreover, inventing new ways of living our daily lives will make it more possible for us to consider activities that have little to do with the life of a lover, so that the possibilities of thinking about the person for whom we felt something will diminish : simply, references to him or her will be scarcer.

In short, in the style proposed by behavioral psychologists such as B. F. Skinner, if we want to make our life change we can take into account that the most important thing is to make the environment and the activities we are usually exposed to change, rather than trying to modify ourselves without moving a muscle.

4. Work on self-esteem

Sometimes, the failure of the relationship project with someone is a severe blow to self-esteem . That is why to the previous behaviour patterns we must add a constant evaluation of our self-image and self-esteem. Otherwise, it is easy that, when we feel invalid as people, we desperately seek to be with the other person again, to accept ourselves better.

To do this, it is necessary to try to make an analysis that is as cold and distant as possible from who we are, what we do and what defines us, taking into account the events that we have experienced. In other words, it is not a matter of thinking of ourselves as entities independent of our environment: what matters is to realize how we behave with the means we have and depending on our objectives and interests.

Managing Care

Having read these keys to falling out of love with someone, you may have noticed that almost all of them are based on a common theme: attention. Knowing how to manage our attention focus makes us concentrate on those things that are really necessary or useful for us and, therefore, helps us to move away from rumination, that process similar to a vicious circle by which almost everything we do or perceive reminds us of what makes us feel bad: as we feel sad, we think about what originates that, and as we think about what originates that, we feel sad.

So the key is to intervene in both our thoughts and our actions to break the seemingly endless loop of comparisons and sadness. Beginning to impose a certain discipline on us in what we do, even if the body asks us to do something else, is fundamental to stop being emotionally dependent on that person with whom we fall in love one day. And, of course, if we believe that the problem is so intense that it totally interferes with our quality of life, it is worth considering whether it is appropriate to go for psychotherapy sessions . In any case, the motor of change must always be ourselves.