The Hard Part Is Staying Away
Severing ties with someone is easy. Ensuring those ties remain broken is hard. Initially, your anger fuels the momentum. You make decisions. You do what is required to burn the bridges. Then, a few days later, you can no longer feel the same rage toward the person.
Anger fades away. It is natural. This is why most people get back together with the same person they were tired of. Being with them feels more comfortable than being without them, unless there is a specific trigger that forces you to move so far away from them that it propels you in another direction. Generally, in the opposite direction of wherever that person is.
All forms of anger fade away. Even if your partner cheated on you and you feel such rage that you want to hurt them, even that rage eventually fades away. What is left behind is a wound. You see it and remember your sorry state. You remember how they made you feel. You feel the rejection and continue to hate them. After a point, you have to remember the anger to ensure you stay away from them.
In the absence of such significant trigger events, it is extremely tough to break away from someone. Do not rely on the initial anger. Instead, move immediately to fill their absence. When you are distancing yourself from someone, the initial emotions give you momentum for a few days.
In those few days, rearrange your routine because every empty space will push your mind toward them. Even when you are fatigued, your mind will go there. When you are lying in bed, ruminating, your mind will go there. It is inevitable. You need to fill that space with something else. The first few days are important because that is when the motivation to forget them is at its peak. After that, willpower will not be enough.
Most people make the mistake of thinking that the anger they are feeling in the moment will continue to remain for the foreseeable future. It almost never does, unless the trigger is significant. In such cases, you remember your own rejection. That is not a great thing for your mental health. Instead, you need to use the initial momentum to build systems that naturally push you away from them.
You need to find new obsessions, new routines that are completely different from what you were doing with them. Force your mind to form new neural connections. Build new muscle memory. When your mind ruminates on that person, make a movement. Any movement will do, as long as it breaks the pattern.
Do not rely on your emotions. They will betray you and leave you hanging. The systems will not leave you. In fact, they will ensure that those old connections go stale faster and the new ones become your new reality.
The real tragedy is not in severing the ties. It is what happens after that.