How to Let Go of Someone: 10 Tips to Move On and Why It's Good for You

Liputan6.com, Jakarta Letting go of someone you love or care about is one of the hardest things in life. Many people struggle with the pain and sadness that come with it. Still, learning how to let go of someone is important for your emotional health and future happiness. Holding on too long can stop you from growing and moving forward.

Sometimes, we stay in relationships, friendships, or even family bonds that no longer make us feel safe or happy. This can cause stress, confusion, and emotional exhaustion. Even though we want to hold on to the good memories, we also need to accept when it is time to move on.

In this article, we will share some tips on how to let go of someone you care about and why you should do it. We will also share some signs that you need to move on from someone. We gathered the information from various sources, Monday (15/9/2025).

Moving on from someone important takes time and effort. If you are wondering how to let go of someone, here are some tips that can help you:

1. Accept Your Feelings

Allow yourself to feel sad, angry, or confused when you lose someone important in your life. These emotions are completely normal and healthy during this difficult time. Don't try to hide from these feelings or pretend they don't exist. Give yourself permission to grieve the relationship fully and completely. Crying, feeling upset, or being angry for a while is part of the natural healing process that everyone goes through.

2. Stop Contact for a While

Taking a break from talking to this person can help you heal properly and move forward. This might mean not calling, texting, or seeing them on social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram. Physical and emotional distance gives your heart time to recover from the pain. Even looking at their photos or posts can restart your emotional pain and slow down your healing progress significantly.

3. Focus on Yourself

Use this time to remember who you are without this person in your life every day. Try new hobbies, spend time with other friends, or work on personal goals that matter to you deeply. Taking care of yourself is the most important thing you can do right now. Your happiness should not depend on another person's presence or approval to make you feel complete and valued.

4. Talk to Someone You Trust

Share your feelings with a close friend, family member, or professional counselor who cares about your wellbeing. Talking about your emotions helps you process them better and see things more clearly than before. Don't keep everything inside your heart and mind. It only makes the pain last longer and can lead to serious depression or anxiety problems over time.

5. Create New Routines

Change your daily habits that remind you of this person and the memories you shared together. Take a different route to work, try new restaurants, or find new places to spend your free time. New routines help you build a life without them being part of it. Breaking old patterns prevents you from reliving painful memories constantly throughout your day and helps you move forward.

6. Practice Forgiveness

Forgive both yourself and the other person for what happened in your relationship and how it ended. This doesn't mean what they did was okay or acceptable behavior. It means you choose to let go of anger and resentment that hurt you more than they did. Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself for peace. It frees your mind from negative thoughts that keep you stuck in the past.

7. Stay Busy with Positive Activities

Keep your mind occupied with things that make you happy and fulfilled in your daily life. Exercise regularly, read interesting books, learn new skills, or volunteer for causes you care about deeply. Staying active helps prevent you from thinking too much about the past relationship. Idle time often leads to overthinking and sadness about what you lost, which slows down your healing process.

8. Accept That the Relationship Is Over

Stop hoping that things will go back to how they used to be in better times. Accepting the reality of the situation helps you move forward with your life in a healthy way. This means letting go of dreams about getting back together or fixing what went wrong between you. False hope only prolongs your suffering and prevents real healing from happening in your heart.

9. Take Care of Your Physical Health

Emotional stress can make your body feel tired, weak, and sick more often than usual. Make sure you eat healthy food, get enough sleep each night, and exercise regularly to stay strong. Taking care of your body helps your mind heal faster, too, during this difficult time. Physical wellness and mental wellness are closely connected to each other and work together for recovery.

10. Be Patient with the Process

Healing takes time, and everyone moves at their own pace depending on their unique situation. Don't rush yourself or let others pressure you to "get over it" quickly like nothing happened. There is no timeline for grief or moving on from love. Some days will be harder than others, and that's completely normal. Be kind to yourself during this difficult journey of recovery and healing.

Sometimes it's hard to know when a relationship should end. These warning signs show that it might be time to consider moving on.

1. You Feel More Pain Than Joy

If spending time with this person makes you sad, angry, or stressed more often than happy, something is seriously wrong with your relationship. Healthy relationships should bring more positive feelings than negative ones into your daily life. Love should lift you up, not tear you down emotionally. When pain becomes the main emotion you feel around them, it's time to reconsider the relationship's value in your life completely.

2. They Don't Respect Your Boundaries

When someone repeatedly ignores your limits or makes you uncomfortable after you've clearly expressed your needs, they're not respecting you as a person. Good relationships require mutual respect and understanding from both people involved. Both people should feel safe and valued in the connection. If they continue crossing lines you've drawn, they don't truly care about your wellbeing or feelings, which is a serious problem.

3. You Always Make Excuses for Their Behavior

If you find yourself constantly explaining or defending their hurtful actions to others or yourself, this is a major red flag. You shouldn't have to justify someone's bad treatment of you to friends and family. Good partners don't put you in that uncomfortable position regularly. Making excuses means you know their behavior is wrong, but you're protecting them instead of protecting yourself, which is unhealthy.

4. Your Values Don't Match

When you and another person have completely different beliefs about important things in life, it creates ongoing conflict and stress. These fundamental differences can make a lasting, peaceful relationship very difficult to maintain over time. You'll constantly argue about basic life choices and decisions. Trying to change someone's core values or compromising your own usually leads to resentment and unhappiness for both people involved.

5. You're the Only One Trying

Relationships require effort from both individuals to function properly and grow stronger over time. If you're always the one calling, planning activities, or trying to fix problems while they do nothing, the other person may not value the relationship as much as you do. One-sided relationships are exhausting and unfair to you. You deserve someone who matches your energy and commitment level completely.

6. They Prevent Your Personal Growth

If being with this person stops you from pursuing your goals, dreams, or becoming your best self, the relationship is holding you back significantly. Healthy connections should support your growth and encourage your success in all areas of life. They should not limit your potential or make you smaller as a person. When someone makes you give up important parts of yourself, they're not the right person for you.

7. You Live in Past Memories

When you spend more time thinking about good times from the past than enjoying the present moment with them, it shows the relationship isn't working now. You deserve happiness today, not just in old memories from better times. Current joy matters more than nostalgia about what used to be. Living in the past means you're avoiding the painful truth about your current situation with this person.

8. The Same Problems Keep Happening

If you have the same arguments, issues, or disappointments repeatedly without any real change or improvement, the relationship has reached its natural limit. Some problems cannot be fixed, no matter how hard you try or how much effort you put in. This is difficult but important to accept for your own peace. Doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results only causes more frustration and pain.

Letting go can feel scary, but it opens doors to better opportunities and experiences. Here are important reasons why moving on benefits your life.

1. Better Mental Health

Staying in unhealthy relationships causes serious stress, anxiety, and depression that affect your daily life. When you let go of toxic connections, your mental health improves naturally and significantly. You'll feel lighter, more peaceful, and less worried. Your mind will be free from constant negative thoughts and emotional turmoil that drain your energy and happiness.

2. More Time for People Who Care

Letting go of the wrong person creates valuable space for the right people to enter your life naturally. You'll have more energy to build stronger, healthier relationships with friends and family who truly value and respect you. Instead of wasting time on someone who doesn't appreciate you, you can invest in relationships that bring mutual joy and support.

3. Personal Growth and Self-Discovery

Moving on forces you to become stronger, more independent, and more self-aware as an individual. You'll learn new things about yourself and develop skills you didn't know you had before this experience. This personal growth makes you a better, wiser person. You'll gain confidence and discover your own strength through overcoming this difficult challenge.

4. New Opportunities for Love

When you're not holding onto someone who doesn't want to be with you, you become emotionally available for someone who will love and appreciate you properly. Better relationships are waiting for you in the future, but you must make space for them first. Staying attached to the wrong person blocks you from finding your true match.

5. Improved Physical Health

Emotional stress from bad relationships seriously affects your body in many harmful ways. People in toxic relationships often have headaches, sleep problems, stomach issues, and other health concerns that worry them constantly. Letting go can improve your physical wellbeing too. Your body will feel stronger and healthier when your mind is at peace.

6. Freedom to Pursue Your Dreams

Without the wrong person holding you back or discouraging your goals, you can focus fully on your ambitions and plans. You'll have more time and energy to work toward the life you really want. Career success, travel, education, or any other dreams that matter to you become possible. Freedom means you can make choices based on your own desires and values.

7. Building Self-Respect

Walking away from situations that hurt you shows that you value yourself and your wellbeing properly. This builds confidence and self-respect that will help you in all areas of your life. Work, friendships, family relationships, and future romantic connections all benefit. Respecting yourself means others will respect you more too, creating better experiences in every relationship.

8. Learning Important Life Lessons

Every relationship teaches us something valuable about love, communication, and what we need to be happy. When you move on properly, you can learn from the experience and make better choices in the future. You'll avoid similar problems and recognize red flags earlier. These lessons help you build stronger, healthier relationships going forward in your life journey.