Disclaimer: I’ve gone through this process twice with partners with whom I shared a decade long household with all the things you’d expect.

A lot of the advice I got was to focus on rebuilding myself. It half worked. The focus on the ability to operate independently and hold my own definitely did. But the bit that didn’t was to take a break from relationships altogether to avoid slugging others with a rebound situation.

My advice is to focus on this bit. Not necessarily on next relationship (very possibly that too) but rather, answering a simple question: “what is my next project going to be about?”

Walking out of a long termer that didn’t work out, you’ll probably have a lot of ideas what it won’t be about, and maybe the start of a thread re what you’d have liked it to be about. What matters to you. What your next one is definitely going to be about. What hill you’re prepared to die over.

For example, my first one was about following a formula the society gave us - get married, have 2.3 kids, a dog and a mortgage.

The second one was about saturating ourselves with fun and novelty… and it ended with my partner no longer finding that novelty at home and seeking it elsewhere.

The third one was about making people feel seen and safe at home.

Very different north stars, which attract very different people to them. What I found was that we hook up with very different people when we select based on what kind of project we aim to commit the rest of our life to building. Rebounding stops being a problem because our old partner simply isn’t fit or interested in building our new project. It’s for that reason we broke up!

And when we have clarity on what it is we’re trying to build, so long as we put ourselves in front of other prospective partners and talk with them - this clarity really helps find “our people”, avoids endless periods of dating, and shortens the orb to an equally keen and companion, who has just as much clarity and intent on this new (and hopefully lifetime-long) home/family project.

Work out what it is that matters to you and what your next project will be about.

I hope this helps.