“Treat others the way you’d want to be treated” is a valuable lesson we learned in elementary school, but for some reason, that very same lesson is completely thrown out the window when it comes to your ex.

A lot of the times we see people trash-talking their ex, and saying things like they hate them and that their ex doesn’t deserve to find love because they are incapable of loving another human being. This type of mindset is toxic to not only your well-being and growth, but your ex’s as well.

Social media is very good at convincing people that having an ex means hating an ex. However, this is someone that you fell for. Just because things didn’t work out doesn’t mean that they deserve to be hated.

Love, like many things, is often a series of trial-and-error, so you’re going to have ex’s and they’re not always going to end in the nicest way possible.

So, why spend the time and energy spewing out hate toward the majority of relationships that didn’t work out?

This is not to say that everyone has intentional ill will toward their ex’s because that just isn’t the case either. There are, of course, plenty of people who speak highly of their ex’s and want nothing more than to see them prosper.

However, there is an immature mindset going around the internet that is teaching people to think that someone being your ex automatically makes them “trash.”

It takes a very secure and mature adult to understand that it just didn’t work out. Whatever the reason may be, it’s time to move on and wish them well in life. Move on fully.

In the digital age, breaking up with a significant other makes things so much harder because most of the time the break-up itself becomes public, leaving people a window for questions and judgement on the relationship.

A lot of times people try and comfort you. Although they might mean well, one of the ways people do that is to put the ex down, which just encourages the person who’s hurt to believe it’s okay to speak ill of, start hating, the ex who probably wasn’t that terrible to begin with.

It’s safe to say that if you had feelings for someone and things didn’t end the way that you originally hoped, the best thing to do is to take the high road and move on with dignity. Love comes and goes and that’s just the blunt reality of playing the game…