Getting over someone who isn’t right for you can be hard, especially when you don’t want to face the feelings of losing someone you care about. This can be even more difficult when you were lovebombed or had the sparky chemistry that comes from a dysfunctional cycle of fighting and then making up.

So, how do you finally break free from an unhealthy relationship—and actually stay out of it (and heal!)? Follow these rules.

12 Things Women Who Finally Escape Toxic, Unhealthy Relationships d

1. Stop trying to make things work

Stop trying fix someone if they can’t give you what you need.

2. Accept the truth

This allows you to let go of the expectation of something that you don’t get.

You may struggle to acknowledge some core truths about your relationship because you’ve held on to hope that they might change.

When the truth hurts, you don’t want to accept it. What can feel worse is losing the person you thought they were when that’s not who they are after all.

3. Be honest about the situation

Acknowledge the fact that this relationship is over.

4. Cut all contact

You need break the bond.

Research BP Acevedo explores how you can become addicted to the dopamine from the love bombing and ignore your gut telling you something is wrong when you mistake it for butterflies in your stomach.

RELATED: Love Wasn’t Enough: What It Took For Me To Finally Let You Go

5. Don’t live

Gain closure by accepting why the relationship ended without dwelling on it.

Are you preventing yourself from getting over a toxic relationship?

Maybe you keep focusing on all the good times and forget all the bad times because you don’t want to admit it’s over.

You may be holding on to false hope or looking for the good in them despite their bad behavior towards you. In this way, it can be difficult to know how to stop holding on to an unhealthy relationship, such as theorized by Callie Graham, Arizona State University.

6. Process your feelings

Lopolo via Shutterstock

You will feel the pain of letting go, but it will be worth it. However, it is easy to get stuck in anger

Anger can prevent you from getting over someone who is bad for you. Therapy can help heal so that you can feel your feelings and let go of the pain, so that you can move on from a relationship that is bad for you.

7. Let the imagination go

Right now you are hold on to false hope and expect things to turn out the way you want them to. It’s time to let go.

You can fall in love with the person’s imagination by projecting your hopes and unmet needs onto the person. But everything falls apart when the person doesn’t turn out to be what you built up in your head.

You see what you want to see in a person and stick to what you want to believe, even if that may not be what is going on.

Sometimes it’s hard to let go of the person you thought they were once you see their true colors.

RELATED: How to End a Relationship the Right Way – 9 Steps to Follow

8. Remember the costs

A study by Emma M Marshall, Kent State Universitysupports that when you want them back, remind yourself of how the relationship affected your life and what it has cost you.

9. Stop projecting your unmet needs onto them

It’s time to heal those parts of yourself.

10. Understand the unhealed part of you that attracted you to this person

You can do this by engaging in therapy to unlearn behavioral patterns to stop attracting toxic relationships.

RELATED: 3 Emotional Boundaries to Set Before Allowing Yourself to Fall in Love Again

11. Focus on rebuilding yourself and giving yourself what you need

This allows you to become the person you want to attract and eventually attract someone who is aligned with who you are, who is explored by a study in Journal of Marriage and Family.

12. Learn to set boundaries

Stop abandon yourself in relationships so that you don’t neglect your own needs.

It’s easy to bury your head in the sand and refuse to accept what’s wrong in your relationship so you don’t move on from the person who hurt you.

You don’t want to admit how you feel because you don’t want to accept that the relationship is over.

You can learn how to move on from a toxic relationship if you read the patterns of tolerating unwanted behavior and thereby stop preventing yourself from getting the love you want.

You can heal when you work with the denied parts of yourself that fear rejection or look for love to feel good enough.

RELATED: 4 Reasons Your Partner’s Love Never Feels Like Enough

Nancy Carbone is an author, relationship therapist and psychodynamic therapist. She specializes in the treatment of personality disorders and relational trauma and is accredited as a mental health social worker.