This article felt all kinds of icky to me. If they truly only focused on those three conditions, only the first condition was in the category of putting distanc

This article felt all kinds of icky to me. If they truly only focused on those three conditions, only the first condition was in the category of putting distance between yourself and your ex. The other two were just "coming to terms with it" and "distracting onself", respectively. But using negative reappraisals is just one way to put conceptual distance between yourself and your ex. They might have just been testing the efficacy of creating conceptual distance, not the efficacy of "negative reappraisals" itself. Another way to create conceptual distance is to evolve and change your self, until you realize that the relationship might have been fine for your past self but isn't right for who you have become. And that again is hard and uncomfortable and takes work and time, but at least it isn't demonizing someone else.