You have just been dumped but although you could see it coming for months it still came as a shock. After eight years together they moved out, leaving only a few personal things and you secretly hope that means they want to come back some time in the future. The once complex road map in your head about your relationship is now gone, replaced by a single person road map with hardly any roads and no GPS.
Being dumped is hard and the recovery is usually slow, too slow for you to want to contemplate. And if one other person says, “There’s are plenty of other fish in the sea”, you are going to scream your tits off. For one thing why would you want a relationship with a fish? And why is it your brain still thinks of them, 24/7?
So how do you recover from a broken heart? Well, first be aware that it happens to everyone on the planet and it is part of being human. I know it is tough. You could start having a new relationship immediately, one with your self. For eight years you considered the ‘We’ in everything you did so maybe now it is now time to think about the “I’. Having a loving relationship with yourself sometime in your adult live can be very healthy and rewarding. It really is okay to be single. I mean you are a great person to be with, don’t you agree?
Reconnect with old friends, find new and daring things to do, visit the gym and get the body back into shape, go on holiday, change the sheets, buy new clothes, move the furniture around, buy new music. The list is endless but in the end having a new loving relationship with your self will help enormously.
There are things to look out for: you will lose weight (now that is good), the nights will contain more emotional thoughts than the days so be careful about your behaviour, if you contact them you will reconnect the intimacy and it will be harder to build yourself up again, rebounds are likely because a sponge soaks up water easily, you will feel really alive and emotionally raw with a tendency to write poetry (don’t send it) and everything around you, and people, will feel like an unreal parallel universe.
Next your friends may be wary about talking to you about it, as they have no idea how to heal your pain. Love the friends that listen, ignore those that have all the answers and above all try to talk about something else, sometime.
It is going to take time for your heart to heal so take it easy on yourself. Give yourself time but if you find in a few months you are still feeling awful seek professional advice. You might need skills to stop it all going round and round in your head. You can email me now for a free PDF copy of, “The Heart Break Survival Kit”, I wrote some years ago.
I know you don’t believe me now but in time you will have a completely different view of them and your relationship. Completely different! It is better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all. When you understand this saying, from a distance, you will be just fine. Take care.
Gerry North is a couple’s counsellor and can be contacted on [email protected] or via gaycounselling.vpweb.com.au
