Mending A Broken Heart (Article)

Great advice. Not broken up, but he's not answering my calls and feel a great loss at the moment. Maybe I'll hang out with my sister.

I like that you mentioned that we need to feel what we're going through, or the feeling will just keep coming back, as if for the first time. It's comforting to know that we don't need to avoid what we feel. I think there comes a time when there's been too much grieving, and something to make one happier needs to be done, but I agree that we should acknowledge our feelings and go with the flow.

I am still in shock and I don't believe in divorce. I don't believe It is healthy to live with someone who constantly accuses you of cheating and doesn't let you go across street without permission. My heart is broken and I am going through different stages. He took off yesterday morning and thinks I can let him come back with no changes. This makes the 6th time that he left and now wants to come back with the same issues. I think he makes things up so he can go and do what he wants. I am a Christian and I thought he was. I guess it has all been a lie.

Favored wrote:I am still in shock and I don't believe in divorce. I don't believe It is healthy to live with someone who constantly accuses you of cheating and doesn't let you go across street without permission. My heart is broken and I am going through different stages. He took off yesterday morning and thinks I can let him come back with no changes. This makes the 6th time that he left and now wants to come back with the same issues. I think he makes things up so he can go and do what he wants. I am a Christian and I thought he was. I guess it has all been a lie.

Not to sound to condescending or abrupt but its the 6th time he's done this... it's also the 6th time you allowed him to. He is thinking in simple terms. As much as you believe his words over his actions, so does he with you. Think about it. You say you want change, but you allow him back without change. Dont allow him back again. But if you must, dont allow him back PROMISING change (or worse, not promising anything). Only allow him back if there's proof he's done what needed to be done and even then, keep an eye on the actions over the words.

This is the Best Advice anyone can give !

Great great article!!! There are so many very useful recommendations which really help! Thank you for posting it!

Reviewed By Michael Smith

if you're the "dump-er" or the "dump-ee," possibilities are a broken connection is going to depart you with a broken heart as well. You may not believe it at the time, but there are ways to put the parts back simultaneously.

The first step is to accept the detail that a breakup is genuinely a genuine decrease -- if you were involved for six weeks, six months, six years, or a lifetime. "Give yourself consent to proceed through all the phases of grief," states North Carolina therapist Alan Konell, MSW, author of joint venture Tools: Transforming the Way We Live simultaneously. "Denial, hurt, wrath, acceptance ... the dispute is to get through every one of those stages."

As dejected as you may be when your loved one walks out the door, states Konell, try to aim on the present. "Feel your feelings, but don't believe them," he suggests. "Feeling bad is fine, but forecasting the rest of your life when you're feeling this bad is not." In other phrases, despite how you seem and what you're saying to yourself -- and every person additional who will hear -- it's improbable that you're never going to drop in love again and that you're destined to spend every Valentine's Day eternally after by yourself.

"Falling in love is about you," states Konell. "It's not about the other individual. You will still have the ability to drop in love. no one can take that away from you."

There are usually two answers to a broken heart, Konell states. The first is, "Oh, I'll never proceed through that again." The second is, "I endured that so I can rest ... I understand I can endure it again."

Great Article! I think the best remedy for a broken heart is good company. For one, you can vent your heart out to your friends, and two, they will make you laugh and form memories to replace the sour ones left by your ex. Just my two cents.

my bf dumped me on saturday. over a silly row. its ridiculous. I'd broken up with him in feb because he lied to me about something major. And I wouldnt take him back. And he spent, on and off, from Feb-May trying to get me back. I didnt reply to him for a while, then he moved back to where i was and promised total committment, honesty and not to hurt me again. So I gave it a go, taking it day by day. And it's been great. And when we have fallen out we agreed to walk away and cool down. And that worked. No breaking up over it.

And then we rowed on sat and because i "left" he dumped me. Obv im thinking that cant be his only reason surely. We had an agreement.

Anyway Im not sure I'll ever know his reason. He wont speak to me. His phones off. A single text telling me not to contact him and bye. Out of the blue. I guess he just doesnt want what he thought he wanted now he has it. He's played up after 3 months before, but never dumped me.

So im kind of in shock and heartbroken. But im not as heartbroken as when i had to finish with him in feb. I had been lied to and i had to leave him because of that. He majorly broke my trust.

Now, i just feel an idiot for giving him another chance just for him to end it with me over a silly row. I didnt do anything wrong except get upset over something and let off steam. But apparently that made me immature and the fact that i walked away to calm down was a dumping offence. Forget the fact that he does that all the time when he gets angry!

So now Im alone again. He's treating me like I dont exist. He went out the night of the day he finished with me. So he's not unhappy. He owes me money. I just paid for a mattress to be delivered to his house cos his one was killing my back and it came thur. He now has that. I wont get it back. And I'm personal non grata. All for getting cross cos he gave someone food that id bought for me for the weekend and didnt tell me. I got cross over the principle that it wasnt his to give away. He'd given it to his mother who i dont like so ofc he lost his temper that i was angry. I still made the point that it was manners to ask or at least inform if you give away things that arent yours. It got me dumped.

I'm not going to let him back in again. If he decides he's made a mistake, he's broken my heart and trust too many times now. And if he can dump me over this, then I would never trust to be able to have any disagreement in the future where I wouldnt be out on my ear.

I dont know maybe it wasnt about that. Maybe he used that as an excuse. Maybe he wanted out. or had someone else. Who knows. All I know is after everything i've done for him and all we've been through according to him I'm not even worth speaking to on the phone now.

Life's sad sometimes, and heartbreaking, and normally by the people we care about the most who out of the blue stab us in the back.

"Give yourself permission to go through all the stages of grief," says North Carolina therapist Alan Konell, MSW, author of Partnership Tools: Transforming the Way We Live Together. "Denial, hurt, anger, acceptance ... the challenge is to get through every one of those stages."
I got stuck in denial. Initially I was shocked, then angry. I tried to forgive and move on, but “dating” at 60 is nearly impossible – highly improbable. I was not prepared for age discrimination and the lack of courtesy. “Older” women are treated as if they are asexual. Men want women 15-20 years younger and women don’t know why you care for romance at this age. The more I attempted to move on, the better the “dumper” looked. I longed for the stability, laughter, comfort that relationship offered until the surprised “dump“. I focused on the good times … and took full responsibility for losing it. It must have been me – right? If only I…. Depression set in. A year later, one therapist told me to the tears would eventually wash away the pain. The pain was intolerable. I sought a psychologist. I was in the midst of a major depression. There was also PTSD. I’d pull myself up time and time again, but could not sustain it. She pressed and coached me to move on. I still could not reconcile the months of a growing “committed” “love” with being dumped after one tense weekend. Loneliness and isolation added to the toxic mix. Flitting around trying to move forward left me ungrounded. Trying 3 different antidepressants and worrying what damage that was doing to my brain, didn’t help. I knew it was my thinking and my inability to reconcile being dumped with the development of the relationship until then. So I was dumped, deemed too old to love and be loved, isolated and lonely, scared, and totally lost. Then, skin cancer )SCC). Couldn't believe I was told by therapist, "old people are always having something removed." I didn’t fit into family and couples activities. (I have no children.) I ended the second counselor after 7 months. Finally at the 2 year+ mark, I read of “complicated grief”. I took myself through the process – event by event - of reconciling the emotions of losing a love - that really did not exist (words and behaviors were not aligned) with being dumped. The rational, step-by-step process of labelling and putting away stopped the swirling of negative thinking. Not only did I stop swirling individual events I wanted to “fix”, but I began to see the forest and not just the trees. The spoken relationship was not the actual relationship - I just kep excusing the "quirks".

"Falling in love is about you," says Konell. "It's not about the other person. You will still have the ability to fall in love. Nobody can take that away from you."
This is false when you are an older women. Sorry, the stats and experience of older women will tell you different. Somehow, Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy is not supposed to be applied to us. Older women are rejected and forgotten – in general. No emotional recognition, sex, bonding... We are denied these, leaving us - me - feeling frustrated and incomplete. Yes, I hear the rare exception of someone in her 70’s finding love again. But, I want a full relationship – not one from a walker or wheel chair. I am still vital and energetic. The probability is nearly 0. It takes 2 to have a relationship and there are few men (other than scammers) looking for a relationship with an “older” woman. Stereotypes live on. Look at Heffner (86), and his new 26 year old wife. While a bit exaggerated, that is the norm.

“* Do something for someone else. Volunteer in a soup kitchen, …”
This list sounds fine, I tried many. But remember when you become depressed, your energy level is low. The car won’t run when there is no gas.
Remember the saying (paraphrased) love is like fertilizer, the more you spread it, the more things grow. Well, the converse is true. Not much grows without good fertilizer. Constant rejection, lack of connection, lack of belonging, lack of support as folks tell you to “just get over it”, lack of consistency in relationships as you flit around is damaging and adds to the damage of the break-up.
Having finally reached "acceptance", I am now in a position to move on.

“Marriage therapist and syndicated sex/relationship columnist Isadora Alman says another technique that works well is to keep a mental balance scale. For every single thought of "how sweet s/he was when s/he did X," onto the other side of the scale goes a "how unlovely s/he was when s/he did Y."
This approach worked for me initially. The added step of seeing the whole relationship and not get caught in the details helped most. Look the list of negatives and ask, are these the traits and values I signed up for in a relationship?

hey I liked the article it really helped me.