Christine Webber - How to Mend a Broken Heart

Christine Webber

This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square,
London WC1B 3DP

First published in Great Britain 2004 by Hodder & Stoughton

Copyright 2004 Christine Webber

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eISBN: 9781448209859

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Having a broken heart is hell. Its the worst pain in the world.

Its also:

the loneliest feeling

the scariest sensation

isolating

devastating

It addition, it frequently makes you doubt your own sanity and leaves you feeling that life is pointless hopeless over.

No wonder heroines in Victorian novels and romantic operas often died of the condition. But dying is the easy option. Its living with a broken heart thats difficult.

Difficult, did I say? Thats an understatement if ever there was one. Its far worse than that. Its dreadful, tough, ghastly, seemingly endless and almost impossible to deal with. Yes, almost. It feels impossible, but its not. And millions of people could tell you their story of how eventually their broken heart was mended.

Your heart too will mend. It just doesnt seem like it right now.

We can feel broken-hearted in many different situations:

When love is unrequited

When first-love ends

When a marriage or long term relationship ends

When were dumped

When we do the dumping

When a clandestine affair comes to an end

When our own behaviour ruins a relationship

When a partner dies

When a close friend dies

When a loved relative dies

When a pet dies

When we lose a job that has meant everything to us

Thats twelve appallingly awful situations.

You might be surprised by the last five of them involving death and job loss and I must say immediately that I am not going to cover them in any detail. There are, after all, all sorts of other books that deal with death and bereavement, and plenty of others that help readers cope with job loss. But these situations are on the list because they usually evoke extremely upsetting emotions and cause heartbreak and also because much of the advice in this book will help people who are suffering from them.

Perhaps the toughest heartbreak is your very first one.

Despite all the statistics to the contrary, many of us believe that our initial romance will endure. That first time, we may be so in love that we simply cannot imagine a time when those feelings will disappear, or stop being reciprocated.

First love is so delicious. So heady. So exciting.

We usually start thinking about making a family with this new and perfect person. A golden life stretches before us. Our love is different. Our love is here to stay.

Alas, all too often it isnt.

On the very day that I started writing this book, I received the following email at the Netdoctor website where I answer users questions on sex and relationships. It was from a young guy:

I just wanted to know if you had advice for a broken heart? he wrote. My girlfriend was such an awesome, beautiful person that I cant stop loving her. She just decided one day that she was falling out of love with me, and had feelings for another boy. I know I have a lot to learn about love and life, but I was so sure that she was the girl that would be my wife someday. How can I accept that she doesnt love me and move on with my life? How can I ever let myself love again? I just dont understand why this all happened. If you have any advice at all it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

I almost wept when I read it. In fact, youd have to be made of stone not to feel this 19-year-olds pain. And I guess that most people who read his email will sigh, not only for him, but also in memory of that first, worst nightmare of their own.

The other really awful thing about it is that he is obviously so nice. In the midst of his anguish, he is sweetly polite and grateful which somehow makes his query all the more poignant.

This email raises a very important truth and it may well help you to try to accept it, right now. It is this:

Terrible things happen to really lovely people.

That seems very unfair and cruel. In fact, it flies in the face of most of what we learned as children. Weve all been led to understand that goodness gets its own reward.

Our parents told us:

If youre good, youll get that computer for Christmas.

If youre a nice, quiet boy for half an hour, mummy will read you a story later.

If you eat up your cabbage, youll grow up to be big and strong.

If you work hard at school, youll pass your exams and be able to go to university/get a good job.

Of course, much of the time, being good, or wise, or hard working does reap a genuine reward. So when we give love, and put a lot of effort into a relationship, and then it goes wrong, this disaster seems to break all our rules and assumptions about life. It feels very unfair. And it is.

In fact, for many of us, its the first time that we come face to face with the unpalatable fact that life often is unfair and that there are no guarantees.

So, a broken heart is a huge drama when were young but it can also be dreadfully painful later in life.

Nowadays, we enjoy such fluid, flexible lifestyles, and live longer, and change careers several times in our lifespan, and move around our own country or even abroad its becoming quite common for us to have several highly significant relationships in our lives. And each time one ends, theres likely to be some heartbreak.

Does it get easier? In truth, perhaps it does.

We know we got over it before eventually. But heartbreak can still be a monumental blow, particularly when we had thought we were settled for life.

Looking back at my own history, I realise that Ive felt truly broken hearted about three times and I think the third was the worst. I had invested so much in that particular relationship: it had seemed to be everything that I had never had before. And I simply could not see how anything better could ever happen again.

Of course it did and I eventually became happier than I could ever have dared to hope.

But in retrospect, I realise that one of the things that made my heartache so difficult to recover from was that I was thinking about it the wrong way. In other words, it wasnt just the situation that caused me such suffering, it was my own thoughts.

This might seem an odd concept to you right now, but as you work through this book, youll understand what I mean. And youll also come to realise that your present thoughts are not helping