Blase Harris - How to Get Your Lover Back: Successful Strategies for Starting Over (& Making It Better Than It Was Before)

HOW TO GET
YOUR LOVER BACK
WAS WRITTEN FOR YOU IF

• Your lover walked out the door and you want him or her back
• Your lover is physically with you, but not really present
• The breakup occurred long ago but you never really understood why and you want to know now
• Youre not really sure you even want your lover back, but you want to understand what happened

There is a cure for heartache. Its getting your lover back. Chances are youve tried and it didnt work. Is there really an approach that will not only reunite you and your loved one but make your relationship happier and healthier than before?

There is. And its simple and will build your self-esteem in the process. You can love your lover back to you.

A DELL TRADE PAPERBACK
Published by
Dell Publishing
a division of
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, New York 10036

Grateful acknowledgment is made to those named below for permission to reprint material:

Excerpt from Torch Song from The Stories of John Cheever. Copyright 19461968, 1970, 1972, 1978 by John Cheever. Copyright renewed 1977, 1978 by John Cheever. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf Incorporated.

Excerpt from The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence. Copyright 1915 by David Herbert Lawrence. Copyright 1943 by Frieda Lawrence. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin a division of Penguin Books.

Excerpt from The French Lieutenants Woman by John Fowles. Copyright 1969 by John Fowles Ltd. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown and Company.

Dialogue excerpt from the film Brainstorm 1983 MGM/UA Entertainment Co.

Assigned 1983 to MGM/UA Entertainment Co. and SLM Entertainment Ltd.

Dialogue excerpt from the film My Dinner with Andr by courtesy of New Yorker Films.

Lyric excerpt from the song Me and Bobby McGee by Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster. Copyright 1969 COMBINE MUSIC CORPORATION. All Rights Controlled and Administered by SBK BLACKWOOD MUSIC INC. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission.

Copyright 1989 by Blase Harris, M.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

The trademark Dell is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

eISBN: 978-0-307-76839-1

v3.1

To Maria
at the footbridge
in the valley

That they may know how much their encouragement and suggestions have meant to me, I wish to thank the following persons:

Neal Mazer, M.D., Fred James, Ken Schoolland, James and Margaret Setliff, Kikuko Takai, Debbie Saito, Ann Young, Bruce Dias, Joseph Harris, and Teresa Gagne, who read the manuscript or parts of it in its early form.

Maria Ashley, who read the manuscript in many of its forms, commented on it, and listened to me talk of it endlessly.

Dan Shaw, a computer doctor who still does house calls.

Boyd Slomoff, M.D., who offered to read it, and discussed it with methough I never did get a copy to him.

K. Y. Lum, M.D.though I never discussed my book with him, he introduced me to Dr. Tennovs term limerance.

Irv Cohen, M.S.W., who went out of his way to discuss relevant case histories with me.

Sydney Filson, who showed me how to write a chapter outline.

Birgit Kruse, the best salesperson I know, who patiently encouraged me and shared her views on the Porcupine Technique, the Take-Away, positive visualization, and shoebox notes.

And my very first editor, Jody Rein, whose genuine interest made the process of editing, believe it or not, pleasant.

At random, you open up a copy of Emily Bronts Wuthering Heights. You come upon Heathcliff, who is approaching Cathys deathbed. Cathy is dying of a poorly defined illnessyou suspect heartache.

Heathcliff says wildly, Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry, and wring out my kisses and tears; theyll blight youtheyll damn you. You loved methen what right had you to leave me? What rightanswer mefor the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heartyou have broken it, and in breaking it, you have broken mine.

Cathy sobs, I forgive you. Forgive me!

Five pages later Heathcliff is informed of Cathys death. He cries out to her ghost, I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me alwaystake any formdrive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!

There is no grief quite like the grief of love lost. Suddenly the world, no matter what the season of the year, becomes a cold, indifferent place. The drizzly gray November of northern latitudes takes possession of your soul. The flavor has gone out of food, the beauty out of nature. Even if your lover has left you at the height of spring, the budding and newly green trees may as well be the dead, leafless sticks of autumn, pointing jagged fingers at steel-gray skiesno matter that the sky is actually blue, full of white clouds, warm breezes, and the scent of flowers. You are but dimly aware of the former pleasures of life. An invisible layer of numbness has enveloped your body. You have lost your interests. Life has lost its meaning.

Getting out of bed has become an incredible burden. How are you going to get through a days work? Another day in an endless succession of days. This cant be happening! Not to you! Your relationship was different, it cant be over! Other people, though, if they notice at all, will just shake their heads and may think, Oh, yeah, there goes another one, and may say, Hell (shell) get over it. What else can they say? Despite all the songs and movies, or perhaps because of them, the world is indifferent.

Your friends worry about you. They counsel you, Theres more than one fish in the sea. Dont be an adolescent about it. He didnt deserve you anyway. Youve got to go on with your life.

How are you going to tell people that she or he left you? The guilt If only you had done things differently, maybe this wouldnt be happening.

And there is another peculiar thing. All they say about heartache, about the seat of love being located in the heart, it must be true. You know that the brain is where the action is supposed to be, but that strange, empty, lonely longing, as if someone has run off with a piece of your soul, is located just a little left of center within your chest, literally where your heart ought to be.

You experience an incredible need to be reassured by your lover, to be held, to be told that you are still loved, to be allowed to say that you do love the need to discover that the breakup was all a mistake, that your lover is coming back, sooner or later is coming back, that you will have another chance. The emptiness cries out to be filled with your lovers embrace. Your needs wrack you, demand satisfaction