Dealing with a Broken Heart - The Ex Factor

Breakups and the subsequent broken heart are always hard to deal with, especially when it's your first adult love. I'm sharing my story as well as what helped me through in hopes of helping someone going through the pain.

When I was 20 years old, I fell in love. I met him when I started working at the cool new hot spot in Manhattan, Planet Hollywood. He and all his fellow busboy hottie friends would ask me out a couple of times a week for months, I always turned him down in particular because he had a girlfriend.

One particularly lovely New York City day he asked me out yet again, the man was nothing if not persistent. And you know what? Instead of shooting him down flat as per usual, I told him my reason why. I explained that no matter how good looking he was, and he WAS good looking, I just didn't date men in relationships. He said he understood and we parted ways. I didn't think much about it until he returned a week later, with his friend and a big smile.

They came to tell me that they'd just come back from moving all of Mr.X's belongings to his grandmothers apartment in Manhattan and that TA-DA, he was officially single.

Now instead of this triggering loud "Danger, Danger, Will Robinson" bells in my head, I was stupidly flattered. And I found his silly lop sided grin charming, I accepted a date with him on the spot.

Instead of boring you with all the gruesome details of the actual relationship I will skip to the end. One moment I was in sheer bliss, sharing a kiss and holding hands with a cute boy over cappuccinos at a Manhattan Café, and the next? Well I was involved in a love triangle that included his ex girlfriend, and in which I was the only one getting no love. However I hadn't yet been privy to that information and so in my gullible naiveté I let it drag on for months.

Cut to me getting some cojones and ending it. Alas, like most breakups it wasn't so cut and dry. I am loathe to admit it, but it was so devastatingly wrenching that I found my self calling him every day. I felt like such a loser, but like a drug addict I yearned to hear his voice, good or bad.

There is one telephone call forever etched in my memory, I called and "she" answered, I remember feeling as if suddenly I had a two ton boulder on my chest. I felt the tears streaming down my face and somehow managed to ask for him. When he came to the phone I was sobbing, and through my tears I asked him the infamous question "How could you do this to me"? He said a lot after that, but the 2 sentences that stuck with me forever were "because I love her" and the last "I never loved you". All else ceased to exist, I dropped the phone.

It's still hazy for me, I do know that I experienced some sort of nervous break down, I cried for days. I almost lost my job, I had my family worried about me and I felt like just living life hurt. Waking up every day brought with it a new wave of loneliness, humiliation and sadness. Those next couple of weeks I grieved for the relationship that ever existed, for the man I thought Mr. X was and I agonized over my own stupidity. I had really believed he loved me. Well, even though my heart was broken and my ego crushed, and though it took a long time, I did get better. And you will too.

Next I'll list the things that helped me through in no particular order:

-Prayer and the bible:

Speaking to God and reading His word really did give me moments of relief from my pain.

-Hang out with your friends, let them trash talk your loser ex, and wax poetic about how much prettier and smarter you are than the new girl. It does wonders for your self esteem.

-It may sound like a cliché, or like the makings of most "he did me wrong, but I'll show him by losing weight/starting a business/marrying his best friend etc..." movies, but music, movies and books were my core saving grace after prayer. With the books I was able to lose myself in characters that were smarter and stronger than me, it gave me hope. With the movies, I felt like I wasn't alone and I also saw the endings as a sort of goal. And the music was the most healing, Melissa Ethridge was a favorite, I would sing along with such intensity that sometimes I was exhausted enough at the end to get some dreamless sleep.

Try it, it can be cleansing.

-Taking the time to properly grieve:

Even though it felt so horrible in retrospect I am glad for those weeks that I just mourned that which never was, you know. You need to cry it out, punch some pillows, write him hate mail (PLEASE don't actually mail these) and just muddle through.

Just don't let it take over your life so completely that you end up a year from now in the same boat emotionally. My best friend used to tell me not to let them set low standards for me, that I was better than them. And that they weren't thinking about me and why should I be thinking, read: obsessing, over them. After a while you have to make a decision to...

-Fake it till you make it:

Hang out with your girls, start an exercise routine, try new things, meet a cute male friend for lunch or a movie, and no matter WHAT, if you run into him or them, plaster a smile, be cordial and get the hell outta dodge, in a lady like manner of course. You can hyperventilate and scarf some Cherry Garcia at home. And remember that some beautiful and powerful women have been through the same thing.

Oprah

Halle Berry

Nicole Kidman

Jennifer Lopez

Elizabeth Taylor

Resse Witherspoon

Julia Roberts

And so many more. If anything, get empowered, take a page from one of their books, live life to the fullest, become a better you, and keep in mind that Time really does heal all wounds ladies.

Good luck