Mending a Broken Heart: Survive the End of a Long Relationship

When a long relationship ends, people feel lost, unsheltered and confused. Driven by those feelings, it's not unusual for a person with a broken heart to commit mistakes that will certainly regret later. What are the DON'Ts for someone who just ended a long relationship?

As a Psychologist, is not unusual for me to receive in my office a person with broken heart after ending a long relationship. They usually look for me in the same month that the relationship ended to talk not only about their broken heart, but also about the regretful actions they took. Some of those actions are so embarrassing that the broken hearted find difficult to be with their friends or acquaintances who witnessed those embarrassing moments. So... what to do to prevent those situations? That's the list of what you shouldn't never do after breaking up a long relationship.

1 - Don't get a new boyfriend or girlfriend in the same month you broke up:

Relationships that come right after a break up, the so-called rebound relationships, are doomed to be failures. The broken heart is not ready for a new relationship, because the former relationship didn't end yet in the heart. Broken Heart people are still emotionally attached to the partner of the previous relationship, and every action towards the new relationship will be a reaction to the former. What do I mean? I mean that every gesture to the new partner will be a subconscious and symbolic gesture of love or hate to the previous partner. The new partner will realize that sooner or later, and will break up either, because it's not fair to him to be loved by other's qualities, or hated by other's flaws.

Once this new partner break up, this new blow will hit again on the Broken Heart, and the person will have the self-esteem crushed. The recurrent thought will be "I can't make any relationship work". So, don't get a new boyfriend or girlfriend for a while, and after a few months, you will know when you're prepared.

2 - Don't sleep with the first person (or people) you see:

That's a hard one. After a few days, the Broken Heart will feel the urge for sex for two obvious reasons: The deprivation as in an abstinence syndrome, and the solitude. But consciously or subconsciously, the promiscuous sex will be an act of anger or retaliation. It will be a symbolic way (or not so symbolic after a good amount of gossip) to hurt the partner of the broken long relationship.

The problem is that the moral hangover hits sooner or later. The act of sharing your intimacy for frivolous reasons as revenge will eventually touch you, especially if many people know what you did. There is no problem if two people share their intimacy in a consensual act of pleasure (unless your moral is more rigid than that), but for revenge...? This kind of revenge, where you expose yourself in a lame act of anger will make you feel dirty and even more exposed. It will push down your self-esteem, because the feeling that you sell your self so cheaply will be there.

3 - Don't make nasty gossip about your former partner:

It's not only morally wrong to taint your long relationship memories with something as low as gossip, but it will bounce back on you. Destroying the memories of a long relationship (not only tainting it with gossip, but also burning pictures for example) will be like destroying a long part of your life. It will be a deliberate gesture of self-destruction. Any relationship that survived for years will have had its share of happy moments; don't ruin that for you. Memories are all we got, and you shouldn't waste that down the toilet.

There is also another problem about gossiping about your former long relationship. People who know tha,t will avoid a relationship with you. Why shouldn't them? It's dangerous to date with you because you will gossip if things don't work out, and usually things don't work out forever unless they grow into a marriage.

4 - Every time you feel like doing something unusual, sleep on it before:

That's right. After breaking up from a long relationship, the Broken Heart will feel the need of doing many unusual and awkward things. That's the emotional movement of trying to fill the void left by your boyfriend or girlfriend with any random thing. Before you join a Trip to Sahara or bung-jump from a plane, sleep at least one night. If you still want to do it after you wake up, you probably should do it. But if you don't, you will thank God for not resuming that stupidity.

Well... those are important tips and you won't regret if you follow them. The Bonus tip, I believe, is to not think about your long relationship as a failure. In these modern days no one is forced to endure any other person and if you and someone could hold it together for a long time, you are certainly victorious. Many don't last even a couple months. From a long relationship you will keep special memories from wonderful times together. After your broken heart is healed, you will realize and treasure it.

In my next article I want to discuss the things you should do to diminish the pain of the separation.