How to mend a broken heart
There’s no denying the end of a relationship can be devastating. When Rosie Green’s husband walked out after 25 years together, she thought she’d never get over it.
But she did! And now she’s written a book to help others do the same. She spoke to Woman’s Hour about her own experience and the advice she gathered from experts while writing How to Heal a Broken Heart.
So how did she go from rock bottom - waking up every morning with her face “crunchy with tears” and "ugly crying" on the bathroom floor - to reinvention? She shares some of her best advice…
Know when to call it quits
“I think most couples will go through that stage where they're trying to save the relationship, and for me that was the most damaging time,” says Rosie.
“Quite often ex-partners have come to the conclusion a long time ago that they’re not happy and they're not ‘in the relationship’ - but they might not have the words, or the balls, to say it.
“For me it was such a shock. I felt like a car skidding on ice, just trying to get it back on the straight and narrow. But really, I knew in my heart I was fighting a losing battle, so that was just so destructive to my self-esteem.”
Go cold turkey
“The message I want to give to everyone that's going through a split is that, actually, the longer you take to detach, the more time you spend obsessing about what they're doing, where they're going or who they're with, you're not healing yourself,” says Rosie.
“Your brain is hardwired to sabotage your break-up recovery. Psychologist Guy Winch says that romantic love shares the same neurochemistry that is associated with addiction. And that means that when the drug, or the person we love, is taken away we go through actual withdrawal. So we start doing more and more desperate things to get our ‘hit’ of them.
“This is why you stalk their Instagram, call their mates, and quite possibly sit outside their work. But every time you see their picture, hear their voice, smell their scent, it prolongs the pain and keeps you thinking about them not you.”
Create new certainties
“A lot of the pain of heartbreak is actually uncertainty. You've lost that safety net, you've lost your vision of the future,” says Rosie.
“Feeling completely out of control in a break-up is common. Hypnotherapist Malminder Gill says that we feel more anxiety over uncertainty than we do about negative experiences when they actually happen.
“The answer? Create new certainties. Write them down. 'My friends will be there for me. My family love me.' Just get through one day at a time when you're at the very worst of your suffering.”
Reframe rejection
“As humans we are repulsed by rejection, conditioned to find it deeply unpalatable. We are always given the tools to explain it away,” says Rosie.
“According to psychologist Fiona Murden, rejection feels so bad because it ‘undermines our personal narrative. Which means it goes to the very core of who we believe ourselves to be.’ To get over it, try to take your ego out of it and reframe it. See the situation as an outsider might.”
Rosie says speaking to author Elizabeth Day helped her to do this.
“She said I had to learn that rejection was not necessarily a personal indictment of who I was but a result of what the other person was going through, shaped by their own experiences, and their own family dynamics and past relationships, that had literally nothing to do with me.”
Avoid drastic measures
“There are lots of things you should do, but I always think there is one thing you shouldn't do, which is embark on a major drastic haircut,” says Rosie.
“I got that advice from Alexa Chung. She was like, ‘Don't get a bob’.”
Look to the future
“I went on this divorce retreat and she asked us to write our worst fears. I just wrote, ‘I will never be loved again’.
“I just absolutely thought that was me done, over, I was going to die alone in a flat with lots of newspapers, being mauled by my Alsatian. I could never believe that there would be love out there,” says Rosie, who is now happily involved with a new partner.
“There’s a massive thing about when you should embark on dating; whether you need to heal before or whether you can heal within a relationship. But for me, I love loving and I love being loved, and I knew it would be great and healing and fun.
“My husband and I got together when I was so young, so to have a grown-up relationship, where we can talk about feelings and what certain triggers are and really enjoy a second chance… I feel like I’ve got another shot, Rosie 2.0.”
