Love lessons

Is your love life on repeat?

How to learn from heart break so your next relationship is the strongest yet.





In the unofficial break up timeline, once you've passed the tears, screaming and descend into that post-apocalyptic calm, you can finally begin to see the dawn. You start dreaming about new relationships, and more importantly, you start hoping you don't drag all this emotional baggage with you. In short, you don't want the ghosts of boyfriends past to start haunting your new beginning.

So what do you do?



Write a break up journal.

Not only is the process extremely cathartic, it can be a good reminder of why you broke up in the first place. Once a love is done and dusted, it's easy to fall into the trap of romanticising it. You don't want to keep thinking: "my ex always did this but you don't". Plus, it will make for funny reading later down the track.




Get a grip on your flaws.

News flash: no one is perfect, including you. You need to own up to your part in the relationship downfall. If you can acknowledge your flaws, you can start working on them so they don’t affect your new relationship.




Be honest with yourself and write a list of what both you and your ex did that may have undermined your relationship.

Remove everything petty, including: "He didn’t make me cups of tea". Sometimes when you focus on one issue, it takes on a larger significance than it deserves. Since most relationships have a slow death-by-1000-cuts decline, there is usually no single reason it didn't work. If you can build a bigger picture, you can clearly understand what went wrong. To make sure you’re not playing the blame game, for every time you write one of his faults; follow it up with one mistake you made too.




Don't over compensate.

You didn't communicate enough with your last love? Be careful you don't start flipping to the other extreme and sharing every trivial thought. Make sure you talk about what's important, but don't raise every gripe if the sole purpose is a guilt trip. This can be just as counter-productive.




Don't expect future partners to fix you.

Relationships aren't Band-Aids and it's not your future dude's job to hobble your broken soul back together. That, my friend, is up to you. Whether you are chronically late or a control freak, don't expect him to pull you into line. It's smarter to try and be the best person you can be in that relationship from the start so you have the best odds of thriving together.




Write a list with the best qualities each relationship had.

By looking at the best, you can see what you want for your next relationship. What have you learnt from your past relationships?