Recently my eldest daughter had her heart broken. My phone rang on an ordinary afternoon and it was her sobbing. “We broke up.” At the time, she was 350 miles away from me at college. This was her first real love, and it had come to an end. It caught me off-guard because they had just been together at home. What do I say?
Heartbreak is a universal experience that comes with intense emotional anguish and distress.
While many people associate a broken heart with the end of a romantic relationship, therapist Jenna Palumbo, LCPC, emphasizes that “grief is complicated.” The death of a loved one, job loss, changing careers, losing a close friend — all of these can leave you brokenhearted and feeling like your world will never be the same.
There’s no way around it: healing a broken heart takes time. But there are things you can do to support yourself through the healing process and protect your emotional wellbeing.
We have to offer substance and purposeful comfort. What does that look like? Here are four things I did to help my daughter get over her broken heart.
Table of Contents
Let Her Vent
She needs to get out her emotions. That means you saying very little. Although it’s painful to hear them cry, let them do so and tell their story. It’s important later on to get the whole story, but for now, let them vent.
Reinforce Your Loyalty
You (dad) will always be the man she compares others against. She must know, without doubt, that we are the rock that never moves. We are 100% on her side no matter what. This is very important to all people, but especially females. In whatever way you express yourself best, reinforce your loyalty to her.
“A woman needs compassion and empathy long before she needs a lecture or fixing.”
Help Her See the Whole Picture
After the first three steps have settled down, now you can do what comes naturally. Help her learn from it. But don’t lecture or scold. Just help her unfold the entire picture and where things went wrong. Help her see the mistakes she might have made or warning signs. This will be extremely valuable down the road.
After giving yourself some space to grieve and tending to your needs, start looking toward creating new routines and habits that can help you continue to process your loss.
It’s important to talk about your feelings with others and not numb yourself out. This is easier said than done, and it’s totally normal to need some extra help.
If you find that your grief is too much to bear on your own, a mental health professional can help you work through painful emotions. Even just two or three sessions can help you develop some new coping tools.
