Heartbreak Essential to Find “The One”

Continuing our lively discussion on divorce and marriage, maybe having a “failed” marriage or relationship can actually help us in our romantic life?

Previous heartbreak is an essential factor in finding “the one”, a US psychologist says. Despite the pain of heartbreak, those who have had a previous long-term relationship were at an advantage in the dating world, Dr Gian Gonzaga says. “Think about all of the things that you do in life where you get better with practice, and a lot of times people don’t believe that about relationships,” Dr Gonzaga told AAP on Thursday. “They feel like once they’ve been in a relationship that’s unsuccessful, they have failed. “They feel like they’re not worthy of love, so they may treat people in a different way that makes it harder to have a better long term-relationship the second time around.” But instead of acting out, the broken-hearted should take a big-picture view of their former long term relationship and learn from it, said Dr Gonzaga, who has [edited] a book on the subject of second-time love.

People should think about what factors contributed to the earlier relationship, both positive and negative, and what they should change for next time.

“Also take a look at your former partner and think about what was it that they were missing, or you needed to have in a partner that you didn’t know.”

Dr Gonzaga also advised looking at the relationship in context and considering all the external factors that contributed to the breakdown.

It really is about using the knowledge that you have be better, smarter at picking out the right partner and doing the right things in relationships,” he said.

“It’s not that people don’t realise this – a lot of people take a lot of individual lessons, but very few people put all of them together.”

He said while many people find looking for new love a daunting task, they shouldn’t lose heart.

~ from here. His book is, Dating the Second Time Around: Finding Love That Lasts.

I certainly feel I’ve become a better person, and a better love-mate after many years of “failure”. Then again, as we were saying in my last post, is the whole concept of “the one” flawed?

Note: I believe everyone should be able to love and marry who they wish, so contributions from my queer friends are welcome. Also, feel free to substitute “long term relationship”, or something else if the marriage concept bugs you.

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