Breaking-up is hard to do!

Breaking up is never easy. We've all been there and felt the ache in the pit of our stomachs as our hearts feel like they're breaking into a million little pieces so why is it when a friend breaks up with their partner even the most logical and rational minded of us will try to appease them with some trite version of 'There's plenty more fish in the sea'? As if that's even close to what the heart-broken person is feeling.

It comes so naturally that we don't even realise we're saying something so pedestrian until it's out of our mouths and then when we do say it we try and add to it by saying something even more banal and clichŽd like 'Time heals all wounds'.

Heartbreak sucks, we all know that so why do we make light of it when someone we know is going through it?

At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, when a relationship you're in ends suddenly before you're ready for it, it really is a lot like someone you really care about dying.

One minute you're happy and spending your lives together and the next they're gone.

You don't get to spend time with them anymore, or touch them or be held by them.

You don't get to laugh at each other's jokes and share private moments with them. You had a life together and then it's gone and you have to move on with your life without them in it anymore.

They may not be lying in the ground but as far as your life together is concerned it's all over and you have to readjust almost every aspect of your life, knowing that whatever lies ahead is now going to happen without them.

It takes time to grieve for a lost love the way it does for the death of someone dear. If you really loved the person, and are missing having them around, 'going fishing' is the last thing on your mind.

As much as it hurts to be left alone with nothing but your thoughts for company, it's actually the best and fastest remedy I can think of.

Don't push the hurt and constant thoughts of them to the back of your mind. Feel everything you need to feel and think about every aspect as thoroughly as possible.

Better still, keep a diary of how you really feel and when you've run the gamut of emotions and have nothing more to think and write on the matter, send it to them.

So often at the end of a relationship a large part of the pain is mixed up with all the things you didn't get to say. The misunderstood outbursts that need to be set right and the things you kept bottled up inside of you instead of telling them need to be laid to rest.

And putting it all down for them to read without interrupting you and making you lose your train of thought is the best way to do it but be sure you say everything you need to say and don't expect an answer from them on it. It's about you and your feelings not about them and their arguments.

And when that's over and the time is right for you (not your friends) dust yourself off, pick yourself up and get ready for the ride of a lifetime when eventually you fall in love all over again ... and you will.

Alfred Lord Tennyson once wrote: "I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at all." When your heart is broken it seems like the stupidest thing ever written but when you find your smile again you'll realise life is so much better with love in it.