On Divorce, the Break Up, and a Broken Heart Originally published in 1987, and continuously in print since then, Coming Apart has been an important resource for hundreds of thousands of readers experiencing painful breakups. Whether going through a divorce, separation, or break up, bestselling author, Daphne Rose Kingma, offers the tools and validation needed to move forward. Bad breakups and stressful situations. Love is great; a broken heart, not so much. Usually accompanied by insomnia, loss of appetite, and depression, the end of a relationship is a hard time for anyone. Getting over a break up requires grit and understanding. This breakup first aid kit helps you get through heartbreak without falling apart and with your self-esteem intact. Uncoupling and understanding. While only time can heal wounds, understanding what transpired in each of our relationships is what allows us to finally let go and move on. With a refreshing perspective on relationships, Coming Apart helps us understand that all relationships come with lessons to be learned. So, rather than obsess over your ex, explore the critical facets of relationship breakdowns: Why we choose who we choose - What relationships are really about - The life span of love - How to get through the end - A personal workbook to process and move forward With a foreword by the author of Conscious Uncoupling , Katherine Woodward Thomas, this new edition is sure to impress fans of, How to Survive the Loss of a Love , Getting Past Your Breakup , The Breakup Bible , Uncoupling , and other divorce books for women. "Kingma deals with love so directly . . . that Coming Apart brings immediate comfort to anyone in pain." -- LA Weekly ― Reviews "Thoughtprovoking perspectives on relationships." News Tribuneb ― Reviews Dubbed the “The Love Doctor” by the San Francisco Chronicle , Daphne Rose Kingma is an emotional healer, spiritual guide, former psychotherapist, relationship expert, keynote speaker, and author. Her books have been translated into sixteen languages, selling over a million and a half copies. A frequent guest on Oprah and Charlie Rose, Kingma has appeared on various television and radio programs. A longtime resident of Santa Barbara, California, she is also a frequent workshop leader at Big Sur's prestigious Esalen Institute. www.daphnekingma.com Coming Apart How to Heal Your Broken Heart By DAPHNE ROSE KINGMA Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC Copyright © 2018 Daphne Rose Kingma All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-57324-729-0 Contents Foreword, A Note to My Readers, Introduction to the Revised Edition, 1 A Hand to Hold, 2 Why Is Breaking Up So Hard to Do?, 3 Exploding the Love Myths: Why Are We Really in Relationships?, 4 Charting the Life-Span of Love: Seven Relationships and Why They Ended, 5 The Emotional Process of Parting, 6 The Unconscious Process of Parting, 7 Binding the Wounds: How to Get Through the Ending, 8 The Postscript Relationship: An Antidote to Love, 9 Finding Resolution: A Personal Workbook, 10 Is There Love after Love?, 11 A Ritual for Parting, A Diagnostic Coda: When Love No Longer Works-Signs and Symptoms of Ending, CHAPTER 1 A Hand to Hold ENDING A RELATIONSHIP is so painful and makes us feel so awful — bad, hopeless, inadequate, desperate, lost, lonely, and worthless — that most of us are afraid we won't live through it. We feel bad about what our families will think, we're afraid of what the neighbors will think, we feel terrible for our children, we worry about leaving our houses, and we're anxious about our financial futures. But worst of all, we feel badly about ourselves. Not only are we losing context, history, and the familiar choreographies of our lives, but we are also losing a sense of who we really are and we get shaken to the core about our own self-worth. At precisely the moment when we most need some perspective, some sense that there are reasons besides our own failures to account for what is happening, we are most inclined to take the blame entirely upon ourselves. It is exactly because it is such a natural inclination to define the ending of a relationship as a personal failure — and, consequently, to go through what is often a devastating crisis in self-esteem — that it is terribly important to see that there are always some other factors operating when a relationship ends. Rather than viewing the end of a relationship as a statement of personal failure, I believe there are always good, legitimate, and understandable reasons why relationships end. These reasons have to do with the chemistry and process of relationships themselves. In our individual lives, relationships are one of the most important vehicles by which we create our identities and through which we define ourselves. Since this is the case, it may be that we will create a number of relationships to achieve that self-definition, and, consequently, we may end one or several relationships in a single life