We all get to be single parents for a myriad of reasons, some more messy and understandable than others. However, we all need to get over the break-up and come to terms with it so that we can look forward and start to plan our new future. The motivation being that there’s a lot of unscripted life out there and an awful lot of life in front of us. So, we’ve looked to the experts to advise us on heartbreak.

There’s research from London University that says many of us carry the baggage of old break-ups around, and that it messes with our minds. They got this conclusion because they found that women who married their first love have a better mental state than those who’ve suffered break-ups, and the more break-ups we have the more our mental health’s affected, suggesting we’re not getting over them. We have to go through the natural process of loss and mourning. There’s no way round it. Philip Hodson of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy put it brilliantly: ‘we prefer to skirt round painful issues rather than tackling them head on as around looks shorter and easier, but it ain’t. It’s like going around a bramble patch and finding you fall off a precipice instead’! Well in that case, here are the 4 emotional steps you need to have gone through to ensure you’ve gone right through the brambles and out into the meadows.

STEP 1 – DENIAL
This is the natural first stage as we try to get to grips with the break-up. Even if it was you that did the dumping, we’re all kidding ourselves that it won’t be forever, or that we can still be friends. Helen Fisher an anthropologist who studied the effect of love on the brain doesn’t beat about the bush: ‘you have to extricate yourself from this madness, get rid of the photos, don’t talk on the phone, keep yourself busy, distract yourself and the obsession will subside’.

STEP 2 – GRIEF
This is where the pain sets in and you firmly believe you’ll never find anyone, or more accurately, that no-one will ever want you. You might feel depressed and tearful. This is the stage you get boring at as you make your friends re-live the whole affair and analyse it to death. Here Stephen Covey author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People has a word of warning: ‘the way you see your world, IS your world. So if you’re telling yourself you’ll never meet anyone else, you’ll be giving off the kind of hopeless negative vibes that turn people away.’. So what do we do? Do talk about it, but force yourself to see the glass as half full. As for the horrid stuff you’re feeling either write it down (how about using our Diary Room?) or pick a trusted friend (not ALL your friends though!). Trust is a good test of whether you’re ready for a new relationship too. So when you’ve got a new squeeze, ask yourself if they seem to keep their promises to you and their other friends (do they phone when they say they will, organise the trip they said they would, be where they said they would be? etc). Are they secretive and withhold information? Once you’ve thought about that, and hopefully decided they are basically trustworthy, you are left with a choice: do I choose to trust again or do I choose to let the past cast a shadow over the rest of my life? If you’re still disillusioned with relationships then you’re not over your ex yet and not ready for a new one.

STEP 3 – ANGER
Now you’ve got to the stage where you’re furious and dreams of revenge are sweet and sadistic! Apparently for most women the challenge isn’t so much getting out of this stage, as getting into it. Women are most likely to skip the anger phase and men the grief phase. However, skip one and you’re less likely to mend your broken heart and find yourself taking out your anger or your grief on the wrong person. You’ll know an old heartbreak is affecting a new relationship if you over-react to something your new partner does that reminds you of your old one.

And if anger is a stage you just can’t get into then the tip is to brainstorm with that same trusted friend all the things you might be angry about. You’ll come up with a list! Then get physical as anger needs activity: punch, clean, scrub, break, run. Or if activity is beyond you hit the bar and indulge for ONE night only in a single sex evening of ‘all men are bastards’ or ‘all women are bitches’ depending on the sex of your ex clearly.

STEP 4 – THE END
You’ve done it! This is the final stage where we can look back fondly on our time with Brad or Angelina with a fond smile. You’ll be able to talk about them, or hear news of them without spiralling into decline. However, be warned, getting here can take years and you mustn’t be hard on yourself about it.

And according to something called Journey Therapy that aims to heal the past, when a ghost of an old relationship pops up to threaten a new one, ask yourself: ‘is this really about now, or is it about then? The answer might be both, but it helps to keep those ghosts in check.