How Long Does a Broken Heart Last?

A personal journey through heartbreak and recovery

When Love Feels Like Life and Death

Last time when I was in a romantic relationship, I thought if she left me, I’d die.

My nightmare became reality when she dumped me six months later.

The separation nearly killed me because I had put her on a pedestal and ignored all my own needs. With this mindset, the end was almost predetermined. Being alone with nothing meaningful in my life made me feel empty. I suffered all day long. Days stretched into weeks, then months. I kept asking myself how long a broken heart lasts.

At the time, I didn’t realize it, but those months of emptiness and pain were the beginning of my heartbreak recovery.

Rock Bottom: Alone and Devastated

People told me I should feel better after two weeks. I was offended by these statements and angry. They had never been through what I had, so they couldn’t understand it, I told myself. I stayed inside for months, embarrassed that people might know about my failure. Almost every day I lay on the couch and wept. Then I smoked one cigarette after another on the balcony. Alcohol became the only thing that eased the pain. Thinking about her enjoying life with others drove me crazy. I collapsed on the bathroom floor and cried loudly. Victimhood had become my identity, and I was angry at the world for not understanding me.

Weeks later, I became so ashamed of my behavior that I began pretending to be better and slowly returned to some of my routines. I also started therapy to talk about my suffering with someone who might understand it better than others.

First Steps Toward Healing

Weekly therapy gave me a stage to live out the victim role. I sat there like a stubborn kid with folded hands, shaking my head at every suggestion. Going there gave me a plan for every Monday morning. She said something about developing compassion and being kind to myself that stuck in my mind. I interpreted it to mean that a hedonistic lifestyle could help me overcome my misery. Wellness, baths with candles and bath bombs, massages, and the best steaks became part of my life. However, these attempts didn’t lead anywhere except soft skin and emptiness within.

Learning to Cope Without Therapy

Disappointed, I blamed the therapist for not understanding broken hearts and canceled therapy. My next step was to ask myself what I loved doing before my relationship. Traveling and sports came to mind, so I booked a trip to Lagos in Portugal: ten days in a surf camp and six days alone. The camp kept me busy, but the emptiness didn’t disappear. Being alone during the rest of the vacation revealed that I was dealing with some form of depression. I was on the beach under palm trees, white sand under my feet, and the sun shining. It felt like being under a glass dome that blocked all joyful feelings. I even had panic attacks.

Then the six days passed, and I returned home to focus on sports. It was depressing because I went into the gym with emptiness and came out with the same void.

Six months had passed since our breakup, and my frustration had reached an all-time high. I became apathetic. Repeating routines like a robot became the new normal of my life.

Delayed Gratification and the Road to Recovery

Fortunately, doing the same things consistently triggers what we know as delayed gratification. I hit the gym four to five times a week, meditated almost every day, reduced alcohol, quit smoking, and read every single day. These new habits quietly transformed my body and mind so subtly that I didn’t even notice it after three months. I cried less, but my muscles were sore and stronger. My energy surged, and meditation became routine. I didn’t push social connections. Meeting a friend once a week was enough to recharge. When people asked how I felt, I said there was no improvement. That wasn’t true, but the work distracted me so much from the results that I didn’t notice how much better I actually felt.

When Life Finally Returned

After more than nine months, one evening I came home from the gym without any plan. I made a healthy meal and turned on the TV to watch soccer. The Qatar World Cup was on. Sitting on the couch with dinner on my lap, I realized I felt good. I enjoyed the game, the meal was tasty, and the post-gym endorphins boosted my mood. That was the first day in a long time where I felt truly right.

The next day, walking past a bakery, I smelled fresh bread coming out of the oven. I paused and realized I hadn’t noticed that scent in almost a year, even though I passed by daily. I had been disconnected from everything around me.

From that day, I got my life back, and my broken heart was almost healed.

The Lesson a Broken Heart Taught Me

This experience taught me that if you’re broken and not aligned with yourself, you can’t have a healthy relationship with others. I used my girlfriend to feel whole because I wasn’t whole on my own. So how long does a broken heart last? It depends on your relationship with yourself. If you’re happy alone, you will be sad after a breakup, but you won’t be destroyed like I was. Recovery will be faster. But if your well-being depends heavily on the other person, it can take more than a year.

That’s why my conclusion is simple: be happy alone.

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