How to Heal a Broken Heart in 30 Days: A Day-by-Day Guide to Saying Good-bye and Getting On With Your Life

This book has truly become an important part in helping me in my life. I read this book and marked it up a whole bunch and have been going back a lot, looking at specific chapters as they pertain to me. It really has been great to read and has given me a lot of new perspectives on what I have been going through. I am recently out a relationship in which I fell head over heels in love with a girl. We started dating and to say I was on top of the world would be an understatement. We dated for a year (talked marriage and kids) and at about that point I started getting feelings that it just was not right for me. I broke up with my girlfriend and for a long time after we went back and forth with dating each other, each time me breaking up with her. I thought I was going to be able to move forward and move on with my life and at one point we stopped talking. About a month later she informed me she was seeing someone else and my world pretty much crashed. I was in such a bad place as I went through all those feelings of "I gave up the best thing ever," to "what is wrong with me," to "I will never love again," to "how could she be with someone else," to "why could I not love her before, this pain is unbearable," etc. To say the last few months have been hard would be an understatement. But this book has been a big part of my life and helped me get through those sleepless nights, those unending days, and I can see now that I am now on a road to recovery. It is a process and this book has helped me see how to make it through that process. One's first true love has been so hard to get over, especially knowing I was the one who ended it every time. I could not understand why I was saying goodbye every time to the one person I loved. All I could do was try to figure out what was wrong with me, there had to be some defect within me. Then to add to the confusion even more, after all the times I said goodbye, when I found out she was with someone else, was when I really hit rock bottom. That was when I really started to question my decisions. That is when I picked up this book and started reading. This book takes a look at things from both sides, whether you are the one breaking up or you are the one who was broken up with. I feel like in my situation I was on both sides! I have learned so much about myself and I really have started to take a turn for the better. I have setbacks, but I have to understand that I am going to have those days and the good thing is is that those days are a lot fewer and farther between than thirty days ago. I lost my best friend, the one person that I truly opened up to and really shared my core with. It has been hard for me knowing she is out there and close to me, yet so far away in so many respects. It has been hard having the one person that I really want to talk to about all this, not there for me. It is not everyday that we lose our best friend. It is something that I have

First I never thought I'd buy a book like this, and second, I never thought I'd write a review. I've read 2/3 of the book, but that is enough to tell me this book is a gift to my soul. Every single page is full of love, compassion and realistic advice. Thank you for skipping the platitudes and triteness and for getting to the heart of the matter. (no pun intended) The end of a relationship hurts whether you end it, she ends it or you mutually agree to end it. It hurts whether you are at fault or she is at fault or you both are at fault. It just hurts and this book teaches first that you must give up your pride and admit that it hurts. The pain can vary, but for me I found out something I didn't even know was there. The relationship I thought I was hurting over was not the one causing me the most pain. It was the one before. I was married for 17 years and ended up divorced. I remarried my college girlfriend who I thought was the love of my life. That marriage lasted (legally) 2 years and 9 months. After that I dated around some and then fell for a woman who I thought was the opposite of every woman I had ever fallen for - but that turned out not to be true... she was the same in many ways. When I ended that relationship (I ended it, and I was mean when I did it, but there was no other way to make sure the door was shut tight.) I mourned her for weeks. Then I realized that I was in mourning and lonely for weeks before I actually ended the relationship. When I read this book and really looked at myself I realized that I was mourning this relationship AND my second marriage. A double whammy. This book has helped me uncover some ugly truths about myself and the patterns I keep repeating. There comes a time when grief is over and you move on, but if you move on too fast you don't learn and grow. If you linger too long you get stuck. This book's prescription is just right. Treat yourself well, be kind to yourself, understand and let yourself feel and then let yourself heal. I am learning to let go of what my heart keeps saying what was, and what might have been, but probably never really was or would have been, both with the second wife and the rebound girlfriend. Now I am beginning to see that it IS POSSIBLE that the next time can be better. Thank you Howard and Mike.

This is the only book that I can wholly endorse for both men and women. For one thing, the cover isn't pink-whoever said you can't judge a book by its cover wasn't scanning shelves for breakup books. Also, it's written by two men so it doesn't have that "you go girl!" tone that one often finds in relationship books written for women (in other words, most relationship books.) The other reason I highly recommend this book to anyone is that it's the only breakup recovery book I know of that is written for any person in the throes of heartbreak, including the person who ended the relationship. Because of this, the book is very balanced and objective, with absolutely no blame-laying or victim-playing rhetoric in any of the thirty short chapters. Overall, I found How to Heal a Broken Heart in 30 Days extremely pragmatic, organized, and well written. It's sympathetic without being touchy-feely and it's serious without being boring. Good work, Bronson and Riley! You go, guys! Sample of Suggested Activities: Clean your office, have a good laugh, have a good cry, make love to strangers (telepathically), exercise, spend a half-hour in a floatation tank, drink hot cocoa at bedtime Best/Most Useful Line or Advice: "Did you work too hard to maintain your recent relationship? Bend over backward, swallow your pride, play the doormat to prevent any conflicts?" Wow! How did they know? Wait a minute-did I date one of these guys? Weirdest/Not At All Useful Line or Advice: On day 14, Bronson and Riley recommended a two-week checkup to "acknowledge the truth." I don't think they meant that I should go for coffee with my ex, burst into tears, and hurl accusations while nosy Starbucks patrons looked at him like he was the Antichrist-but that's pretty much what I did and, let me tell you, it didn't help much. Two weeks is too soon to schedule an exit interview because the pain is still awfully fresh. I think it's much better to wait and "acknowledge the truth" when the truth is that you no longer give a damn. This book is great for: People who have never read a self-help book Virgos

Being dumped by the love of my life placed me at a near suicidal place, in a dank grey town in mid-winter. This is a very serious topic and should not be exploited. I looked at every book out there including some mentioned in other reviews of this book. I don't write reviews. I've never done this, but this subject is far too serious, and I sense that some authors are trying to "minimize" certain works just so they can sell their books. And they don't even identify themselves. Hmmm.THIS BOOK HELPED ME IN WAYS YOU CANNOT IMAGINE, so much so that I wrote to the authors and THEY WROTE ME BACK A PERSONAL AND SUPPORTIVE NOTE. If you're reading this and trying to figure out which book to buy for this very serious time in your life, this is an honest unpretentious book that will help you, and this topic is far too serious to play games with your own life. You'll be okay. I promise, and this book will help you. I promise.

I'm not a review writer, but I really wanted to share this experience. When your heart is broken (and mine was busted to pieces), you feel weak and vulnerable and unsure where to turn. Then you see all these books and advice columns on the net. I went that route and studied a lot of them, but nothing really lived up to the promise until a friend loaned me her copy of this book. Well, after months of being stuck in such broken-heartedness, this book really made a positive difference. I am now happier than I've ever been, self-assured, dating, but in no rush. And none of this would have happened without this book. Listen to me: If you're going through a broken-heart experience, there is nothing better out there than this. I know. I did the research. There is nothing that even comes close. I urge you to read this book. It is the only one I found that really lives up to its promise.