Don’t keep wearing jewellery from your ex - but don’t consign it all to the bin, Sweet says.
“Take your rings off, because continuing to wear them is a way of saying ‘we still belong together’.”
She also warns that getting over a break-up takes much more than just throwing out material reminders of your time together.
“You’ve got to spend time licking your wounds. You have to cry and grieve, it’s human and natural.”
First she couldn’t bear to be in his presence, now she’s getting rid of his presents. Actress Jennifer Aniston has reportedly thrown away all the bed linen she shared with estranged husband Brad Pitt.
Expensive lingerie and jewellery he gave her has also been tossed out or given away, now the Hollywood’s golden couple’s four-year marriage has ended.
Such extravagant actions are fine when you’re an A-list celeb with money - and extra bed linen - to burn, but what about the rest of us?
Relationship experts advise the newly broken-up to proceed with caution, whatever their status. Ditching the past doesn’t have to be that drastic, but it is important to make changes.
Psychologist Dr Lucy Atcheson and agony aunt Corinne Sweet both agree that Aniston’s behaviour is typical of the newly separated.
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Sweet says Aniston’s actions reveal her deep hurt and anger at the end of her marriage.
“Rejection is a very painful emotion,” she says. “Later on you will be able to be more sanguine, but at the time people do very irrational things.”
And she says the end of a relationship is often harder on the partner left behind.
“They have the hardest job because they have to deal with the feelings of rejection, grief and abandonment.
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Psychologist
Dr Lucy Atcheson |
If they’re still in the marital home, they’re still surrounded by reminders of the other person.”
At least Aniston has no problems on that count - she and Pitt have recently sold the French-style Beverly Hills home they renovated together to another Hollywood couple, Portia di Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres.
:: MOVE - OR MOVE ON.
If you are left living in the home you shared with your former partner, Sweet and Atcheson both recommend making changes to reflect your new life.
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Psycologist
Connie Sweet |
“Only the very rich can afford to completely reconstruct their houses, but you should certainly change things around.
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“Paint the walls or move the furniture, or it will be harder to get into bed with a new person if everything in the house is still exactly the same,” Sweet says.
Atcheson believes making these changes helps people rediscover their identity as a single person.
“Make the room your own again. If you don’t change anything, so all that’s missing is them, it will make your pain worse.
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“That’s why so many women choose new hairstyles at the end of a relationship - they need to reclaim who they are without the other person.”
:: FOOLS RUSH IN
Mourning a failed relationship should take at least a year, Sweet says.
“If it was a very deep relationship, it should be several years. The end of a relationship is a bit like a death.”
She says the biggest mistake people make at the end of a relationship is to dive straight into another one.
“The classic rebound is very desperate. It’s just about sex or comfort but people become over-attached very quickly.”
She says the newly-single need to come to terms with why and how the relationship ended.
“You need to cry yourself out, eat lots of ice-cream and see your friends.
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Take the time to see a counsellor or get some sessions at Relate if you don’t want to repeat the patterns of the past.”
Atcheson recommends setting new goals to give life renewed purpose.
“It can be hard to be on your own, but if you achieve some kind of ambition or do new things, you can become your own person again.”
