Tips from Howard Halpern

Before I put away my edition of Dr. Howard Halpern's How to Break Your Addiction to a Person, I am going to write out his 25 Aphorisms. I cannot emphasize how much these helped me during my times of no contact and withdrawal.

▪ You can live without him; probably better.

▪ Romantic love is NOT enough to make a good love relationship.

▪ A love relationship is mutual and helps each partner feel better about herself, not worse.

▪ Guilt is NOT reason enough to stay.

▪ You don't have to love someone to be addicted to him.

▪ Just because you're jealous does not mean you love him. You can be jealous of someone you can't stand.

▪ What you see is what you get. Stop hanging on to the belief that you can change other person.

▪ Love does not necessarily last forever.

▪ You can't always work it out not matter how much you may want to.

▪ Some people die of/from bad relationships. Do you want to be one of them?

▪ If someone says, "I don't want to be tied down,, "I'm not ready for a relationship", "I'm not going to leave my spouse" believe him.

▪ He does not have to love you.

▪ It does not have to get better.

▪ The pain of ending will not last forever. In fact, it wil not last nearly as long as the pain of not ending it.

▪ If it will be the same way five or ten years from now, do you want it?

▪ There will be anxiety, loneliness, and depression when you end it. However, these feelings will last only for a limited amount of time and then will stop.

▪ You will not be alone forever. That is thinking in infant time.

▪ It is never too late to make a change. The longer you wait, the more time wasted.

▪ The intensity of your withdrawal symptoms does not indicate the strength of your love, It indicated the strength of your addiction.

▪ You are a whole and valuable person apart from that relationship.

▪ When you feel in adequate, incomplete or worthless apart from the relationship, childhood feelings are taking over.

▪ He is not the "one and only."

▪ He is not your "soul mate.”

▪ If you end this bad relationship, you will be opening your life to new possibilities.