My answer comes in several parts and provides you the opportunity to ask yourself some questions so you can heal and avoid being hurt in the same way again.

My first question is: When you talk occasionally, who calls whom? If he broke your heart and is still calling you, he isn't allowing you to heal from your relationship or the break-up. If you are initiating the contact, you are hurting yourself. The reason I say this is because talking occasionally sets up an intermittent reinforcement schedule -- much the same way as gambling does. If you have a problem with gambling, you will risk your money and continue risking your money without being able to stop because the "next time" you pull the slot machine handle or roll those dice could be when you "win big"! The randomness of your encounters with this man may allow you just enough time to really miss him. Then when you talk, you get your hopes up again. Only to be let down. My advice is that if the relationship is really over, stop talking to him!

Here's another analogy. Imagine that you have a good friend with an alcohol problem who has managed to stop drinking for the past year. She is having some struggles because life does that and the two of you decide to spend some time together talking. You decide you should meet at the local bar, even though you know your friend has struggled with alcoholism. You think it's okay because you tell her that although you will be drinking alcohol, she can
choose soda or water. That would be cruel to put her in that situation where she will be tempted by something she wants but should not have, right? But every time you talk with this man, you are torturing yourself in the same way you would torture your friend in this situation. If you wouldn't do that to your friend, don't do that to you!

When you tell me that lost yourself in him, I suspect that you do not have a clear sense of who you are. My guess is that you probably have not spent any significant time developing your own identity. During the years between about 13 and 23, is the time to really discover what in life brings us joy. What are you passionate about? What do you like to do? If you didn't have to spend your time at a job or in school, what would you spend your time doing? Do you enjoy dance? Do the arts call to you? Are you a writer? A sports enthusiast? A musician? A traveler? An explorer? If you lost yourself in a man, it is time for you to learn how to fill yourself up by creating your own life. Do this by exploring different opportunities and trying new hobbies. Connect with people in social groups around activities like hiking or backpacking, the arts or humanitarian efforts. Make these connections based on the cause of the group, not on potential dating opportunities. The more solid you are in knowing yourself, the less likely you will be to abandon yourself when you develop a romantic relationship.

The next thoughts I have to offer may cause you to disagree, but hear me out. Think about the purpose of the dating relationship. If you plan to get married, your time spent in dating should be devoted to figuring out what types of personalities and character traits best fit your needs. If you were truly "auditioning" men to figure out with whom you will spend the rest of your life, you would not even consider having sex before you marry because the sex hormones screw up your ability to think straight about a guy's behavior! Think of it this way. When you were a baby, your parents probably put you in the kitchen sink to bathe you. While they did that, they talked sweet to you and smiled. Then after your bath, they took you out of the water, dried you
off and smoothed lotion all over your little body. No doubt, that experience felt good. The result of experiences like that is that you bonded-HARD to the people who do that to you as a baby. That bonding occurred at a very primitive level as a result of the physical nurturing you received. Then you learned to keep your clothes on until you discovered sex! Now you expect to be able to take all of your clothes off and do the same things that were done to you while you were an infant, except now you don't understand why you have bonded so hard! You were taught, in infancy to bond to anyone who does what your parents did for you. Do you see why sex with a guy you hardly know is dangerous?

Another thought is that our grandparents did it right. They dated lots of people at the same time and just had fun making friendships and learning about each other. Today, if you date more than one person at a time, the assumption is that you are promiscuous. But stop and think for a minute. How much fun could you have if dating were really just about making friends and figuring out whom of all your friends holds the best qualities? It reminds me of something that happened while I was attending junior college. A young man came up to me while I was walking across campus one day and started talking to me about how his heart was constantly being broken by a young woman that he really had strong feelings for. He told me about how she would never return his calls and how much it hurt him. I asked him if he had been sexual with her. He looked surprised, but said that he had. So I explained these concepts to him and told him to just go out and date as many girls as he could without even kissing any of them. About a month later, he found me again and thanked me profusely! He was having the time of his life and he felt happy! He was over the girl he had pinned over and could see the value in dating for friendship and learning about peoples' personalities.

The other truth about premature sex in a dating relationship is that everybody is on their very best behavior until the relationship moves to a greater level of commitment. So if that commitment level is signaled by sex or by moving in together or marriage the best behavior hooks you. Then you wake up in the morning and the not-so-good behavior shows up. But if you've been sexual prematurely, you are bonded. Stuck! Why not date lots of people, stay
celibate, and when one person from the group emerges as a highly qualified candidate, move the commitment level up to exclusive dating WITHOUT SEX! Then if that works (if his worst behaviors are behaviors you can live with) . . . . marry him!

Ok. So apart from dating advice, you still need to get over this guy who broke your heart. Now is the time to take a look at the relationship and identify what it was about him that met your needs. What were his good qualities? This is the time to be very honest with yourself. If he didn't have qualities that met your needs, but you could see his potential, it's time to look at the reality that this guy wasn't right for you. You can't MAKE someone right for you who isn't. So, what were his good qualities? How did he meet your needs? If he didn't meet your needs, what were you fantasizing that you could get from him? Once you know the answers to these questions, it's time to build your "My Ideal Guy" list. List all of the qualities on that list that you want in a man. What are the things that you simply won't put up with? List them all. Now, as you go out and begin dating again, recognize that the people you make friends with need to fit your criteria or you should not be dating them. Also, recognize that ANY quality this guy has is also to be found in other men. And another man could potentially offer more of the things you want in a relationship that this man offered you.

Finally, if these suggestions are not helpful enough, you might want to consider looking deeper into your childhood history to figure out what makes a guy like this attractive to you. When you pay attention to the feelings you have that feel uncomfortable regarding this man, what emotional patterns from your childhood does he help you re-create? Go back and do the work around that original relationship - grieve the loss from your childhood that makes this kind of man attractive to you. Most often, we re-create the disappointments we experienced in our childhoods in hopes that we can "fix" the hurts we felt then by interacting with a similar person in a similar way as when we were hurt as children. If you pay attention to how this guy makes you feel and those feelings are the same as how you felt when your mother or father rejected you, for example, you need to do the emotional work of experiencing that childhood pain on an emotional level, developing empathy for your inner child, allowing her to grieve and teaching her how to accept love and nurturing rather than looking for love where she cannot find it.

I hope these ideas are useful to you. Just know that with time and as you take personal responsibility for your healing journey and the choices you make, you can find the love your heart desires.

It is my great pleasure to answer your questions on the show. Please help me spread the word about his resource for women by telling your friends! This

is Tamara Johnson. Thank you for listening.