Help with 18 year old granddaughter

I got dumped by my partner of 16 years just over 4 years ago,still hurts.

Dosent matter how old you are.

(and) the dumped one get's the sympathy - not always fair.

I had this problem with a son at that age. His adored girlfriend cheated on him, he broke up with her and was just completely devastated. Yes, they were at the same school, in the same group of friends.

He wrote her letters, which helped him with his feelings - but never sent them. I just said to wait it out - and promised that he wouldn't feel so bad in six month's time. A few weeks later - he had a new girlfriend!

They were academic high achievers - yet pretty clueless with relationships. I do wish there were more emphasis on needed 'skills' like emotional intelligence, resilience, social skills, family life and child rearing taught in school.

Ah First love - so wonderful and then so painful. Surely, we have all been through it and all survived.

Mine was when I was 16 years old (he 18 hyrs) met on holiday - discovered we lived less than five miles from each other. Saw each other a couple of times that summer - then he went off to Uni and we nevcer saw each other again. Took me best part of a year to recover. Not sure if anything other than time can really help this recovery process.

Lovely, bittersweet memories to keep for the rest of our lives.

Have you asked her what she feels would help her to f eel just a little bit happier?

Telling a girl that age, dropped by a boy-friend, that she will get over is, is not the way to go. I really wonder at all those on here trotting out that piece of advice.

Shock tactics might do more good - presumably her acceptance at Cambridge is dependent on her getting the A levels she will be sitting this year, and as the mocks are coming up, she is jeopardising her future if she is not able to get a hold of herself and study.

I know this sounds harsh, but ask her if she really wants this lad to have the triumph of knowing that he broke her heart so thoroughly that her university place went for a burton?

If she wants to get her own back, she needs more and better A levels than he has a chance of - not for the university's sake, but in order to show him that he did not mean all that much to her, either.

Years ago, when a University lecturer who had been paying me considerable attention, broke my heart by pointing out that he was married, which I had not known, I got over him by forcing myself not to cry for the length of time it took me to read, translate and write notes on two pages of Classical Hebrew at a time.

It worked like a charm - you can't read a language you are not fluent in and think of the rotter who dumped you at the same time, and it had the added bonus that I passed the upcoming exam as well.

Some years later, he sent me his congratulations on my marriage in Latin, so I forgave him.

Boys suffer too, girls dump as well

I'm sure that most of us have tales to tell - maybe about ourselves or about close relatives. I could tell you about my sisters, my cousins, even myself, but the most recent 'dumpee' in the family is my DGD, now 20, who seems to have been dumped more often than she's had hot dinners. It's always the tragedy of tragedies, but she was always encouraged to get on with life and eventually she did. Now she has the nicecst boyfriend - and certainly longer lasting than any of his predecessors. Your lovely DGD will suffer, just as millions of young girls have done before her and eventually forge new friendships. It's all grist to the mill of growing up.

Where is her friendship group? they should be taking her out and cheering her up. Could she plan a weekend away with mates when mocks are over?

It is part of life, there will be more heartbreaks the first one being the worst.

But this is life I m sure we were all dumped at some point I know at least three of my grandkids have been dumped and they are heartbroken at the time but they get up brush themselves down and move on
One granddaughter was dumped by her boyfriend who’d also been her best friend for years and also in the same friendship group She was heartbroken but when he came back and said he’d made a mistake could they try again she told him she never gave second chances I was very proud of her they are still friends but not as close

Don’t try and make her better the least said the sooner she ll get over it she won’t wallow for ever I think this is a case where not toooooo much sympathy is best don’t baby her you ve empathised now leave it for her to get over

This happened to me aged 17. ( I had been on a fortnight's holiday with my parents, went on a prearranged date on the Sunday, and noticed that he was acting strangely. On the way home he parked up and told me that he had met his very needy, ex girl friend by chance. They had talked and as she was distressed about a family upset, he offered a shoulder to cry on.

I started to say that was very kind of him. Then he dropped the bombshell - they were getting back together and I was dumped. Home from work for Lunch with my Mother on the Monday, I was crying into my Mince and Tatties, but ever practical Mum said that I had 2 choices 1) Chalk it up to experience and get over it, or 2) fight to get him back.

I went for the 2nd option, turning up to ever gig that his band was playing at or other places where I knew he would be. I stayed friends with the other Band members and their girlfriends and enlisted the help of my soon to be BIL's best pal - a very good looking, older, closet gay - and it worked, himself took me aside to warn me off this man, told me he was still concerned for me, etc.etc.

Within the week, I heard that he had finished with the other girl. and at a gig on the Saturday he came over, asked me to dance. When we got up together, everybody cheered. We went for a run in the countryside the next day. I got fulsome apologies, thanks for rescuing him from a terrible mistake, and, surprisingly a sort of proposal (said he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, I said I felt the same and he then said 'well I suppose that's us engaged'

We were very happily married for 54 years until he died.

silverlining48 my daughter had a cut and perm. She had always wondered about big wavy hair and now she had it. It definitely added some "bounce" to her altogether.

Many years later when my youngest daughter was coming out of a terrible relationship, the "bouncy-hair" daughter took her for a haircut too. I suppose she might have remembered. It made me weep a little (secretly) to be honest.
❤️ Big sisters ❤️

All you can do is tell her that the sun really will come out again one day - the misery will pass. If the same happened to you (it did to me) tell her about that - just once - and be there when she wants to offload.

I well remember the anguish (mine) when a dd phoned from the ends of the earth (New Zealand) in tears and dreadfully distraught because of her arse of a (then) boyfriend - it was awful to be so far away and be unable to do anything but listen.
But at least I think it did finally ‘cure’ her of that particular arse - it had been on and off for quite a while. And good riddance, as far as I was concerned.

There was another, when she was still far away, but not as far as NZ, when I had her in tears on the phone.

Some time later, when she was home for a while, he turned up on the doorstep, expecting to stay, having flown a few thousand miles to see her.
I refused to have him stay - ‘You don’t treat my daughter like that and expect me to have you here!’ - and I think dd was secretly delighted.

Similar scenario many years ago with our eldest daughter. She cried so much that pre-Christmas. We seemed to tip toe around her, giving her hugs, listening to her angst then on Boxing Day - as she was sitting morosely at the end of the dinner table - my lovely late mum made her laugh out loud when she asked “what’s it like at the other end of the world then?”. Cue much laughter at the dinner table, relief even and harmony was soon restored!
😊

Agree about the new hair too , my dd had her long hair cut short and looked beautuful.

Similar happened to my dd at the same age. Its hard but something most of us have gone through.
First love is special but if someone doesn't want to be with you why would you want to be with them. There must be a kinder way to say this but this is what I tried to say to my dd.
The fact is she will get through this in ber own time. Its very normal and all you can do is be there fir her. It might be a while but she will be fine. She really will.

A trip to the hairdresser to boost self-confidence?
My daughter felt quite a bit better after she "reinvented" herself with new hair and a new bra. She didn't want to bother but bit by bit little joys crept back in.
I know this is all small stuff- but sometimes looking at yourself with new eyes is a pick-me-up.

I feel so sorry for your DGD. I suffered the pain of being dumped when I was at college and had to see him every day as we had mutual friends. In the end my friends dropped me too but I did get over it.
It took me about 6 months before I could move on as I was away from home.
You just need to support where you can and listen to her.
Telling her there are plenty more fish in the sea does not help but helping her to get out and about again especially to places where he won't be will.
I hope her friends are supportive.

A family friend had this problem a few years ago.There’s no easy answer, they gave her all their love and attention and told her it would pass eventually, time will heal and so on.
She did go and see her GP in the end who prescribed a mild anti-depressant.
She met somebody else at Uni later on and all was well.