The secret of how to mend a broken heart
She threw herself into luxury travel, partying, shopping and even toyboys when her marriage broke down. Now, thanks to therapy, Gina is at peace once again and is keen to share...
A MOTHER-OF-TWO who spent £45,000 on luxury trips and designer clothes to try to heal her broken heart after the end of her 20-year marriage is launching UK retreats to help others cope with relationship break-ups.
Gilly Da Silva, then 46, said that at the time she thought hedonistic freedom was the best way to get over her split.
But dancing into the small hours in Los Angeles, Mykonos, Ibiza and Verbier, and enjoying flings with two men nearly 20 years younger was not the solution.
After 10 months of heartache and constant tears she realised she was desperately unhappy and had tried to run away from problems that were still there.
Finally, sessions with a therapist led to a breakthrough when Gilly recalls admitting to him, “I just want the hurt to stop, I want the pain to go away”.
She says: “I remember crying non-stop while I was telling him this and it took about five sessions before I went for the sixth, and I did not know what to talk about and was laughing and smiling, and I felt like I was coming back to myself.”
Gilly, now 48, who is still finalising her divorce with husband Rui, 52, a DJ originally from Lisbon whose single Touch Me went to number one in the UK in 2001, decided to use her experience to help women and men going through separations or bereavements.
Her first Mending Hearts Retreat is October 16-19 at a farmhouse in East Sussex, with plans to hold retreats in Portugal and Bali next year, Covid-19 permitting.
Gilly says: “When you marry someone and make your vows you expect to get old with this person and have a family, you don’t expect that it will come crashing down on you.
“Over the years you lose touch with your high school friends and all the friends you have met on the way, and invest everything in this one person and when that is taken away it is the scariest thing as you feel like it has taken your youth and you feel no one else will want you.
“When you have done everything with that person it is like losing your best friend as well. You also lose some of the new friends you have met as a couple, so
GET AWAY: Gilly on her wild trips and, right, her wedding to Rui it can be a dark place where you feel on your own. I think this is why a lot of people stay in unhealthy marriages, because they are scared of being on their own.
“I just took a call from a guy who is going through a really hard time. He is in a really dark place and can’t let go of his wife. He is going to come to my first retreat as he is so isolated.
“After being with his wife for 20 years and having kids, now his marriage is over and he is in a one-bedroom flat and cannot get out of bed because he is so depressed.”
For this reason the retreat is for men and women to share their experiences and seek amicable splits.
Gilly says: “I do not want a womenonly divorce retreat where they would start bashing men.
“Men also go through the same heartbreak so it’s important to hear what they go through as well and then when people leave they can start rebuilding a relationship with their ex, as it’s not healthy to be at each other’s throats and fighting through solicitors, as both parties end up with nothing that way.
“I want people not to fight, to be amicable, which is healthier for them and their kids. My divorce is quite amicable now because whatever he has done and whatever I have done, you have to learn to forgive and move on.”
While going on her holidays and splurging on designer handbags and shoes, Gilly refused to listen to her husband’s pleas to seek therapy and then blocked him and his friends from her social media where she was posting about her journey.
She says she regrets not seeking help and is still paying off her debts. Two years on she admits she could have handled it differently but feels there was nowhere to turn for help at the time, which is why she has set up her retreat.
Gilly says: “I think when you have been with someone 20 years and go through a break-up you do need therapy. I handled it in a very different way, I went crazy and went partying for 10 months. My friends were running yoga retreats and they asked me to go along, and I couldn’t think of anything worse. I would have been sitting in a corner breaking down while drinking green juice.”
Her retreat will offer group therapy sessions with a counsellor and one-to-one sessions for those who need them. A divorce coach and dating coach will also be available, along with social activities.
Gilly, whose company renting out properties on Airbnb folded during lockdown, says: “I do not want it to be a misery weekend with people just having therapy and breaking down, I want them to have fun and meet like-minded people.”
Gilly, who is also a life coach, lives in London’s Soho and has been in a new relationship for eight months.
She has had calls from people who have separated during lockdown. “A lot of people were at the end of their marriages anyway but that just heightened it all,” she says. “They have been forced inside a home with someone they have already fallen out of love with, which is difficult.”
A maximum of 16 people can attend the first retreat, where rooms start at £1,195, with plenty of space for social distancing if necessary in bubbles of up to six under new government rules.
Gilly says: “I am not saying people are going to be healed by going to a threeday retreat but it will set them on the right path of realising there is life after a divorce, that is does get better.”