WELCOME TO Heart break Hotel
Reeling from a painful split? Britain’s first break-up retreat shows you how to get over him – for good
AS I Wheel my suitcase up the drive of the country house hotel, I take in the landscaped woodland and boating lake. Deer roam the grounds and you can sign up to fly birds of prey including owls, hawks and eagles. Suites have a whirlpool bath or a fourposter bed with fine cotton sheets. the hotel has everything you’d need for a weekend of romance, which would be wonderful — except I’m here to get over a romance, not kindle one. Welcome to ashdown Park hotel, in east Grinstead, east Sussex, home to Britain’s only divorce and break-up retreat.
I am slightly sceptical. Can you really get over someone when your surroundings shout ‘loved-up weekend away’? and I’m also slightly afraid. this is an immersive, workshop-style experience in which a handful of people are coached through coping with a relationship breakdown. Do I want to share the minutiae of my failed relationships with ten strangers?
In many ways, I feel like a relationship impostor. It’s not as if I’ve emerged from a long marriage with painful negotiations about children, shared finances and property.
I went out with Simon over 20 years ago. We separated after a year and it took me more than ten years to get over him. In his eyes it was a short, but sweet affair. For me it lingered much longer.
Naively, I assumed we would stay friends, but he soon had a new partner and forgot our connection.
Flooded with guilt and despair, I bored myself and my friends. Why wasn’t I enough? What did I do wrong?
eventually I grew up a bit, did some therapy and consciously edited all memories of the relationship from my life. I dated other men (my last long term relationship finished three years ago), but if I’m honest no other romance has ever come near in terms of passion and excitement. In many ways, I kept my heart guarded to stop that awful grief again.
then a few months ago, I opened a newspaper and saw an article about my former boyfriend. he is married, with four children. It was a shock — and the memories came tumbling out. It was like recharging an old phone and finding all these photographs you’d forgotten about.
I felt immensely sad. Not just at the loss of him, but at the loss of the young woman I was back then. Where did all that hope and expectation go?
and now, in my 50s, why do I still handle break-ups so badly, even when I initiate them? how can I learn to break that pattern?
When I meet Sara Davison, the woman behind the retreat, she reassures me that I am not alone. Often people mourn more over the end of a short, intense affair than a 30year marriage, she tells me.
‘Shorter relationships can be harder to get over. You are still in the honeymoon period. If the relationship ends suddenly and it wasn’t your decision, you’ll be left reeling,’ she says.
‘In contrast, if you’ve been married for a long time, it’s common to drift apart. the element of shock isn’t there and many clients find they’re not heartbroken — the passion has long gone.’
Sara, 42, is one of the UK’s leading divorce coaches. alongside offering personal coaching from her clinic in ascot, Berkshire, she runs weekend retreats on learning to ‘uncouple’ well. though many people want to copy Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris martin’s ‘conscious uncoupling’, it rarely works in real life, as Sara knows all too well.
She describes the end of her eightyear marriage as an ‘aggressive severing’. It took every ounce of her strength to deal with a rollercoaster of emotions. But, she insists, it is possible to ‘pick through the wreckage and emerge in a better place’.
So often courses take place in soulless meeting rooms, but here you’re in a four-star hotel in the countryside, with breaks for delicious meals. In the evening you can use the spa or pool as you sob over memories.
as a nation, we certainly need help. Britain has the fourth highest divorce rate in the world — and January is the most popular time to file for one. Forty per cent of marriages do not stay the distance, yet an unsuccessful partnership is still seen as one of life’s failures.
the love-lorn often feel ashamed they have failed to maintain a relationship. Clearly we are a special class of loser. But when I arrive for day one of the retreat, it is immensely reassuring. ten attractive, vivacious people — eight women, two men — aged 37 to 61 are gathered to share experiences.
Fellow course members include a teacher, prison officer, doctor, divorced dating coach and several women who say modestly: ‘I’m just a mother and housewife.’
Several have flown in for the course. Others have planned childcare and saved up for months to come. It’s a measure of the pain they are in.
The end of a relationship has similar stages to bereavement, says Sara, as she takes us through the ‘loss cycle’ identified by psychiatrist elisabeth Kubler-ross (denial, anger, bargaining, guilt, depression, acceptance and hope).
I am in the acceptance phase, but I can’t help wondering if I am slightly sabotaging the dates I go on these days. Do I really want to risk those hopeful feelings again? When Sara mentions that people can get ‘stuck’ at acceptance, I wince in recognition.
Others on the course are still in the anger and guilt stages. there are tales of infidelity and abandonment. a lovely woman had a fairytale wedding at 40, only for her husband to end the marriage after seven months.
One man is bringing up his two small daughters almost single-handedly because his wife ‘wants to find herself’; another hasn’t seen his daughter in months. ‘I don’t even know how long her hair is now,’ he says.
Clearly we all need to take responsibility for relationship failure (our stories are bound to be biased), but it’s shocking how people can walk out of the door without any explanation.
however, this isn’t a blame session — Sara deliberately structures the weekend so we don’t end up wallowing in our grief. the aim is to shift your focus away from your ex and on to you.
She recommends we put a ban on our ex’s name. ‘Call them by their initial — so richard becomes r, for example. If you de-personalise your ex, it’s easier to leave them behind.’
She wants us to stop telling our story of pain (it triggers negative emotions) and get rid of photos of the ex.
Saturday’s workshop starts with an
exercise where we draw our ‘baggage’ (fears, worries, bad experiences — anything that stops us letting go and moving on).
‘Is your baggage on your shoulders, hidden or dumped in a bin liner?’ says Sara.
I surprise myself by drawing an elegant suitcase stuffed with toxic feelings. It offers protection against the world, but stops me running fast or taking risks.
‘Where will your life be in five or ten years if you continue to hold on to all of it?’ Sara presses us. I feel slightly sick imagining myself as an embittered 60-year-old.
Sara gets us to shred our baggage drawings one by one and skip around the room three times with smiles on our faces. Yes, I do feel blooming silly, but it’s true, you can’t skip and scowl.
Sara is friend and headmistress rolled into one. Analysing an ex’s behaviour drives you crazy, she warns. ‘By trying to get answers to “hamster wheel” questions, you’re giving away your power to your ex.’
A much healthier alternative, she suggests, is to change the questions we ask ourselves. ‘Stop wondering “What did I do wrong?” and instead ask: “What can I do to help me through this?” ’
That could mean phoning a lawyer, arranging to meet a kind friend or judging yourself less harshly.
Sara isn’t rushing to get us dating again (‘a man is not a plan’), but stresses that ‘it helps to be aware of what you want from a partner’.
We are encouraged to design our ideal partner. Mine is funny, kind, tactile, enthusiastic. I have no idea what he looks like, but he knows the real me.
That night I have feverish dreams (as Sara warns us we will). When I look at my notes the next day, I can’t remember writing half of it. But it rings very true.
Day two, led by Jules MacMillan, a leadership and behavioural expert, is more ‘tough love’ than day one. Many of us need to look at why we tolerated unacceptable behaviour or ignored flashing warning lights.
We create a break-up bucket list of things we want in life, but would never have been able to achieve if we were still with our ex.
At times, people voice fears about loneliness, ageing and being unlovable. It is a revelation to me that you can say these things out loud and not look needy.
We are asked to choose the three qualities a future relationship absolutely must have. I surprise myself by putting kindness third. First is chemistry — I need that exciting meeting of minds.
Having men on the course really helps, and over the weekend they open up generously. ‘I’m learning to understand what my wife must be feeling,’ the doctor says.
The price of the retreat may sound expensive (nearly £600), but, as Sara stresses, it’s cheaper than one-to-one coaching or sobbing to your divorce lawyer.
You don’t have to stay overnight, but I recommend you do — it helps to breathe in the scent of a fire, collapse in a king-size bed and have breakfast served on fresh linen when you’re processing grief. By 5pm on Sunday we are exhausted, but high on friendship. It is hugely empowering to sit in a room with other people who are dealing with rejection. You feel less odd, less ridiculous.
When I dared to admit that perhaps I never felt the right chemistry for my most recent ex-boyfriend, but was seduced by his vision of us, another lady said feelingly: ‘That’s the story of my whole marriage.’
I now know that, yes, I really must look at my relationship patterns. I should be more honest about what I need and not try to play the rescuer. (I have a weakness, ahem, for trying to solve ‘wounded men’).
I’m only sorry I didn’t do this brilliant course years ago.