Have you ever experienced a painful breakup? I’m talking romance right now, though I know the loss of a friendship can be devastating. I’ve experienced both kinds multiple times, and after decades of struggling to learn how to handle a breakup right, let me tell you that the first instinct for me was to find someone else to love immediately.

Wrong choice. Not only did I find myself bouncing from romance to romance without time to breathe and get to know myself, for many years I didn’t take time to stop and listen to the One who could put my heart back together again. I lived with a shattered, unmended heart, looking for some man to take the place of the one I lost, and when one relationship ended, I rebounded into yet another destructive relationship.

I see this happening all the time with friends and acquaintances. You’ve heard the term “being in love with love”? It’s a bad place to be. Of course, when you’re in a situation like that, your hormones are all over the place, and you don’t recognize it for what it is. That’s when friends help. Good, solid, honest friends aren’t emotionally charged about your object of love, so they can see things that are invisible to you.

For me, it took the hand of God to break this unhealthy cycle after I, a Christian, married an unbeliever. It was in an emotionally destructive marriage and after a few years I realized that. Unfortunately, I found I was no longer able to feel love for the man I was married to, and yet being a Christian who had drawn very close to Christ during the destructive years, I was determined that I would never divorce. My decision was that I had placed myself in this situation in rebellion against God’s will, and I would suffer through it and try to be a good wife. Most important to me were my stepchildren. They’d lived through too much loss, and I would not do that to them again. It was during this time that I wrote my first novel, and my second, third, fourth…and on and on. None of them sold while I was in this marriage, but I wrote them and knew I was doing what God called me to do. That was the beginning of my career. My passion turned to writing, serving God, learning to follow His every direction.

Years later, still writing, I was given my walking papers. My husband asked me for a divorce and married another woman. Brokenhearted about losing my stepchildren, I told my girlfriends at that time that if I ever even looked at another man, to knock me in the head and put me out of my misery. They agreed to do so if I made a wrong choice again.

For two years, my heart mended, and trusted Christian friends surrounded and supported me. My addiction to romance was broken.

Do you have an addiction to romance? If you have a break-up, do you automatically begin to look for the next man to fill the spot? If so, do the hard thing, and withdraw from the dating scene. Turn to God, ask for wisdom, seek Him first in everything in your life, and He will give you the desires of your heart–in His time. God loves you more passionately than any person could ever love you. Dwell in that love and abide in Him. When you’re healed, He will move you forward into the life He has planned for you. Until then, wait. Always wait.