Every year, millions of North Americans experience the trauma of separation and divorce. On Your Own Again delivers proven, practical help for surviving a shattered relationship and building a new life. Highly readable and leavened with humour, Dr. Anderson's book is a straightforward, step-by-step guide for all readers, male or female, young or middle-aged, straight or gay, to coping with loss and speeding recovery - so that they can live happily on their own again. This updated edition contains new material on Internet dating and Web sources.

In our first session together, I always ask new patients one simple question: Why are they here?

They've gone to a certain amount of trouble to see me, I remind them - to obtain a referral, to make an appointment, to wait several weeks and then show up in my office at the appointed hour. Why are they doing this? What do they want?

The answers I receive are many and varied: "My best friend sent me." "I'm impossible to live with." "My husband left me and I can't cope." "I'm here to save my marriage."'

These answers are honest enough, but they don't reveal the deeper reason why most men and women in pain come to see me or any other therapist. Or why they pick up a book such as this one.

Naturally, people are looking for relief from the pain and confusion they're suffering. But there's an even more fundamental motive tor seeking professional help: a profound need to learn how to be in the world - how to know, and become, your own unique self.

In therapy, the patient makes a commitment to work on behalf of him- or herself. Similarly with you, the reader of this book. You're someone who knows about pain and confusion. You don't need to be told that the only thing worse than separation is a bad relationship. But you're determined that pain and confusion aren't going to be your permanent lot in life.

My focus, therefore, isn't on saving or losing a marriage or relationship, as important as that may be, or may have been in the past. There is something even more important: the vital and enduring issue of learning to be yourself - in or out of a relationship.

That's what On Your Own Again is really all about. By opening this book and starting to read, you've made a statement about yourself. You're asking the crucial question that will let you deal with the rest of your life. You're saying: "My relationship is coming (or has come) apart: I'm desperately unhappy; my partner is unhappy; the kids (if any) are unhappy; everybody's unhappy." And you're asking. "What am I going to do about it?"

The significance of posing this question is that you're preparing for change. You're signaling your readiness to take steps on your own behalf, to begin anew, and thus to embark on a process of change that will lead you, after many twists and turns, toward personal growth and happiness.

Amazingly enough, the goals of personal growth and happiness can be achieved whether your relationship continues or not. This is often difficult to realize. You've lived so much of your adult life as one half of a couple that your personal identity seems swallowed up - seemingly merged with your partner's identity or with the identity of the relationship itself - and as a result, you wonder how much of you survives.

Later on, we'll look at reasons why this merging of identities takes place. And we'll look at the ways you can be yourself once again, whether in or out of a relationship. For the moment, consider, if you will, a radical notion: When you're making the necessary changes in your life, your partner is irrelevant. You're doing it for yourself. Because no matter what happens to your marital or partnership status, you've got to be yourself - a person in your own right.

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© 2007 by Keith Anderson.

Tags: Divorce, Breaking Up

About the Author

Dr. Keith Anderson has been a practising psychiatrist for thirty years. He is in private practice in Ottawa, where he is also affiliated with the Ottawa Civic Hospital. He has two adult children from his first marriage and recently celebrated his twentieth anniversary with his second wife, Judith Anderson. More

Roy MacSkimming is a professional writer and a published novelist. He has been literary editor of The Toronto Star and director of the Association of Canadian Publishers. Roy MacSkimming and his wife, Suzette, have lived in Europe and raised two sons. More