Deal With You

It's imperative that you find a way to deal with this in a healthy manner. It helped Anushka that her fiancé agreed with her decision amicably. "If he'd resisted, or held a grudge, I would've found it difficult to move on so well," she says. But for Sushmita Sinha, 25, the worst had only begun. Her fiancé called the wedding off four months before the day. The break has left scars that have not healed. "I immersed myself in my work," she recalls. "I've lost confidence in myself and in others. I fear something like this happening to me again. So I avoid relationships. The humiliation of being 'left at the altar' is tough to bear. I think I will heal only when I find someone I can relate to. Only new beginnings heal old wounds." Emotional cleansing is difficult. For Aparna, the box of her wedding cards, his stuff, still lies untouched in her cupboard four years later. "I can't bring myself to take it down," she says. "It brings back bitter memories." She is now a self confessed cynic. Commitments and marriage scare her - her fiancé's betrayal is hard to forget.

It's a considerable setback. You've thought about being someone's wife and planned your life keeping your fiancé's plans in mind. But like Dr Varkha Chulani says, it's not the end of the world. Accept the unbearable without resorting to distractions to divert your mind. And at the end of it, no matter how tough it is to get over this phase, it's up to you to make sure it remains just that... a phase.