Lucy,

Heartaches or heartbreaks do heal with time, like Cyd said. Feeling lonely is also par for the course. Your heart needs to go through the emotions it is feeling, and what you really are experiencing is just grief. There are 5 stages to grief: denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and acceptance. Everyone experiences grief differently, some skip stages, some go back and forth for a while, the whole thing is to go through the process, feel your feelings, but to also keep living your life.

It never fails to amaze me, after years and sometimes decades after some guy broke my heart, I catch myself thinking, “Boy, he was a jerk, when I knew him, but I wonder how he is doing now?” No, bad feelings, just curious about a person I have known along the way.

Your ex has become a lesson for you, you may not see what the lesson is yet, but you will learn something about yourself, relationships, or life, etc.